While I love cacophony more than most people, I am not enjoying its presence in my life at the moment as I keep having to shapeshift and change hats trying to get everything done that needs to get done. But that’s the nature of a self-crafted life, isn’t it? Becoming a sort of amoeba-like being- not one-celled, just evermoving, never static- twisting and bending with the flow of things, yet made of the same essential fiber/ethics at the core.

Tomorrow I head back to my grandparents house, the first time since my grandfather died. I am interested to see what in the house conjures up fond memories and sounds of his voice. There is something so magical about the way we internalize and store fragments of people in our lives, the way we absorb parts of their very being as we share time with them.

Lately, at my parents house, I’ve been rifling through my belongings of years past and then following to where they led me. The written recollection of walking through the hills of England in 1995 and seeing sheep herded (I was mesmerized, much to the amusement of my friends), the first toy I ever received (a star, I have one etched on my belly, too), books I adored in high school (all of them put together echo of ethics and truth and freedom and creativity). All these pieces that aggragated and melded together to create the present form.

Sometimes the days are so full of craziness and hurrying that I forget about the simple pleasure of memories and fully realizing how they shape my own work. As someone recently reminded me, “sometimes the best way to go forward is by revisiting the past.” I guess tomorrow I’ll get to have some time to regroup and recenter as I balance being in the present and in the past simultaneously, ever curious to where it may lead me.