So much done on the site. And I feel my father's presence -
such a creative man, so many hopes, dreams, so much writing,
yet almost nothing out in the world. I wonder how to give him a space
of his own in the Creativity Emporium.

JUNE 6, 2006

here ...

amazing stuff this past week

loads done in terms of designing the creative site - masses and masses

from starting with figuring out the pieces/projects I want on it (mine and also with space for the work of others) - all kinds of creativity, years and years of it

and then there was image design - finding a way so it flows visually, pulls people in - and that it works for me
image after image after image

and then creating composites drawing on the images I’d gotten together

and then the start of a number of pages

each bit made the whole thing more clear, more solid, more right

lots of reworking

but each reworking less than the last - more a kind of fine tuning, like when you move furniture around, rather than have to go out and find it

last night I went to bed, then became more and more awake, as if someone was pouring caffeine into my veins - not usual, but not something I could fight either

finally around midnight I got up and worked for a couple of hours, more fine-tuning, and searching for an image (a new image for this blog, as the one I originally planned to use had wound up, yesterday, being used as the intro image to my word pieces)

found two images, could not decide which was better - and this morning figured that actually both were great - one for this blog and one for the personal journaling I did for years and years and could not find a way of bringing out into the world

this morning, another idea - how to integrate my father’s writings into the site, make a space for them

he wanted me, for years and years, to edit his work - but I did not have the energy - it felt like an overwhelming task - hundreds of pages - also did not have a space for it to go to - now I know where it should go, and also know what kinds of editing will be right for it

I grieved for my father when he died, almost three years ago now, but didn't grieve very much - it felt to me, still feels to me, that he's still around - hard to grieve for someone who does not seem gone. He has faded over the past months. But “dead” - whatever that means - he does not feel “dead” to me, irrevocably gone, passed on, his life over.

It's not that I didn't grieve at all. I did grieve, and intensely, but briefly. I was a bit shocked at how the grief, the being gripped by tears, stopped so rapidly. But his presence was so strong everywhere. I would go sit on the bench Philippe and I have overlooking miles and miles of fields and forests. It was as if my father was there beside me, always to the right of me, leaning forward, looking partly at the view and somewhat at me. Even when I went - the very rare time - to his grave, he seemed with me, looking around, taking it all in, very alive.

I heard the American writer Joan Didion interviewed on her book about the year after the death of her husband - The Year of Magical Thinking. She was sure, for that year, he would come back, would walk in through the door. She could not throw out his clothes because she was convinced, deep inside herself, that he would need them.

Probably what I am doing can also be classified as “magical thinking.” Not that I have any sense that my father is alive - just that he is “here,” “around.”

Probably my sensing his presence comes at least in part because, in the years and years since I left home while still at university, I have kept him more alive inside me than had living time with him. We did talk - but that was not the deepest connection. In many ways the deepest connection was in my childhood - he felt so life me in many ways. We both loved reading, imagining ourselves into stories, thinking.

Anyway, this morning it came to me how to fit his work into the site - into the design of it, so his place is there for his writing right from the start. He always had a lot of hope and patience.

As always, welcome into my world.

signed,

Elsa

JUNE 6 , 2006

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2006, 2011
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2006, 2011

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