Hello, Goodbye! (and much gorgeousness)

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I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.

-Japanese poem

I've been back in Oakland for a few days now and it's been wonderful. This is such a beautiful time of year here, everything is in bloom and it's been sunny every day! The plum trees in front of my house are covered in soft, pink blossoms that it seems I'm not allergic to this year, hurray! It's been beyond glorious to see my kitty The Princess again after months apart and today I got a massage from a friend of mine that was simply glorious. I'm a bit exhausted from all the going that's been going on, since I'd gotten used to very little socialization and not much happening outside of my house, but it's been fun nonetheless. I had a great day on Friday running around the conservatory and golden gate park with Bequi and Dan and last night and today I've been able to go through my stuff that was in storage at a friend's. While I'm not used to being as mobile as I've been, it's just been so gorgeous here that although I get exhausted I couldn't imagine not wandering around and looking at all the gorgeous purples and yellows and pinks and oranges and reds and whites that are bursting off of almost every plant around! What better time to be in Oakland? I'm glad that this will be my goodbye to this city, yes it's already time for goodbye, even though I've just arrived. Remember that massage I got a few months back that gave me a really strong urge to be in North Carolina? Well, things have been falling perfectly into place and I'm going to be moving to Asheville at the end of March, so I'll only be in Oakland for a month wrapping things up and saying my hellos and goodbyes, which is bittersweet, but I'd rather leave lovingly than burned out!

That said all my crafty/artsy stuff is still in GA waiting for me to come along and pick it up on my way up to Asheville and since I don't have any (or much of any) artsy/crafty stuff at my disposal I'm on a fun food project kick currently. Right now I'm sprouting lentils on top of my fridge, which I've never done before, but it's been really simple. I found the tutorial here and got started right away. I think my next project is going to be yogurt made from almond milk. From what I've been reading it can be made with anything and since I'm not a huge fan of the soy yogurts and I'd rather not have sugar in it, I'm going to give almond milk yogurt a whirl. We'll see how it turns out. Now I think it might be time to curl up with a book and The Princess while my bed is all sunny.

Old screens, New prints

I've been screenprinting since last night, patches mostly. Although I've gathered supplies for it, I have actually put off printing the entire time I've been in Georgia, mostly because I don't have simple access to a printer/copier type set-up and it's apparently very hard to motivate myself to go to a copy center for whatever reason. Last night I got inspired to see what designs where still on my screens from the last time I printed (almost 2 years ago, yikes!) and I was happy to find the banana seat bike design and promptly printed up a few patches and a couple of shirts too. Today I printed a bunch of the 'gendernaught' design in patch size and I realized that I had never actually used that screen before. I really love the process of screen printing, it's so enjoyable to me. I wish I were better able to make astonishing graphics, but a ladyman can't be good at everything, I suppose.

I'm printing most of the patches on this amazing fabric that I found a while back at the Depot for Creative Reuse (in north Oakland). It's shiny and so luxe, and from the designs the had I think it must be scraps from some sort of industrial neck tie making process, surprise surprise I got the spotted designs, anyway I love it and gold ink is printing on it like a dream! Now I'm just inspired to print everything and fortunately I bought two packages of panties a while back, but I don't like the way they fit without some waistband surgery so most of them have just been sitting in the package for a month or two. I've decided that I will print on them tomorrow (as well as the few I claimed and bothered to perform surgery on), I've got 4 patch sized designs, all of which will fit very nicely on said panties, hurray! I think doing some actual printing was exactly what I needed to inspire me to reclaim the screens and burn some new designs. I may try to do that before I head down to Florida, because it's always good to take plenty of merch. on travels, but we'll see how my time and energy looks.

I got a massage earlier today and it was amazingly nice, I've been holding onto a lot of stuff around my heart for quite some time now and the massage really coincided nicely with my feeling ready (and able) to release some of it that I have wanted to let go of for a while, but just didn't know how to. What a relief. Having made this commitment to myself to maintain a certain level of self-care has really already made such a huge positive impact.
Also, I though it was interesting that at one point when I was on the table I was getting a really strong, distinct feeling that what I truly wanted to be doing with my life was to live out in the mountains of North Carolina and be a potter with my own, tiny ceramics studio. It's funny because I haven't worked with clay in many, many years or even given it much though at all, for that matter. Maybe I need to make a point to get myself into a ceramics studio when I get back to the bay area? At this point I'm probably actually centered enough in myself to be able to more effectively center clay, at the very least. Hmmmmmm.