Heeelllo World!
Sooo, here I am 10th November, day 226, I’m currently in a small town, called Sencelles – still Mallorca.
Right now I’m staying at the place of a very nice German artist and trying to help her out with various thing in exchange for staying at her home and sharing meals. She is a very kind soul, her house is amazing, her cats are adorable – I’m at a good place again, as that tends to be the case…
In my previous post I mentioned that I was soon on my way to my next host, a workawayer with whom I was gonna work on Etsy and online shops in general. That worked out really well and even though there were a couple of challenging moments it came to be that after the originally set 9 days or so I managed to stay there a bit longer, then take a couple of days off to wander back to Palma, return to him again for a week and now I’m going to head back there on Sunday.
That guy is really amazing, I enjoy our conversations a lot, I love his place, the calm and quiet of that home, the rhythm of his days, his bookshelf- I just want to read pretty much every book he has. 😀 I already finished 3 and lately started the 4th one, but damn, I could live off that bookshelf for a year, even though it’s not a wall-wide thing…
The funny bit is the roller-coaster ride that was leading up to me still being here. Even before I went to his place, I felt like I would want to stay longer (I didn’t know why exactly, although I conjured explanations of course, I’m good at that), but I seemed to hit a wall, it seemed not to be possible. So there I was with a person with whom we were talking about the flow of things, meditation, the purpose of life, the path one’s supposed to walk and the hints, signs and brick walls the ‘Universe’ might throw your way – and as I was trying to plan my way off the island (I did not want to leave but it seemed like I have to) I ran into walls constantly. For a very long time certain websites simply wouldn’t load for me even though they worked perfectly for my friends and seemingly to everyone else on the internet… so I got a lesson of stay put, be present, be patient, let things go, let it unfold… At times I was very frustrated, after every random ‘lifelesson’ bit I would feel like a kid, shaking her fist at the skies, asking ‘okay, was this the lesson? Can you let me off the hook now?’ or saying ‘C’mon, it’s not up to me, what am I supposed to do?’. Some moments I was really frustrated, some moments I had this deep trust that something will happen… something always would happen. If the control has been taken out of my hands, I can only wait with openness so when the solution arises I’m there. Slowly but surely, bit by bit things shifted, changedand formed – I stayed around for an extra week and a half, I was given the chance to book my flight to get off the island, but then things would become weird again and I was getting the hint that I should still stay around – and I wanted to as well… so here I was, with the desire to stay, the chance not being given, and the ‘universe’ playing along my side, simply not allowing me to look at flights or to check in to my flight…
As soon as we would agree that I might be able to stick around for another week (but I’d have to sort out a gap-week inbetween), the websites I was seemingly blocked from, started magically work again… thank you World. 😀 But even so, just leaving that small town when I was going to seemed to run into challenges – we wanted to drive to the trainstation in the next town so that I can get to Palma and low and behold, EVERY road was closed for just that time when we were trying to get there. Bicycle race… I couldn’t stop laughing in the car. We would wander off to small roads only to find every possible solution to be blocked for the next 2 hours…
I’m not in a storytelling mode, so I’m not giving you a great insight on how this whole thing felt, but maybe one day in another format, or over a beer. :))
Anyway, at some point I just said it out loud multiple times and I wrote it down as well – if I come across a nice place by the next day, that could host me for the coming week I forget about my booked flight and I’ll take his offer for staying for one more week and then.. well then we’ll see what happens.
Next day, my life was sorted out for the coming 2 weeks, my host offered to pay the price of the lost flight, and well… here I am, still in Mallorca.
The current idea is that after I wrap up the next work-session with him I’d be flying off to Barcelona for a week, and then from there to London for the illustration fair, and then home, but if I’m completely honest with myself I really have no idea about what’s going on now… I’m completely open to trashing all those plans, let’s see what the world holds for me. I didn’t dare to book any flights yet.
So anyway, what I hope I’m learning about lately is being present. Also a lot about honest and open communication. Clear, to-the-bone-honest, but non-judgemental communication. Maneuvering various kinds of conversations in a way that everybody gets to express their feelings, needs and preferences without creating emotional baggage. There is a lot of room for improvement, but just by bringing it to the foreground of my mind and reading about it helped a lot already.
Book recommendation: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
Another thing that was going on is Inktober, and people who follow me on social media probably ran into many posts with ink drawings – many plein air sketches. It was challenging at times, but then looking back it feels really great that I had such a productive month in October, finishing many drawings even if they were not huge, very creative pieces, but they are up to a level of finish, they are not just a pile of loose sketches. I should really try to build/keep the habit of getting things done day after day, cause apparently I am capable of doing so if I commit to it. There were a few days when I fell off schedule, there were about 2 days when I did not draw with ink and I think about 2 more when I didn’t finish the started pieces on the given day but I did make enough drawings for the days of the month plus I’ve made watercolor sketches as well. Also there was a day when I was really unhappy with my original sketch, so I just started over and made a new one from scratch. This is the album on my Fb page where I gathered the images that were dedicated to it.
Also I don’t think I’ve mentioned it over here, so shameless self-marketing time – I’ve opened a shop on society6 with a few designs, so Art prints, notebooks, T-shirts and such are available over there with a few of my artworks. There is many more I need to work on, and based on my newly found knowledge from the recent tasks I had there is an insane amount of things I’d need to do to be playing this online shop game properly, but for now it’s good. Designs are made available, and I’ve seen that they print well – the rest is marketing magic that I have to create headspace for. That is a quest for later.
So anyway, I’m still here, still happy, still learning and I keep crossing path with amazing people.
I’m grateful for all the help and support of all the incredible people who are around throughout this trust-fall experiment of mine.
I love the whole world – boom de yada :))
