Apartment Life

The Garage… the most versatile room in a house??

| Beth, just being me

When I was looking for a place to live in Upstate, NY, one of the most important criteria was a garage. Ideally, an attached garage with snow removal as part of the deal. I was lucky enough to find a townhome community that met these requirements.

I’d spent the previous ten winters shoveling, brushing and scraping my car out of mounds of snow. So, as you might imagine, a garage was a must when I moved to a place that gets an average of 104 inches of snow each year.

There’s a trend among people who have moved into the community over the past year; it baffles me. More than half of the residents who have moved in do not use the garage for their car(s). Walking through the neighborhood reveals the various uses for a garage; they include storage, a “man cave,” T.V. and all, a game room, and oddly enough, mostly empty, but the car is still parked in the driveway. I especially can’t quite figure that last one out.

After a decade of digging out of boxes from one move to another as well as more hours than I’d like to have spent digging my car out after a snowstorm,  I’ve become a firm believer in using a garage for it’s intended purpose, to store a car and a bike. 🙂

 

Every Picture Tells a Story

| Beth, just being me

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” ~ Pablo Picasso

After nearly a year of art journaling and drawing my way through some seriously faith testing times, I’ve landed in an amazing place. I never would have dreamed that my perfect job in a perfect place would be back in Omaha, Nebraska – but here I am!

Although Omaha has been my city of residence on three separate occasions and for the majority of my life, moving back hasn’t been without more than a few adjustments. Some of them I foresaw and have been easier than expected.

It hasn’t been nearly as difficult as I thought it might be, to get up every day and put on “real clothes,” makeup and drive to the office instead of padding downstairs to my desk wearing yoga pants and fuzzy socks. The perfect hair salon practically dropped into my lap and the location of my apartment couldn’t be better suited to my lifestyle and interests.

Others, like living alone, are taking me longer than anticipated to feel comfortable with. Slowly but surely I’m adjusting to living in an apartment and to evenings and weekends without impromptu visits, bear hugs and sharing a plate of appetizers at Fridays with my youngest son.

The one area of my life that I expected to flow from the East Coast to the Midwest without disruption, was the relationship with my inner artist and creativity. It didn’t. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t identify myself as an artist or a writer during my previous life in Omaha or if it’s because my new apartment doesn’t have the clearly defined studio space I’d hoped for.

Whatever the cause may be, it’s been far more difficult to tap into my inner child and let the art flow than expected and for some reason, I simply stopped making art.

Paint & Sip Franchises to the Rescue

Mid-December marked nearly four months  of my paint supplies being tucked away in a drawer and my unfinished ink journal and favorite pens sealed in a gallon size baggie. Every time I thought about drawing or painting,  nothing would come out. It was as though the stack of ink drawings and the nearly completed art journal had been created by someone else.

Art classes are difficult to find in the dead of winter, and so after hearing positive things about the local paint and sip studios I decided to give one of them a try as a way to jump start my creative journey in Omaha.

Paint and sip franchises such as the Corky Canvas and Canvas and Cabernet are springing up across the country. They offer a “unique way to uncork your creativity,” in other words they serve wine and other libations to patrons that are brave enough to paint, many for the first time since kindergarten, in a group setting.

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My first experience was interesting. The studio felt empty.

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Only a handful of women gathered around the tables closest to the platform at the front of the room. Freezing rain and snow deterred the rest of the attendees from learning the difference between a big, a “shmedium” and a small paint brush – all highly technical terms that every artist needs to know. 🙂

In spite of the bitter temps outside, the room quickly warmed up with artistic enthusiasm. The instructor led us through the painting step by step, and offered individual guidance to the budding artists in the studio. The music selection ranged from songs that took me back to high school day to modern day hits, that thanks to my kids, I not only recognized – but could even sing along if I felt so inclined.

I had’t thought about it before now, but perhaps it’s no coincidence that a large flower was the subject of the first drawing class I took in Yardley

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and, albeit a much simpler floral piece, was the subject of my first group art session in Omaha.

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Much like the first time I dipped my toe into the world of art, my goal on that frigid Saturday morning was to create a “masterpiece” that matched the original artist’s work. Success meant replication rather than interpretation, in spite of the instructor’s encouragement to change up colors and/or do something different if we felt so inclined.

It may seem unlikely to some, but for me, the Corky Canvas and its sister paint and sip venues became a way to bridge the gap between who I was when I left Omaha and the artist I discovered in Pennsylvania.

With each new session, I’ve grown a little more daring and instead of using the painting on the schedule as a template, it’s simply a source of inspiration with guidance provided by the instructor.

First, I went totally crazy and painted a huge moon, filled the branches with petals and made the blossoms on the tree pink instead of white.

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Next, I went out on a limb (pun intended) and painted three birds instead of two. The background was lighter than the model painting, the field below was quite different and for the first time, the branches started feeling like my own.

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The creative block ended on Valentine’s weekend. Picture a red umbrella at the bottom of a grey and white cobblestone path lined with quaint street lamps and a picture perfect silhouette of a couple dancing in the rain at the opposite end.

As much as I love the idea of the picture perfect couple dancing in the rain, it didn’t work for me. It’s not where I am right now.

And so instead, the path in my painting turned out to be tempered with color and emotion. The umbrella is disproportionately large, but for some reason I love it. Rather than a couple dancing in the rain, the silhouette is me. A woman, yet at the same time still a girl, reaching out to pass through the curtain of rain into a place and time that is filled with more blue skies than gray.

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Last weekend brought me back to the more whimsical me.

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Six months after moving into my apartment, I’ve begun to carve out a space for a “studio,” it could be otherwise referred to as my dining room table. Unexpected guests will just have to understand. 🙂

The first piece I created in my new studio is very fitting. It ties together so many experiences from the place that I moved from to the home that I’m in the process of making. It’s a reminder to remain in the present rather than speculate about the future.

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Knock Three Times on the Ceiling if I’m Noisy, Twice on the Floor if the Music’s too Loud

| Beth, just being me

Nothing makes you more tolerant of a neighbor’s noisy party than being there. ~ Franklin P. Jones

One of the upsides to living in a 100 year old building is the amazing hardwood floors. One of the downsides to living in a 100 year old building is the amazing hardwood floors; heavy footsteps, the bass line of movie soundtracks and the latest party music can make it difficult to catch the punchlines when you’re watching a rerun of Cheers.

A few weeks after moving in, I received the best welcome note ever under my door, it was from my upstairs neighbor. It started out like this:

“Hey Beth!

It’s me Dave Baby Boomer….the fella in #301.
I have been meaning, meaning, meaning….planning to drop by long before this…mostly to check in on the noise level.”

The note included additional welcoming thoughts and a $20 gift certificate to Spirit World and in closing he said,

“When you have a mo’, do lemme know how life is in #201, wouldja?”

Truth to be told, I do hear the floors creak if we’re both home at the same time – but it’s more comforting than annoying. In a quiet space, it’s a reminder that I’m not alone.

The heavy bass line is another story though, when I start trying to guess which movie he’s watching, it’s time for a text or a phone call. Thankfully it doesn’t happen often, and a reduction in volume is only a phone call and an apology away.

Not having met my downstairs neighbors, I wasn’t sure quite how to handle it last week when the level of noise invaded my apartment and spilled out into the hallway. My first instinct was to stomp on the floor and hope that they would get the hint, but I figured it would be close to impossible to distinguish a stomp on the floor from part of the song.

After waiting several minutes, it became apparent that without an intervention, the evening would only get louder. I padded down to the first level and knocked on their door.

No answer.

I knocked again.

No answer.

One more time, as hard as I could without hurting my knuckles.

No answer.

My hand was on the doorknob, it twisted freely toward the right. The door was unlocked, do I dare? I did.

I’m not sure what caught them more off guard, the fact that someone who wasn’t invited to the party opened the door without permission or the fact that a woman, old enough to be their mother was standing in their living room – wearing pink and black leopard print flannel pajama bottoms, bright blue and white polka dot fuzzy socks and a Penn State hooded sweatshirt.

Without looking anyone in the eye, I pointed my thumb toward the ceiling and twisted an invisible volume knob down, turned around and closed the door behind me. It was instantly quiet.

The following day, about thirty minutes before guests were schedule to arrive for dinner, there was a knock on my door.

“Hi, my name is Jack College. I wanted to apologize for the noise last night, it’s been eating at me all day.”

“Nice to meet you Jack, I’m Beth. Thanks so much for stopping by to apologize, it means a lot.”

Shifting from one foot to the other, “Ummm, I also wanted to give you my phone number. Just in case it happens again, you know, so you can just call me.”

“That’s a great idea, I’ll send you a text so you know who’s calling. Thanks again, I really appreciate it.”

A few minutes after he left, we exchanged a few text messages:text-with-jack

It was very thoughtful of him to stop over and apologize and give me his phone number, but I can’t help but giggle and suspect that there might have been conversation after I closed their door behind me. It might have gone something like this:

“Dude, we gotta find a way to keep the old lady from upstairs from walking into the apartment again; what if she calls the landlord or worse yet, the cops?”

“I know, you’re right. I’ll come up with something.”

After stewing about it  for the better part of the day, I’m guessing Jack was hit with a stroke of brilliance.

It would appear that, after weighing the risks associated with my having his phone number vs another unannounced visit or a phone call to the “authorities,” he mustered up the courage to face the woman who is brave enough to be seen wearing leopard print flannel pants and a Penn State sweatshirt in Nebraska.

The conversation was amicable, we now each know our neighbor by name and most importantly (to me) there’s been no breech of acceptable sound volumes since exchanging phone numbers.

Life in the multi-generational lane. 🙂