What is the relationship between demolishing and building new? Or, here’s a related question: How does Catherine deal with change? The answer to the second question is, Not so well, which is why I’m blogging. Blogging helps me process. And by process I mean making meaning out of what feels like chaos.
We are in the beginning stages of a kitchen remodel and so I’m thinking about what it means to demolish and discard something in order to build something new. It’s a harsh word, demolish. It’s also hard to compose while my cupboards are being taken down (to be donated), appliances are moved (temporarily) to the garage, and the floor is being taken up piece by piece. And so to deal with all of this chaos caused by the demolition of my kitchen, I’ll be a drifter for awhile, hanging out at friends’ homes and coffee shops, because I’m not very good at change. (See above.)
I’m grateful. I really am. I know that this is a gift that not everyone can make happen and I’ve been dreaming about a new kitchen for a while now. I’m excited. And yet….. there are so many memories in that kitchen. So many memories in that speckled green counter that I learned, eventually, to love. In the blue walls that match my Grandmother’s china. How many times has one of my kids sat on the kitchen counter to chat? How many songs were sung? How many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners were eaten at our kitchen table while we solved all the world’s problems or shared our sorrows and joys? How many games of Scrabble, Fast Track, and Solitaire?
The night before the demo started, I said good-bye and thank you to my kitchen. I stood there in the middle and felt all the memories, all of them, even the hard ones.
I felt surrounded by friends and family, by food and song. I know the memories will remain within our kitchen walls and, more importantly, within my heart, even after the new cupboards and countertops are installed. I also know that we will make new memories. And now we’ll have a little place where friends, and maybe even grandchildren someday, can sit on stools and chat while we’re cooking up something delicious. And I will have a sink where, instead of staring at a wall, I can look outside at the trees and squirrels while I wash dishes.
Sometimes we can’t have the new without taking apart, or even demolishing, the old. A good blog can need a little demo-ing before it gets rebuilt. This can be true with composing (and life) as well. I compose something, but it’s not quite right. I try again. Closer? Or was the first one better? Maybe it’s something that has a bit of both? Maybe something entirely new?
I try to listen to my muse. I read the poem again. I sing and play the piano into the microphone on my phone. I capture the music in my head as best as I can onto paper, holding one hand down on piano keys while writing as fast as I can what I just played with my pencil.
Building up, taking down, discarding, keeping. Sometimes we can’t have one without the other. They go together. It’s true with blogs, with composing, with relationships. Sometimes the discarding is hard. The chaos of change feels overwhelming. It’s hard to let go of things even to make way for something new.
And so I’m co-working at friends’ houses and avoiding the big demo. I won’t be gone the whole time. I’ll work and compose when I can from my office. I think it will be easier during the build part, except for the hammering.
And I’ll remember my kitchen as I edit compositions— pairing them down, building them up anew. Finding what each one wants to be. I’ll continue to work at being ok with discarding ideas that aren’t the right ones, offering a thank you because they paved the way for the new ideas to come through. Sometimes that’s the way it works. There is a special beauty in the letting go. At least for the kitchen, our cabinets will be donated to Better Futures of Minnesota to be containers for another home’s memories. Maybe my discarded compositional ideas find their way into new songs. Or maybe they were there only to be stepping stones.
What are you demolishing and building anew? How do you navigate chaos? I’d love to hear from you.
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash