Balancing Steps

This is one of my all-time favorite cartoons.  For those of us who are as visual as we are verbal and as verbal as we are visual, it really hits the mark. I have been feeling  out of balance the past few months. I thought--briefly--that I might feel unbalanced because, according to the latest news, I'm a Libra, not a Scorpio (What's next? A special natal-chart shredder), but I've come too far as one sign to turn into another! 

Picking up a rainbow-hued sketchbook made in India that I was given at Christmas, I returned to the wordless world of shape, line, and color. It's a nice size, about 5 x 7 inches. Before picking up the sketchbook, however, I eyed two large canvases in a storage room--eyed them with longing. But, I am still in the throes of my household organizing.  Painting makes a stupendous mess if one's space isn't ready for it.  And, I return to Pamela Kristan's advice yet again for some comfort in the midst of my uneven progress.

I am closer than ever to achieving functional happiness, but I'm not there yet. Life intervened in my organizing plans with work and deadlines, fatigue, friends, weather...  My kitchen cabinet interiors are works of art, and if you can get across the storm-strewn floor to open them, you'll like what you see.  Fortunately, Kristan addresses this bumpy part of the process in The Spirit of Getting Organized in passages on how to use time in the organization process. Her insights remind me: I am not on HGTV. This will not be done in 30 minutes. It is not an event. It is a way of life.  And small is never negligible.

So, moving toward balance, I make small drawings until the time and space are right for large canvases, I straighten the sock drawer and sort the mail until I can find the spot of time I need to finish moving furniture or take items to donate to our local homeless shelter. Small steps are still that--steps. And they faithfully serve direction one at a time, just as long steps do.