Meandering through Monday...

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“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ― Rumi

I suppose that “waves” were to be expected. Days of strength and days of weakness – moments of boldness and moments of retreat… It is all a part of the process – of healing that is. Mondays are always pretty reflective for me, because I clean the house from top to bottom as I have mentioned a couple of times before. That process in itself replenishes and renews my soul and once I am done with the fundamentals – I generally end up titivating with a few “little details”… you know, something I have been meaning to get to or didn’t do the week prior. Stuff like “that messy corner” that has needed attention for some time, or that one drawer that seems to refill itself repeatedly… no matter how many times you clear it out.

Lately, that aspect of titivating has been reserved for our spare bedroom… the room that my mom stayed in when she used to stay here and also the space in which she took her slippery decline before passing. Dealing with that space has been a very slow and gradual process. I have been mindful and respectful every single step of the way. There is also only so much I can manage emotionally at a time… so it always happens in tiny increments and normally on Mondays after I have finished everything else.

My mom didn’t live with us, no – she was somewhat of a nomad really… having a room at each of her childrens houses and she would spend a few nights a week with each of us. It worked well for her and her various art classes in different parts of the peninsula and it was also great for all of us because we got to spend some quality time with her each week and likewise for her… with us her kids as well as her grandchildren.

So, the room we had for my mom, was never meant to be a permanent room. It is the third bedroom in our home, a tiny single bedroom and is shared with my treadmill on the other side – but we made it as nice as we could for my mom for the nights of the week in which she stayed here. When setting that room up for her, I never anticipated the trauma, pain and heartache that would unfold in that little space and the air has remained thick with memories of my mom hanging over a bucket, throwing pillows out of sheer desperation for the pain she was experiencing and crying, simply because she didn’t even have the strength to lift and shift a pillow into a more comfortable position.

These memories and the internal visuals which accompany them are all a part of the hurt and simultaneous healing and in turn, the transformation of the space has been gradual. In many ways I hate to remember my mom’s head lying on those pillows hearing her weep and in the same breath, I want to preserve the smell of her presence on those pillows. Perhaps it sounds ridiculous to you… but it definitely isn’t to me. However, having said that… I know that it is important for me to move through this process… in fact, my mom always told me “let the pain move through you, and then let it go.” And for that reason, I want to slowly but surely make my way to giving that space a positive energy. I want it to be a guest room that our friends and family feel welcomed and comfortable in when they come over to stay.

So, today I got to the hanging of the two sheep paintings which I had intended for the one wall, gave the windows a good clean (I am an avid believer in the power of cleaning windows) washed all the pillow inners and organised fresh linen on the bed. My plan is to make a feature wall on the right hand side of the bed… painting the wall in a nice warm grey (like the image below) and then hanging the sash window (which my mom has already converted into a chalk board) right in the centre of that wall… almost like a “window”… I think it will look pretty awesome once it is done and whilst the left of the room might be my not so aesthetically pleasing treadmill… lol, at the very least – the right of the room can look awesome!

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And as most of you already know... we have "posh pup" - one of my mom's great loves haha - and yes, we are a family that cuddles up with our fur child at night. Herbie used to LOVE going to lie on the bed with my mom, but when she got to a point of being in pain... she didn't want him in the room, for fear that he would jump up on the bed and hurt her. Today when I was busy with the room, I went and grabbed one of our old continental pillows and threw it on the lower part of the bed for Herbie to lie on. I called to show him and when I gestured for him to get up on the bed... he was so incredibly hesitant. It was so obvious that he was still hanging on to my moms fearful "no's"... it was quite sad to see actually - but after a little coaxing, he put his front paws up... sniffed around and eventually jumped up.

My mom had this little AM/FM radio which she took everywhere... Today is the first time I turned it on. Still tuned into one of our local stations... "Smile FM" - that is a VERY precious memory for me which I will ALWAYS feature in my home. Another thing I have which I want to turn into some kind of feature in the room... is (believe it or not), my moms leather school bag from when she was a kid. It even has her little pen "graffiti" on the inside of the flap lid, with "hearts drawn" etc.

One of the things that was standing in my mom’s room was Jude’s old lava lamp which I messed up because after not having a bulb for some time, I shook it up… haha – bad move! The water in the lamp obviously went really murky and it has not been the same since… so I took a look on the interwebs and decided to try my hand at opening it up, replacing the water and giving it a new lease on life. Well, the opening, refilling and re-sealing went well and now we wait… the lamp is on and the “lava” is starting to make motion, so keeping fingers crossed that it was a successful “facelift”.

So that was pretty much my Monday... a little bit of cleaning, processing and healing all in one! I am normally really impatient with "getting things done"... but I have an innate patience with this "project" - and for good reason.