A Year Of Searching For What Matters

It's been a month since I've posted here. There are updates about the dog book at the www.dogscratchin.blogspot.com site that you might be interested in. Today I am thinking about what matters most to me. I moved a month ago. I like the house I'm in now, I own a third of it and that's ok. It was a good place to park some money for a while. With this move though I've had a lot of thoughts about the future. Right now I'm thinking that I will be here for about a year and then, I really don't know where I'll be. For many folks that unsettledness might make them nervous. Not me, I've always had a restless spirit. I've moved many times in my 57 years.  I'm amazed and fascinated by folks who live and stay in the same place where they grew up. Obviously I have not and will never have that experience. What I'm feeling now is a need to divest. I'd like to get my personal needs down to around enough to fit comfortably into a 17' travel trailer. I'm thinking that will do. This may change, but that's the current plan.
 I've collected an odd assortment of objects, with the idea in mind to use them for artwork, assemblage, collage, and what not. After the past 5 months of working on the book and almost exclusively doing 5"x7" scratchboards as my daily art, I've decided I don't need all of that other stuff. The things I've been moving, and moving again, have lost their charm, or magical vibe for me. I recently put several large original artworks in my booth at the All My Treasures Antique Flea Market here. I purposely priced them low (really low!) because they were old work, had been in several galleries and not sold, and I was done carrying them around with some idea of asssigned value. Turns out just by chance a local couple who have their dogs in the book, stumbled upon them and were thrilled to get them. I love that. They were meant to have them. And the fact that they were so cheap? It did not make them feel they were less worthy of being hung in the house.
So stay tuned, there will be more revelations and insights in the next year.
When I consider what I value most, I think about how 20 years ago my Martin guitar was the most valuable thing I owned, and it was precious to me. And then, it wasn't. I sold it about 8 years ago, and haven't really missed it. Now I'm looking around and wondering, what is it I hold dear and value most? And what can I let go of?  I'll let you know when I figure that out...I'm going to lighten my load.