“Today there are fewer places to discover, and the real adventure is to stay home.”
This sentence has given me food for thought since I first came across it in the nineties, in the introduction to a collection of G.K. Chesterton essays put together by Father Alvaro de Silva. I wanted to use it as the motto of The Bower (my original little homemaking magazine) and wrote to Father de Silva asking for permission, which he graciously gave. Two decades along, it is becoming the motto for what I feel is my work at the moment, to get back home in all the ways that can mean, but especially in how I work and spend my time.
Looking back on the last several years, since getting back to earning a living after caring for my mom ended in late 2012, I see that I became something of a wanderer in the online world…both in the participating and the partaking…Facebook, Google plus, Instagram, Pinterest, Etsy, free webinars, forums, teaching sites, email lists, group after group after group of one sort and another. Most all of this searching and experimenting was in search of new ways to find my people, as the whole pattern of my doing business had unraveled in the years I was my sweet mother’s caregiver…the devoted customers at the shows I did, the whole world of Small Meadow Press, my creative orientation, really.
If you are mostly online for pleasure and practical reasons, it may be hard to understand how far away from home one can wander in the online world when one is there-in the main-for one’s livelihood. If you aren’t finding the success you want, or are used to (as I was pre-2009) there are So Many People and courses out there offering help in finding your way. And I have an inkling that there are certain personalities (raising my hand) who are ever curious and hopeful and aspiring and are ripe for all that the interwebs now offer. Perhaps this is what they call “shiny object syndrome?” I certainly found some goodness amongst all the dross, but tho’ some of the places I ended up had looked inviting, in the end, they never felt home-like.
Some of what I am trying to put into words is just the inevitable swing of the pendulum that we experience in many realms of life. We go quite far in one direction for awhile, then we know it is time to correct, to balance, and we swing back aways. This happens often in the material realm, as the over-full thrift stores reflect. But the balancing going on for me now is in the spiritual and mental realms…and the down-to-earth realm of crafting a life, and a business. However it might be described, I see the mists of the last many years lifting, and have found the path home and am taking first steps.
What is home to me in the online world? It is this blog. And Wisteria & Sunshine (surprise! another blog.) This is what feels comfortable, sheltered and nourishing to me. Everything else these days is receiving my careful attention and…
How does it feel?
How do I feel about who owns it and how it works?
Is it an important piece of the patchwork of my life and work, or are there alternatives that fit more beautifully into the whole?
This is where my thoughts are in all the spare moments these days, when I am not watching swallows encircling the sky above fields, drinking in the sunsets, designing lovely pages in my studio, navigating the latest hormonal symptoms or resting on the porch sofa. It feels like a real heart & soul task, to untangle our earnest, loving lives and businesses from the snarled, artificial tangle so many of the platforms and companies have made it. I know it’s not very Lesley-like to say, but I feel my job these days is to “stick it to the man” as the phrase goes, in creative and gentle ways. To not become too much a part of the matrix. And, indeed, it does feel like an adventure, one which will bring me ever closer home.
Will you be joining me as I clear a likely path?
Mel July 27, 2019 at 8:45 am
Oh Lesley!!! I so very much loved reading this…so much! I actually just finished writing in my journal, chewing over these very thoughts as I’d caught myself this week, veering too far off my path home. It’s so easy for me to wander, always with the best of intentions, lured by the excitement of enthusiasms and things-that-feel-right…until they don’t.
So I took a few days to drift, to tend to home and hearth, and to remember what it is that I’m truly trying to cultivate in my days.
Then I sat myself down and wrote my way through my thoughts, using the words to disentangle my feelings and motivations (again) and feel far better for it. Nothing much has changed, other than where I will put my emphasis, and the speed at which I choose to proceed…my blinkers are still in place – and necessary at least for the time being — perhaps some day I shall be so secure in my ways that I will no longer need them, but I’m happy to take all the help I can get in the interim 😉
much love, dear soul….xoxoxo
Lesley July 27, 2019 at 9:21 am
Much love and understanding to you, Mel…and stay tuned! xo
Jacqui Ferguson July 27, 2019 at 4:35 pm
Oh yes, Lesley – I’m so caught up in trying to define my own small creative space too – trying to stay true to myself and remain trendless (if that’s even a thing)
Loving the space you are creating here and at w&s xxx
Dori July 27, 2019 at 4:38 pm
We’re getting ready to sneak away for a short holiday to beautiful Sun Mountain Lodge in eastern Washington, and in need of a break from laundry, and deep watering the gardens, and readying the guestroom for Will and Meredith; I sat down with a cup of tea and found this lovely post. If you could have, you would have seen me nodding my head and raising my hand. So very heartening to read words with echo so much of what I’ve been thinking and feeling and struggling with.
I’m going to actually print your three questions up there, and take them with me. I believe they may guide me in clarifying my rather muddled thoughts, and in the writing of this most ridiculously, difficult newsletter which I have now rewritten FOUR times! Thank you, dear friend. xo
Antoinette July 27, 2019 at 9:53 pm
This is so heartening to read, as it seems to me that this thread I’ve been tracing,(the untangling – yes!). I have a simple yearning to return to what feels like “home” on the interwebs.
And I always lean in and listen more deeply when I find that others, (like the lovely Mel who commented here) are sharing a like impulse. I wandered about feeling untethered and a bit alone with it all. But I’m feeling there’s a kind of sweet undertow, a counter-current in the rushing river of bedlam. There are others dipping into that river beneath the river, and wanting to dwell there.
For me it’s returning to the foundation stones and bones, and nourishing rhythms, from whence it all began. And I listen to the way my body relaxes with relief into those spaces. It’s so lovely to read your words. The “path home”, indeed.
Aneta July 29, 2019 at 11:57 am
I am nose deep in the overflow and “the shiny object syndrome” looking for any signs that will lead me home. I am exhausted and know that like lovely Mel I have to put the “blinkers” on and listen to my own inner voice. Turn inwards. In whole honesty it terrifies me.
I will definitely follow you Lesley.
Thank you so much for your deep and healing thoughts
Stephanie Foley July 29, 2019 at 1:18 pm
This is so beautiful! You have touched on something here that resonates with me deeply!
Kyce July 29, 2019 at 6:18 pm
I have been thinking very much in just these terms..of needing an online “home” and wanting my own blog and website to be it. Happy to visit you in yours any day.
Jennifer July 30, 2019 at 8:10 am
This all really really resonates with me! And it was so pleasant to sit down and read this post. Everything looks lovely….