Whistle While You Work, Really: a Small Update

It should be clear by now that we are marching to our own drumbeat.  We are the drummers.  At a certain point, you stop worrying about whether you "should" unpack books before spackling or "should" play scrabble when there's insulation still to do.  You have to just … march.

But there are things that are done in a certain order.  You can't bake until you have the correct circuit installed.  You can't take a bath without the hot water tank being in.  (You could, but ow.)  For a while, we did that kind of prioritization.  We had to.

That's not where we are at this stage.  From the beginning, we prioritized keeping warm, preparing food, and a place to work.  We have our desks set up now, with some setting up still to do, but the important things:  clear surfaces, materials at hand, internet and printers.  We can cook or bake, and now we have staples and meats.  We have warmth when there is power and a generator coming.

Meanwhile, we are living in a crooked little spackle house.  I like this crooked little spackle house.  There is so much to do.  The infinite list is barely an exaggeration.

We are hunkering down.  There will likely be times in the next few months where we seem to disappear.  We're probably not doing anything holidayish this year.  We haven't yet unpacked our party clothes -- or our ornaments.  Shucks, we're rural and the internet could go out for a while.  But mostly we are drumming to the beat.

We were talking the other day about music.  I don't play music while I work, at all.  John always plays music.  Back in Virginia, we had our offices on opposite ends of the house.  Now we have to coordinate when music should be played.  Because we've been coordinating, the first time I've really had to do so when it comes to my creative space, we discovered that I'm whistling ALL the time, under my breath usually, out loud sometimes.  I knew I was a whistler.  I didn't know I breathed melodies all day long.  It's not really an epiphany or even useful, but at my age, figuring out something new about myself is fun.  No wonder I don't work with music on!  So we are negotiating the music schedule to maximize creative time in the shared space.

Every day, if we are doing it right, we remind ourselves of our first principles.  Art.  Connection.  Peace.  Work.  Love.  Engagement.  It's a good rhythm.

That's what we're up to.