Full Moons, Wild Hairs, and Creativity in the Closet

They say full moons make people do crazy stuff. I remember once in my twenties, after a night out dancing, my girlfriends and I decided it would be a good idea to drive through Carl's Jr. wearing only our bras and pants. All the cooks filed out of the kitchen to get a look at us. So, naturally, we asked them to take our picture. One of my friends still has it framed in her house, I think. And also...there may not have been a full moon that night. But you get the point. People do crazy stuff when they see that bright light in the sky.

During last week's full moon, I totally got a wild hair.

I'd told Mr. W that at some point I wanted to build a little crafting desk in the closet of our guest room. But I planned to tackle that during like phase 14 of our house projects. It was super low priority.

Until the full moon.

Not sure what came over me, but I decided to try to build the desk myself. I found that one of the top  sliding doors of our old bedroom closet made the perfect desk top, and I figured I could rig up supports on the wall and on top of my file cabinet.

As you can see, I'm super skilled with the screw gun. I broke the head off of one screw and couldn't even get another into the wood. Before I could even get that far, Mr. W had to come help me find studs to screw into (there's a dirty joke in there somewhere). My sneaky full moon project turned out to be a bigger undertaking than I thought it would.

So to make matters even more complicated, of course I had to crank it all up a notch with a custom paint job.

I wanted to build a little space that would inspire me to want to write and create. It kind of turned into a shrine for random stuff I love—like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band the movie and Saturday Night Fever and tiny glass animals and U2. But whatev.

I decided to go with it and throw some candles and a Buddha statue in there so it would be a proper altar.

And at that altar I shall lay my thoughts and words and scraps of glue or fabric. I shall lose myself in the wall paint that reminds me of the cover of one of my sister's yearbooks from the 80s or maybe a sweater Mr. W had in junior high. I will smile every time I open the closet doors. And I will hope that I get a wild hair that yields as awesome a result as this one next time there's a full moon.

Coping When Death Comes to the Sliding Glass Door

I recently read a book called Sheepish about a lesbian couple who runs a sheep farm. One of the things the author made sure to cover was how prevalent death is when you're raising animals and living in the country. No matter how many lambs she and her lover lost, it never really got easier. So one of the ways she learned to cope with the stress of farming was to learn to knit. She had her flock's own wool spun into yarn and she turned to her needles whenever she needed to decompress.

Yesterday a bird crashed into our sliding glass door and despite my efforts, it died. When I found it flapping on the lawn, I scooped it up and put it in a shoebox on our back porch, with water and some soft grass. I messaged Mr. W for advice and then called my dad (a frequent bird rescuer). He told me there wasn't much I could do other than keep it somewhere where predators wouldn't get it and just wait and see.

When it got dark, I noticed the little bird was starting to shiver. He'd been toppling over and seeming to go in and out of sleep for awhile, but I wasn't ready to give up my fight. I asked Mr. W again what he thought my next move should be and he suggested putting a heating pad under the box. Unfortunately, I think the heating pad is in his apartment in Hollwyood. I searched the house and couldn't find it, so I decided instead to shred up some pillow stuffing from my sewing kit and tuck that around the little guy to keep him warm.

Except, when I went back to the box, he had stopped moving.

I cried for about 45 minutes. 

This morning, I dug a hole under our apricot tree and buried him. And then I did what the author of Sheepish did—I decided to cope by creating. One thing had died, so I wanted to give birth to another.

I spent the afternoon putting together our new outdoor dining set from IKEA. After assembling each chair, I sat in it for a minute, taking in the view, enjoying the warm autumn air.

I was just twisting the last of the screws in the last chair when I noticed a little flock of birds coming to play in the sprinkler on our lawn. They perched on our fence and ruffled their feathers in delight as the water fell on them. And of course, I imagined them coming to tell me that they knew I had tried and that I was forgiven.

Not sure if it was the visiting birds or the sense of accomplishment, but I felt much better after that.

And next time death comes knocking, I'll give it my best effort to keep the door closed, but if I can't win at least I'll have an effective way to cope.