Greetings to the small handful of you who find indulgence in my public diary posts. I love that you're here. Currently writing to you from the mother-in-law's cottage of Everwood Farmstead. I moved here yesterday to get settled in before i begin my position as the Residency Administrator for our Summer 2026 season of residency programing. This place is so beautiful, and seems to have some sort of magic that I'm excited to unlock. I'm going to pull out the watercolors after I'm done with you to see what happens.
It has been a...rough week in terms of handling such major change so fast. First of all, everything is excellent, and that's a part of why this is all maybe so hard. Second of all, I'm returning home for this season of life, which feels kind of surreal after being away for so long. I established a new sense of reality in Maine, and so now returning to this rhythm (even though it will be a new rhythm) in this familiar place feels mostly quite strange. I'm working at the food co-op, where I worked through all of college, and returning feels a little bit like time travel but also maybe like i'll be breathing some new life into this position I had for so long. Overall, it's comfortable to be returning to some work that I know while also anticipating this residency work that will be completely new to me(and oh so very fulfilling and exciting)!
It is so green here. The new spring foliage looks like a fluffy and vibrant froth over the whole landscape. The birds sing a relentless song. Fresh eyes upon Wisconsin farmland has a sort of charm that I imagine people from away feel when they get here and see the weather like this. The farm has chickens that scratch and root around in the yard. Robins are nesting up against the house.
The life I put on pause in Maine has shown me some elements that I really miss within this first week of being away. Now that I'm gone it feels like I'm able to honestly reflect upon my time there and finally see with clarity what last year taught me. The extra nostalgic fog has lifted and now I have some really great perspective with what I'm taking away from that time. Mostly I'm filled with gratitude.
I'm grateful for the absolutely chaotic living situation I was presented with over the summer. Because of the shit show that was living with two retired (and frankly quite messy) women, I now know that I am not only capable of surviving a turbulent home life, but also have a better understanding of what it means to be an excellent roommate. I learned that I am able to appear extremely tolerant even in situations that are very intolerable for me.
I'm grateful for the job that I had. I poured myself into that work, and with time was able to move up within the kitchen rankings and prove to myself that I can be an okay leader. I still have a long way to go, but good grief did I come a log way in terms of my professional managing experience. I am tougher in so many ways because of my time in that kitchen. And I'm a better cook, too.
I'm grateful for all of the friends I've made. All of my connections. The people of the Schoodic Peninsula really know how to let their friends be loved. Wether that's walking down the road for bullshit talk and good food, Or backyard fires, Or doing projects together, Or gathering together in all the different ways to celebrate one another's successes, there's the gorgeous love of friendship in the air there. I miss that a whole lot already.
Wait but Ellie!! You haven't talked about your lover yet!
Oh yes....leaving that special person behind felt like a suckerpunch to the gut. I have cried tears of gratitude and sadness and that big, wet, sloppy, I-Miss-You-More-Than-Life sort of sob every day. We decided no texting for a month and good grief, people, it's not easy to go cold turkey on this one. I have written them private letters every day, Wishing to god that they would just break the silence and have a big, wet, sloppy, I-Miss-You-More-Than-Life moment with me. Instead we just know that our pain is being experienced on both sides and I'm trying to find this unspoken truth comforting. It's really hard. (My love, if you're somehow reading this even though you haven't been able to find my blog yet, please know that I am missing you terribly, and that there have been a lot of big feelings in the past week that have been tearing me apart to not share with you.) It's really hard because everything here is going so well and the sun shines and it's warm and WOW there is so much joy around me! But now I have this big person in my life that I'm just wishing and wishing over and over again that they could be experiencing this with me.
Hey, Siri, How do you know if you found the love of your life after only knowing this person for, like, threeish months?
so yes, that part is hard. Missing people and places is so hard. I'll make some art about it.
Mother Atlantic must be missing me, too. I miss her so much. The rolling Wisconsin Hills are so beautiful and tell me that they are my Home. The ocean whispered the same thing to me. Home....sigh.
All of the changes have been so good for me. I'll say it a million billion times!!! but there is that little part of me, that creature deep down, that says that change is hard. and it is, but wow is change also so good!
Comments
Post a Comment