some new sky

There’s a lot going on today. There’s a lot going on every day — we got a puppy.

I’ve been wearing the same clothes for like three days. It’s absolutely freezing out (I’m talking -30 F this morning with windchill) and this is my warmest outfit. I’m sleeping in this outfit. I’m showering and changing my underwear and putting on this outfit. Just so you understand the state I’m in.

I’m out between 1:30 and 3:30 every morning, watching the stars move, watching the moon change and disappear and glow through a low ceiling of clouds. I love it. I love the puppy, and my spouse assures me that she is not evil.

She is just a baby, and I have never been much for babies.

And yet sometimes they are necessary.

The puppy is finally sleeping in the crate like a champ at night, and so the past couple days I’ve been working on crate naps. Reader, these are the times that try men’s souls. But we’re getting there.

I wrote last week about digitizing my travel journals, so give that a look for some background if you like. I’ve been lying awake after some of those middle of the night bathroom breaks thinking I’ll never get to travel again, thinking about my little travel Moleskine sitting untouched in my art kit, my fingers trailing into the crate until she falls asleep.

And then yesterday, as I was sneaking out of the puppy’s room while she gently snored into her little stuffed worm, it hit me. Window swap you guys, window swap.

I’ll be sharing scans from my travel journal over the coming months, and as you’ll see, I like to paint out the window when I travel. It’s nice to have something to do in the hotel/hostel/airbnb/family member’s house on those early mornings when I’m inevitably awake before the sun is up, sipping on a cup of tea and reading.

Maybe I won’t be hitting the road as much as usual this year, but that doesn’t mean I can’t gaze out on some new sky and put paint to paper. I practically ran down to the furnace workshop, filled my little jam jar with water, and opened a window on the world.

Window swap took me away to Rhode Island in the fall, of all the places. I spent summers there my whole childhood, it’s the place my mother calls home and a part of me calls it home, too. It felt like a gift.

Something inside me relaxed as I speed painted, clock ticking down to our next training session. I finally felt like myself again.

It’s going to be okay, I realized. It’s going to be different, but it’s going to be okay.