Chaotic Design // Yud Bet Mem
The Inner Sanctuary is an exploration of the 72 Kabbalistic Names of G-d. This is Post 70/72.
There is something so beautiful about the sultry summer mornings, days, and nights. The air is thick and warm. How it feels on my skin as I pick the blueberries, walk the dog.
The cul-de-sac looks like a chalk fairy barfed all over it. Bits of fireworks still to be found from the 4th of July.
The plants are growing out of control. The children too. Puzzle pieces, lego pieces, bits and bobs all around.
Oh, and there is a squirrel trying to make a home in our attic.
It comes and goes, the boys have both seen it. I have had no less than five pest control companies reject me (Oh… We don’t do squirrels).
So in between my husband setting peanut butter traps, and my three-year-old discovering centripetal force as she swings her rainbow stripe dress in her hand while she sings around and around in her polka dot swimsuit at a local splash pad, and my six-year-old diligently works on and completes his Lego waterpark set over the course of four evenings, and the ten-year-old dog slowly goes blind with increasingly milky eyes, and as I perpetually make a mess and then clean said mess in the kitchen, I see it. I see the profound beauty and design underneath the chaos of it all.
The Observer Effect. By me observing the chaos, I can choose to create order from it.
That curtain that came crashing down right in the middle of hosting Shabbat dinner? An opportunity to reimagine that windowed corner and invest in a lovely, cushioned L-shaped bench for resting and reading on. The disaster zone that our laundry room has become? Doubling down on making it a lovely space, painting the walls with the lovely leftover Fairmont Green color.
It’s not chaos. It’s not disaster, disorder. It’s character. It’s charm. It’s lovely, and most importantly, it is loved. It’s lived in. It’s a space that inspires vision and dreaming and supports living.
Life. Confounding, confusing. But boy, can it be filled with love and beauty. Like the tiger lilies still blooming, petals unfurling in the warm evening air. Me observing them on walks back home from the library.
There will always be chaos. Always, always, always. That doesn’t make it any less beautiful by design.
Chaotic, lovely threads of thought… That’s all I got for now. <3