I’m looking forward to empty space
Another one of those nights where I’m tired but not tired enough to go to sleep. Well, that’s probably not true. I could absolutely go to sleep but I don’t want to. I have felt very frazzled, scattered, and overwhelmed all day and I think that writing about whatever comes out through my finger tips may help sleep to be more restful than if I were to keep things bottled up. And so here we are, an evening chat.
I haven’t made much progress on my new workbench, certainly not enough progress to even begin to imagine making my first piece of furniture with it. The first project will be a bed frame for Mozzie’s new mattress (which I still need to look into and buy). At the moment I am mostly resolved to the realistic outcome of finishing the workbench after I have moved into the townhouse and beginning the furniture journey at that point. I had hoped to at least have his bed frame ready to go before moving in but alas, and as usual, my eyes were bigger than my stomach (or whatever the saying is). The past couple months have been a whirlwind of events making weekends very unpredictable and difficult to count on as far as being a time to work on furniture stuff. Not that things will be any different after the move, but I guess I’ll at least have my workbench project with me and can work on it more readily than I can now.
All of that to say: I feel very meh with the progress, and also discouraged that woodworking with Mozzie isn’t something he seems very interested in doing (at the moment).
Related, one of the main things I am looking forward to most about the next place I live is how empty it is going to be. I’ll have rooms, and each room will have a purpose, and things from one room will have no need to exist in any of the other rooms. My leather work will have a space of its own, and that space will be separated from the personal living space which means I won’t have to live with my work every moment of every day. And, maybe most exciting of all, a lot of the rooms are not going to be cluttered with unnecessary things...most of the rooms are going to feel sparse and I am going to absolutely love it. I thrive when there is order, when things are not stuffed in, when there is room to breath. I have been living with the opposite for 2 or so years at this point and have reached my limit of being able to do so any longer. Having empty corners again is going to be amazing.
A few more thoughts about that duffle bag I mentioned earlier.
I want to read more, and so I buy books and subscribe to magazines. I once read somewhere that we buy books thinking that we are buying the time to read them. If only that were true. I need a trip somewhere for a week or longer with the sole purpose of reading through each of these published worked I have acquired. Preferably a beach, within driving distance is smart as flying with the publications or shipping them just isn’t very cost efficient. Load them into boxes, put the boxes into my car next to my beach chair and aforementioned duffle bag (guess this is a weekend trip), which is next to my cooler, and drive. Realistic destination: Dewey Beach, Delaware. Very familiar to me and close enough.
Biking with Mozzie this weekend was great, we did an easy 15 miles yesterday. Bikepacking is still on our list of things to do together. I think he’ll be at a good spot to do so when he is 12 or so...which he’ll be turning Summer of ’25 (how is that possible?!), so maybe a Fall trip that year is something to plan.
I have so much work on my mind. So many ideas of new products to make. So many things to list for sale, so many orders to work through, so many variations to get to, so many new business avenues to explore, so many relationships to establish and expand...it is too much, actually. The days and weeks go by too quickly and I look at my list of ideas and see more added than checked off. These are all good problems to have and seeds planted now to nurture into their full potential as time progresses. And that’s just it, all of this requires the time it requires. Trying to rush things, trying to squeeze more into a day, or more out of an hour, will only reap waste. Time is the best ingredient, and time is all I have to give them, as fleeting as it is.
That’s going to do it for now. Sleep is calling.
~ Aaron