Guess what? A lot has changed in five years. Aidan is VERY tall. No one fits in the Peep-Toe slippers anymore. I'm all out of homemade ketchup. And that sense of community that I couldn't yet find in Farmington in my last blog post, February 18 of 2016... I found it! I found it big. In fact, work on a grant application for arts funding is what brought me back to the old blog today anyway! So I opened it up and decided to read my last post. Life has moved very fast in five years.
And many things have changed since that post was written. But I'm only going to talk about one of them. I was a person seeking a community of artists and art. I had lived in Michigan for eleven years at that time, but I still hadn't found what I needed. Now I have found it. And while I knew I missed it, I didn't realize just how much until I found it again.
So I haven't had quite as much time for homemaking. There are still plenty of muffins and pies turned out around here. I still spend more money canning things in jars than it would cost to just go buy the jar. I don't sew dresses or bags, but I do sew scout patches and stuffed animal wounds.
But I get to make something else. I get to make art with people that I love. I get to direct Shakespeare. I get to teach acting. I get to sing with my best friends. I get to support local artists in a gallery space at KickstART Farmington. I get to support the arts community in Farmington and Farmington Hills as an arts commissioner. And, for me, its better than muffins. Even my really good muffins. And you should know, if you are writing a muffin blog, I support you one hundred percent! Keep doing it.
My path back to myself came by way of a community chorus. It had its highs and it had its lows. I met some amazing people and we built some really beautiful things. It didn't last, but it was a doorway for me into some amazing opportunities. And those opportunities just keep multiplying. Life keeps changing and turning and growing. My life is filled to overflowing with people and projects that feed my soul.
And Wendell Berry still gets it right...
"Good artists are people who can stick things together so that they stay stuck. They know how to gather things into formal arrangements that are intelligible, memorable, and lasting. Good forms confer health upon the things that they gather together. Farms, families, and communities are forms of art just as are poems, paintings, and symphonies. None of these things would exist if we did not make them. We can make them either well or poorly; this choice is another thing we make."
