The last several weeks have brought a lot of change for my family and I. In the interest of time, I will highlight just a couple of those changes:

The first and more business related change:

Inspired and urged by my children, I have ventured a little into the world of ruffles… not something I have been super drawn to in the past. I made a few slightly “frilly” items that I am really happy with in the end. I have decided that a heathy level of ruffle is good for me. I think I will continue to explore merging the world of frill with the more simple-pretty style I have grown accustomed to and will add some ruffles to the repertoire here and there.

Secondly, and more personally (a bit of a rant):

We recently decided as a family that in order to prioritize some of the things we want in our lives, Ketchikan, Alaska may not be our home forever. And if we want it to be our home, we need to make some changes. We decided that the first step toward the freedom to make those changes would be to sell our house. I really loved our house, and we worked hard to be in that house. So, when we immediately had a perfect, almost painless opportunity to sell, it was with really mixed emotions that we decided to do so.

In a very short amount of time we sorted through all that we had acquired in the time we lived in that house, and got rid of a lot of it. Then moved into a much smaller (though perfectly comfortable) rental space in Ketchikan. It was a really cleansing process in some ways, to free ourselves from the stuff that we did not necessarily need. It was also very challenging, I was reminded daily that I am a pretty sentimental person.

Now, as the dust settles from the move, I have had some time to analyze a few things, the biggest of those being the concept of ownership. We are no longer home owners. What does that mean for me? (A lot of things, but again, in an attempt to keep this post at a readable length, I will talk about one thing I found particularly meaningful.) I really like the work of  the author David James Duncan. He wrote some things on ownership, and so I pulled out the book, My Story as Told by Water, and re-read some of his words. (I wish I could recount the whole piece here. All of it is inspiring to me, it is so beautiful. This little excerpt does not really do it justice, but I think it is the most relevant bit.):

Isn’t it possible that what we call ‘legal ownership’ is impossible? Which part of ourselves do we own with? Our hands? Our minds? Our file cabinets full of legal documents? How do documents, minds, or hands own a thing? By gripping it? Thinking about it? Typing a description of a thing, affixing a notary public’s stamp to it and filing it at city hall? How long can minds, filed documents, and hands keep owning in this way before they cease to remember what they think, experience what they’ve filed, remember what they hold?

The questions I’m now asking have little legal meaning. But how profound is legal meaning? A name, a picture ID and a dinnertime call from a telemarketer will bequeath us a piece of plastic that lets us legally own quite a bit – till the credit card is canceled. But isn’t such ownership, when you get down to it, mere purchasing? Isn’t ownership something entirely different? Isn’t it possible to purchase a thousand products and still own nothing – and to own a thousand wonderful things yet purchase nothing?   -David James Duncan

There is still a lot to consider. And we may “own” a home again in the near future. But when I think about what is important today, this is how I feel:

I own a business which means nothing without people believing in and supporting my love of making things with my hands, or loving the things I make. I used to own a home which meant nothing without the people who lived inside it with me, and the goals and dreams of those people. All of the things that matter, for now, I still have. I am so grateful.

(My loves in a post-nap cuddle pile)