If only it were that easy.
Winter has descended on the Virginia mountains. The leaves are long gone, leaving the hills a stark palette of browns and greys. Getting out and about has become far more process than whim. Carefully chosen layers have supplanted keys and wallet as the necessities of a successful journey, even if it is just a grocery run. And, for those of us unfortunate enough to have an unheated workshop with no insulation, the opportunities to get out among the scrap collection and tap the old creative conduit are truly limited. Maybe it’s just time to close up shop and let Mother Nature run her course.
Again, if only it were that easy.
You see, those pesky creative juices have no respect or concern for such frivolities as weather. They flow unfettered, year round, with the energy of a teenager leaving Starbucks. And while ideas and concepts may ricochet about the cranium like a Super Ball inside a runaway boxcar, the realities of 50+ year old limbs keeping pace in near Arctic temperatures are, well, unrealistic. Fortunately, for this die-hard scrapper, there are options. You see, several years back, on a whim, I tore apart an old flat screen television someone had cruelly abandoned alongside a lonely dirt road. The innards were a truly fascinating melange of colored bits, copper wire, and electronic gadgetry. My feeble, ADD-addled brain found this visual cacophony of stimuli quite irresistible.
And so began my winter obsession; destruction, reconstruction and creativity away from the workshop inside the heated confines of our humble abode. While the welder and cutting tools take a break, the stack of derelict computers and has-been hi-fis slowly migrate from the basement to the living room, much to the chagrin of Lady Jack. But, seeing that we’re Jack Of ALL Creative, she recognizes the necessity to keep the bear of inspiration from crawling into the cave and sleeping until spring. And though she may roll her eyes and shake her head, I think she secretly digs my ham-fisted attempt at costume jewelry and our increasing fleet of tiny UFOs.
I know I do.