Homemaking and Writing, a Quick Hit
You absolutely must read this awesome post on Offbeat Home about how making your home is similar to writing.
Making a home is writing. It combines what is already available, like a blank sheet of paper, with human creativity and work, work, work. The longer you work at a home — like writing a long story — the harder it feels to start over. Even if I hate how my work is turning out, the moment spent evaluating the loss of time and effort makes me cling to the work stronger.
Kill your darlings is a cliché, but one which forces me to recognize that I’m hardly the first person to paint most of a room before realizing I hate the color. It guides me to acknowledge failures and mistakes and move on. I won’t be the last person to stop wasting water on a garden that isn’t panning out. Let it dry and die. Sorry, darlings.
Yet like writing, taking care of a home is a practice in which you never truly start over; you are always building on the work you have done. When you wipe the surface clean, the work remains in what you know, the way you carry yourself forward; it is in your fingers and flows through the next project.
So, so true.