Creative Space
I'm sitting here, on a Friday night, in our new room pondering life. A year ago today, we arrived in Sedona and set up our tent to sleep in out in public land for the night. Tonight, I will go to sleep in a little room and wake up and go out in the greenest garden in town. A lot can change in a year.
I'm sitting here, listening to seth in sweden's album LAKE TAPE. (Listen along with this post if you like ;) It is so fitting for my mood right now. Chill. Blissful. Grateful. Wondering. Gliding guitars. This style of music has been my go to right now as I'm learning how to play the new telecaster I got a few months ago. Learning guitar has been a trip. Again, a year ago, I was just playing basic chords, now I'm playing riffs and intricate bar chords. A year guys. So much can happen.
I felt called to share this with you today... My creative space. Creative space in general. I made a desk out of a vintage counter top and some pallets laying around the yard. Boom - a sunny yellow desk to inspire. Sparky is my little side kick, usually sleeping but sometimes gives me some inspiration. Then there's the bowl of supercharged crystals, my dad's little urn, a tiny vile of blue yarrow essential oil, a candle, a jar of pens, a bouquet of feathers from nature excursions, a Yeti filled with icy water, a photo of my brother & dad & me at my commitment ceremony, a salt lamp, and of course, the computer and storage devices that start it all.
We recently redid our room - painted the walls white, covered the HVAC with a flowing fabric, added the small white shower and sink, a toilet in the furnace room, and of course, moved everything around so I had more room to have jam out sessions. It's amazing how the whole dynamic and vibe of a space transforms when you change colors, layout, and even how space appears inside. When we first moved here, we lived on an air mattress on the floor surrounded by boxes. Now it is our space... Christmas lights twinkling around the perimeter. Austin's whimsical plant paintings displayed on the walls. Plants chillin on the bookshelf.
For those of you who don't know, Austin and I moved to Sedona exactly one year ago. We didn't know what we were doing or how we could ever afford to live here, but we knew it would happen. We lived in a tent on primitive land, showering at the community center, and working on our laptops at Whole Foods everyday (which we later learned is how most transient people live around here XD) A few weeks later, I put out an ad for permaculture consulting... we wanted to create someone's dream garden in exchange for a place to live. And we got more than that! We live at the "headquarters" I guess you could call it ;) of Enriching Life Forever. The house is an Air Bnb and the owners have been so generous with us the last year. Since we moved in, we created a zone 1 garden and food forest, started the zone 3 orchard, built an intricate driveway system, painted the house green, cleared out years of old things from previous owners, and the list goes on! Sometimes living here feels too good to be true, but then I stop myself and feel GRATITUDE instead! Don't want to psyche myself out ;)
Here is a not-so-secretive-secret: you have everything you need right now to live your dream life. Literally. As soon as you start, the rest will follow... I wanted to be an artist. I had a camera, and an outdated laptop. So I wrote a book, poetry, anything and ended up creating a couple of books from it all. The pictures have gotten better over time. My writing is still me - I just get better at sharing it. And now I'm finishing my third self published book. I'm amazed that after just a couple of years this is all my life is about. Traveling. Plants. Pictures. Poems. Ponderings. Gardening. Growing. Playing surf rock.
As I close out this post, I put that album on replay and nod my head "yussss." Life is good.
Sending you some of that good life,
Ashley