This blog is to go with the photo ,and Ive just been trying to get some images into my writing .Even that is fraught with questions -which images ? why ? What is the theme or linking thread ? What should i delete from computer ,and how do i use the time i have ,to do what of the myriad things i want to do ( or tell myself i want to do ) Hence the title
How do we recreate spaces ?how do make something more liveable and beautiful out of what has become outworn .How do we manage the chaos ,the dirt and dust ,the muddle ,the noise ,which comes from that ,the intrusion on what small routines we have .Most important ,how do we know when to stop before the construction of other spaces twists round on itself ,bites its own tail so that we are back in the very space we were trying to leave ,but minus the bits that we wanted to keep .
Renovation is like the idea of relocation or travel .Somehow the move will transform ones soul ,will provide the direction and surroundings needed to become different ,to nurture all those skills and qualities that have been buried in the present surroundings .Be wary ,don’t dream too much ,invest too much in the future change ,the new spaces .Because wherever you place yourself ,all those beliefs ,attachments ,fears and inadequecies make a little mound around your feet .A smaller mound if you are lucky .
Have you looked at the questions before the making ,like what to get rid of and what to keep? on a purely physical level ,how have you sorted those old photos some of them lying in boxes or scattered around in drawers ? Have you tossed out the clothes you no longer wear or need ? What about that great pair of boots you bought at the op shop a few years ago and wore once ,but just know you might wear them again .Or that blue silk dressing gown you once bought your now buried father ,packed up and posted to him for his birthday .He wore it for 40 years and it was still with him at the end .You kept it when you sorted through his things .The drawings of children and grandchildren ,the special ones with hearts and i love you printed on them .Its easy to toss the school photos taken over the years spanning schooling of the five children ,its easy to toss away some of the memos and bits of writing that came to nothing ,its harder to toss away the shells gathered on different beaches during someones long illness ,a birth ,a depression ,a walk with a child ,each of them has a story ,but only to me .its harder to get rid of Rafs dog collar and tag ,the dog who spent most of his life wandering the neighbourhood and beyond in the days before fences kept us all safe and inside