Transformation

I'm thinking about transformations. Something I'm fascinated with; the human capacity to transform. The drunks who get sober, the large who shrink themselves, the slobs who get fit, the dowdy who scrub up into swans, the houses groaning with junk which, decluttered, become places of solace.

It is that last one that I'm preoccupied with at present. My home, while not groaning with junk, is grumbling a bit at the quantity of books I have encouraged it to swallow over the six years I've been here. I just keep buying book shelves at garage sales to accommodate the screeds of words that it is my compulsion to consume.

The problem is that there has never been a plan as to the placing of these shelves, or the ordering of the books. I now have shelves everywhere and anywhere they'll fit, filled with books in the order they were bought, or read. A few months ago I bought a very large, and much needed old wooden shelf at a garage sale, which had been converted from a cupboard, and as I stood gazing in satisfaction at it, smug with the knowledge that the latest piles would now have a home, the owner said, 'and I'll throw in the books too, if you like.' How could I resist? There was Le Petit Prince, various guide books to Paris, and novels by Dickens, Miller and of course E.

So, you see. I have a problem. And this is only part of it.

I am in the midst of transformation of a kind. The spaces of my house are being rearranged according to the type of things we (my daughter and I) are working on at present. She is doing a lot of dance practice, and so therefore needs uncluttered space in which to do this, while I am spending a lot of time at the computer and (quelle surprise!) reading.

I am shrinking down the art area, which consists of a long table atop which are gathered an easel, tubes of paint and a variety of paintbrushes, a stack of w/colour paper at the ready and our art diaries (mine and hers). Next to it against the wall are frames, sketches and works in progress. This all takes up a considerable amount of space and neither of us has spent much time there in the last 6 months so, it goes. To make way for her dancing, and perhaps another book shelf. It won't disappear altogether, and will be accessible but it will be put away to make way for the new, the people we have become.

As for the many musical instruments that we have hanging around: the piano, 2 guitars, a violin, a djembe drum, a ukelele, various percussion and an antique piano accordian, these will be worked around. You never know when the urge may take you.

So, for the next few months, the Christmas season, in fact, I will be preoccupied with cataloguing, with space, with the question of who I am now as opposed to who I was last year. All in preparation for New Year's when I shall begin the wishing. Dreaming of the who I'd like to be this year.

You know me, I like a good wish. It's the way all tranformation begins.