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Sunday, October 27, 2013

"Creature"

I spent some time in a hotel this weekend thinking about creature comforts.  A white robe was laid out for me on the bed, with white sheets, white on white striped coverlet, white pillows piled in impossible mounds.  I tossed pillows around to maximize my perfect reading nest with a view of the sun setting in the west.  Ohmmmm….

My girlfriend and I took a road trip over a couple of states to meet with friends, attend lectures, and enjoy a Halloween party.  Unfortunately, I fell asleep before the party because my nest in the fluffy white linens and pillows was a little TOO comfortable.  Oops.  So much for drunken carousing and dancing.  I got up in the morning with an uncharacteristic smile and jumped when the elevator went down on the way to breakfast.

In case you haven’t done that, jumping at the moment when the elevator goes down makes you weightless for a second or so.

I had a broccoli quiche and bacon and a Pepsi -- things I would never normally have for breakfast, especially since I don’t normally bother with breakfast.  A man gave me a blue balloon swan and spoke to me in a Nashville accent.  He was going on about people’s attitudes towards clowns in a generally confrontational way, and I thought about Grandpa’s central Tennessee accent and the comfort I feel surrounded by words with extra inflections.  I smiled at the ill-natured clown and he chose to rant to someone else at the table instead while I talked to a Libertarian.

The drive to and from this little outing was an opportunity to talk myself out about various things that have been eating at me lately.  I’ve always considered it my job to be companionable as a passenger and keep the driver alert while we looked at corn fields and fall leaves on the trees.  I’ve known that I’ve been stressed lately, but I didn’t really pay attention to how badly I needed to relate all of my various stresses until my sweet girlfriend encouraged me to talk so much.  Once I got it all out, I didn’t think about it anymore throughout the weekend.  Done.  Discussed.  Type up the minutes and put it in a file to be forgotten.

It wasn’t a cheap weekend, and I don’t feel like looking at the bills.  Whatever the total, it was necessary.  We need creature comforts.  We need to have someone hear our feelings.  We need to look at fall leaves and corn fields too.  Or maybe it’s just as simple as we need to step away from our lives once in a while to gain a little perspective in a room that’s spectacularly white and clean, where we don’t have to do the laundry.

I’m late for posting this week, but I think you can see I had an excellent reason, with an excellent reason to lazily post a quick layout I did a long time ago.  No excuses, it’s just the easiest “creature” I can come up with unless you’d like me to post a picture of white for all the white linens.  And sorry, even though I had my camera this weekend, I didn’t take a single picture of any of it.  I wasn’t going to do ANYthing useful, even for blogging this weekend.

Happy Halloween everyone!!

14 comments:

  1. Happy for your time away. Sorry for the ill-mannered Nashville accented clown guy (not my fault). Like your fun creature guy! Lots of time for drunken carousing and dancing in the future! Happy Halloween!

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  2. I enjoyed the cranky clown because he reminded me of Grandpa. I even enjoyed his disgruntled look when I smiled at his rant. I'll dance next time!

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  3. This sounded the perfect antidote to your stress Linda and I agree the perfect way to do it. Unloading everything helps us feel strong again and I must do that lift thing and feel weightless....something else I have learnt. Hope you are fully recharged and ready to enjoy normality. Funnily enough we had a weekend away too and it really feels good even though I need to get up for work now and this predicted huge storm has arrived! X

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  4. Maybe you're getting the huge storm I had last week Jane? If so, it only lasted a day and then went back to beautiful fall weather. Yay for both of us to get away this weekend!

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  5. Wonderful that you could get away and that you have a friend to listen to you. Someone who has known you for a while - better than therapy! Except maybe sleeping in downy white comfort :-)

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  6. Downy white comfort and a good friend all in the same weekend was a definite plus. Everyone should be so lucky!

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  7. Good for you. I'm a creature for comforts. We didn't stay any where, but found a hidden out of town gem for hiking. I love new adventures!

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  8. Good thing, Linda, you decompressed in a joyful way. Well done! Well done too you didn't feel pressurized to share, but relaxed instead.
    Happy Halloween and make sure you plan enough of these short breaks.

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  9. I think you said it towards the end of this post: We need to step away from our lives once in a while, to get a perspective, to get a distance, to rest the mind from all those daily requirements. Sounds like you did exactly that. Creature comfort does feel good once in a while, no?!

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  10. Bravo! for your little bit of 'self-indulgence' and reflection, Linda. Sad but true, we all to often put our Selves at the bottom of the To Do list, in the mad rush to just get through the day, week, month, year... I felt better just reading about your white pillows, robe and sheets. :-)

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  11. If there is such a thing as perfect, you had it! I would love to have that experience... I'm believing it will happen. :) I've slept in many hotels, however, over the last 19 years, my husband and children have either kept the TV on too much, turned out the lights too late or too soon, which affected my peaceful reading, and pulled covers from me. I still love them, though.
    Your image is excellent and so is your prose.

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  12. Thanks everybody! Here's to hoping that you all get a chance to get away and find some serenity!

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