alligator pie

well i was late for my own “grand opening” soiree, which is pretty typical. i could argue that i was FASHIONABLY late, and considering that i curled my hair for the occasion i think i can sell that as truth. overall the whole shebang was a smashing success. (quite literally since i ended up smashed and singing in my bff’s passenger seat. i can vouch for very successful drinking if nothing else.)

{*sidenote* just kidding dad.}

i feel utterly consumed with the store right now. the newness of it all inspires me. it’s a clean slate. i’ve said before that I like beginnings. they are pie-crusts that i can fill to bursting with the fruits of my imagination. i’m painting things. i’m building things. unfortunately the aftermath of inspiration has created a shanty-town in my living room. i’ve got stacks of empty picture frames fencing in glue-guns. (yes, plural. one gun is never enough. ask the NRA.) flattened silverware has booby-trapped the path to my bedroom. piles of tulle look like cotton-candy corpses. it’s a war zone and i’m sprawled in the middle of it wielding plastic scissors. i’m not really sure what I’m making at this point but I’m pretty sure I LOVE IT!!!

but there's another side to this frenetic energy that terrifies me. i worry that i will become nothing without it. if i stop moving i will cease to exist. (which is not a new thought for me.)there is a passage by yan martel (author: life of pi) that i stumbled across years ago in the globe and mail. i like it.

"I got to thinking about stillness. To read a book, one must be still. To watch a concert, a play, a movie, to look at a painting, one must be still. Religion, too, makes use of stillness, notably with prayer and meditation. Just gazing upon a quiet lake, upon a quiet winter scene - doesn't that lull us into contemplation? Life, it seems, favours moments of stillness to appear on the edges of our perception and whisper to us, 'Here I am. What do you think?'
Then we become busy and the stillness vanishes, yet we hardly notice, because we fall so easily for the delusion of busyness, whereby what keeps us busy must be important, and the busier we are with it, the more important it must be. And so we work, work, work, rush, rush, rush. On occasion, we say to ourselves, panting, 'Gosh, life is racing by.' But that's not it at all, it's the contrary: Life is still. It is we who are racing by."

so within the midst of this chaos i'm looking for moments of calm. i'm trying to breathe. i'm trying to believe that i am more than kinetic energy. i'm slowly learning that the world will allow me my allotted space whether i chase after every moment screaming or sit in silence and watch it swim by. who knows: it might even be safe to sleep. (mon dieu!)