Seeking rest and old fashioned comforts

Today's weather forecast for St. John's, NL was so fierce that it forced the rescheduling of the annual Santa Claus parade.  I didn't mind putting off Christmas-ness, even though I will admit to having put an angel decoration on my door–that had more to do with my version of sympathetic magic in the wake of Trump's election to the presidential office.  I figured I needed to invoke a guardian angel.  Mine, as it turns out, is handmade by my late mother.

I have been working hammer and tongs on a long string of work projects.  A recent trip to my family doctor was only the latest of warnings that I should do a better job on that elusive work-life balance.  It's been four years since I have taken anything resembling a vacation.  I have traveled with work and even though I pad in a day or two thinking of down time, it never seems to equate with leisure.  Instead, I get swept up in one more day of intense interviews, studio visits or last minute fundraising or promotional opportunities.  And that is part of the problem of working on what amounts to passion projects.

This week something pleasant happened that stood out from the fast paced stressful events.  The good souls at the Craft Council of NL passed on to me a handwritten letter that had arrived at their office.  It was addressed to Gloria Hickey, (sometime reviewer) c/o NL Craft Council (Gallery).  It was a letter written by a kind man I had met more than a year ago on my birthday at a chamber music concert here in St. John's.  We went from being strangers to eating lunch together and speaking German.

This new friend is a professional translator and had set himself the improbable goal of living in three countries in three years.  As it turns out, he wrote the letter I received this week while on board a boat bound for Duncan, B.C.  What prompted the letter is that he had come across an article I had published in Studio Magazine.  The magazine had been purchased in the gift shop of a tea plantation no less.  "See how your words travel" he commented.  He also came across a book of mine in, of all things, a legal library.

The handwritten letter and the notion of a lingering boat trip were the most effective appeal for me to slow down.  This Sunday will be a day of genuine rest.