Literature & Lather

I've just finished unmolding a batch of handmade (my hands) honey-almond-oat soap. I'm trying to keep my hands busy recently as well as my head. I've recently made candles, too. I love the tactile experience of working with wax & soap. But I think it's the connectedness to the past of gardening, making bread, candles, and soap that makes me enjoy these tasks so much. I find more and more that I appreciate tradition and carrying on traditional skills. My boys help some days too-and I find pleasure in watching them learn, too.

Not that my brain hasn't been busy; I've been writing poems, and doing some editing work. I think I've been "under-pressured" for the last year with what I was requiring of myself. I do acknowledge that time out was necessary and the distance from the most difficult parts of my treatment means that I am now able to "recollect in [something closer to] tranquility." I think I'm going to end up with a collection of these poems as well, but I'll honestly say that I'll be happy when they're written and the covers closed. It's a chapter of my life that I hope remains in the past tense.