FINDING...

 

In jewelry terms a finding is a small functional part, like an ear-wire or clasp... 

finding also indicates a search... indeed, a formal determination of fact or law.

 

Might any of those notions be relevant to the process of growing into my own retirement? I've spent many hours searching for small functional parts on my work-surfaces... ofttimes finding the determination of a design. The Bells' catalog demonstrates that.

 

In addition, there are other bodies of my work: jewelry, sculpture, painting, calligraphy, plus my favorite essential--drawing, in any medium. 

 

I have lived well as a artist. Mostly I've lived inside my mind & my mind's eyes. Oh... please add the dexterity of my fingers. All in concert. 

 

Much of the time, I have directed well... in part because, being a gardener, I appreciate exuberant organic growth as much as a tightly written score.

 

Those fingers & eyes came with only a single lifetime guarantee. In my 81st year, I've sensibly made my walking stick a habit when I leave our home... 'have embraced the word flaneur as a self description. 'Have had cataracts repaired, one adjusted to serve closer focus & the other to give me the longer view so I stopped needing glasses. 'Learned how that messed with wearing the magnification devices which aided me for years, signaling the lesson to be careful about consideration of "fixes" which might not be fully factual...The eye surgeon had different, no doubt more precise, devices & considerations. 

 

I am required to think better. Lessons continue to abound, especially when one doesn't connect as easily anymore with their previously reliable & comfortable facilities.

 

One needs to practice patience with more grace. Grace with gumption. 

 

I hear the phrase "aging is not for sissies" rather more frequently as my peers grapple variously with aging. We know the ultimate denouement. Some seem only jokingly disgruntled, but most know we are better for accepting the challenge to practice more grace as an art form to save dignity. (See James Broughton's "Thinking About Death.")

 

No matter any sense of preparation, this entire process must remain our work to the very end. We must celebrate the ancient mysteries of the fates. This seems to become a form of living theater.     

 

Thus, I must work harder & more cleverly. Trying to retire has been wearing on me. However, the three of us (Momo & GRB & Stephen) have been actively working to that end for the last year. We've asked Bill Monson, a friend of Stephen's, who does such consultation professionally, to help us plan & organize around the future of GRB Bells as part of a new business with Momo at the helm. 

 

 

We all want very much for that endeavor to succeed, allowing me to finally retire, trusting that she can use my life's work as a designer to maintain my "babies" & reputation as well as the opportunity to further her creative career as well.

We are pleased, to be finding loving friends to join this happy work! 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

NOODLING -- where we are now...

                     

 

Noodling where we are now... nearing our 4th year since we moved from Vashon Island to Point Ruston, Tacoma... less than 30 miles... & a number of decades apart. Appreciatively lighter now & quite happy to have divested ourselves of so many objects & collections & out-grown habits, allowing more space in ourselves to practice new discernment of  priorities. 

Our view continues to be satisfyingly varied. In summer I live for the sun on our east facing deck, whether the mountain we love is hiding or clear.

Whether the moon is full or dark... the shipping docks usually are lighted, so we have few dark skies.

Gardening a deck has given me new challenges in the heavy-on direct eastern morning sun exposure until shaded by an overhang at midday. I continue to celebrate the red geraniums... & the hummingbirds they draw up to our 8th floor! A grove of avocados which seeds I sprouted that same first summer have now wintered-over into this, its third year outside in our weather! 

 During the last year I've become interested & fascinated in the variety of sculptural forms of of Sempervivum & Echeveria, so I've been adding to the collection as new textures & colors come along.

 

There is a grower whose booth at Tacoma's Proctor Market is right next to Adam's Mushrooms, where we shop regularly, where I keep learning more about the wide & wild variety of mycological offerings.

Our cuisine is enriched & enlivened by the produce every Saturday at our near-by Proctor Farmer's Market. A richness of vegetables & fruits, nuts & berries, plus several vendors offering floral arrangements to joyfully complicate carrying them along with arms full of produce. 

We continue learning how to stage our route as we begin to shop, in order to get any drinks & breakfast  items first, before our bags are heavy. Because I already need one of my hands to use my walking stick, we try to find a table when we eat... I've given-up practicing the feats of eating out of hand while also walking, dodging pups & kids... while enjoying the social negotiations of foot traffic with smile. There often is a handsome man worth sharing a second glance!

Fishers & butchers selling choice cuts, often frozen, or sometimes links of sausage.  Pasta makers,  home-made sauces & jellies, as well as an abundance of prepared foods like hummus & salsa. All bring potential delicacies to our kitchen. Then, there are the bakers! The musicians! Life is rich!

A market/faire -- such an ancient & deeply essentially human social & fiscal event! I am pleased that it survives so vibrantly within a couple of city blocks from two upscale "standard" grocery stores! 

I've also added several pots of herbs to our deck, including an aptly named Columnar Greek  Basil growing dramatically vertical & tidy in the tight space of a container garden. Its small leaves are intense in their flavor. A perfect addition to this garden-for-foodies! Thus my gardener proves to be still quite alive, curious & experimental in this new setting.

I am enjoying celebrating this summer at home in the Pacific Northwest, after traveling so well & widely last year. I've indulged myself with lovely hours in the deck's sun, now showing in a deep coloration of my skin. I am a true Leo. Languorous & Lazy. After all, I went to school with a pride on safari last fall [link]... I have been practicing my already capatious abilities to "do nothing." I certainly know lazy. 

At the same time, we have been committed to help Momo with the shows she scheduled for this first season she begins to truly run the business of the Bells. If nothing more we are cheerleading... but... secretly, I've often wondered how the Bells might dance at a real Renaissance Faire. We shall soon know...

Our friends Debra & Eric have made their living working a circuit of Renaissance Fairs for years; one shop sells hats she makes. The other business makes feather wings. We know them through our friend Michael Hathaway; Debra is his sister-in-law. We introduced Momo to them & those connections have conspired to create a debut for the Bells the Celtic-themed weekend at the Maryland Renaissance Festival: September 19-20!

We have ordered a large stock from the foundry, which Monica has been finishing & grooming, even attaching the cords & making them ready to deliver quickly because we are told to be prepared for how brisk the business will be. It will no doubt be exciting & profitable debut to further launch the Bells' transition into Momo's venture... 

It will also further my transition into retirement! 

I've yet to finish clearing up a stack of loose-ends as the moving of studio furniture displaced storage for tools & supplies, which I do not know whether I'll ever use. My studio seems but an empty shell compared to the Soundcliff workspace... before this long whittling-down of a large collection of equipment & tools to move to Huitieme Ciel.

The studio on Vashon shared with being also "the garden shed". Here is becoming a better guest bedroom & sitting room. There is surface for the as yet unknown projects I anticipate. Occasionally I wonder at keeping the metals bench. And while I do still make use of the tools, it becomes symbolic of a still present past, a special gift from my father, whose passion for tools he taught me. 

  

Now, as has been a long habit, I love to write my journal propped-up in bed, a bowl of tea at hand...

Viewing the weather on the deck...

 

With one of the drawings I intend in future, tracing along the "verge"... the shoreline, once lined with docks, now demolished, but often leaving posts of piers deeper into the port exposed by the low tides... traces of history. 

Another trace of the ages surrounding us was a tree Stephen & I hugged [or at least tried to] at https://bloedelreserve.org/ Gardens when our friend from India, Deepa visited. 

She is an excellent wildlife photographer... here catching a couple of aging specimens in an ages-old ritual.

 We continue to flock happily together! 

 

 

Possible creative ideas come spontaneously to me like this view on our walk, which entices a puzzle I might draw in this retirement... a very freely organic version of my knot-work carving... I'm opening to the actively inventive creative play!
 

 

Our locale near the Narrows Bridge of the Puget Sound has close connections to the legendary octopus under it. There is a mosaic octopus laid in in the pavement just below our deck, at the beginning of our Water Walk. 

 

This ancient Greek image might symbolize more of the intriguing tangles & puzzles I play with, undoing & redoing my life. I need eight arms!

 I have come to view this rather lax period of time as offering some sort of incubation for my new. 

I've rarely been one to rush. One does not accomplish the detail of my work by pushing too fast or too hard. I've learned the value of patience. 

I do not wish to fumble my retirement!