Change swills and swirls around us like a gentle hurricane,
taking away the deadwood and leaving us to create a new life.

Yesterday we took deep breaths, gripped each others hands and turned off our pay TV subscription. For too long, it has been a bad habit for us. It swallowed up hours of every day ~ hours where we could have been drawing, writing, playing music, learning, connecting, sharing with each other. We want to create our own lives – not just watch someone else’s rendition of it. TV has been our smoking – our stinky bad habit we didn’t want to acknowledge or let anyone else know about. The thing is – we aren’t tv kinda people. We weren’t as children and somewhere along the line we fell into it. No more.

We moved our house around dramatically to force us into our new lifestyle. Our tv is now in a shrug of the kitchen/dining area where it isn’t comfortable to watch. The lounge room has been changed into a dreamy recreation room with a couch, beanbag, purple bookcase, our two computers and chris’ menagerie of musical instruments: 2 acoustics, one electric guitar, a djembe drum, a chinese drum, a ukelele, a wooden recorder, a didjeridoo, an electric piano and a peruvian flute.

Last night was both wonderful and a little bit scary. We sat facing each other: what to do now?
It makes me feel both sad, and hysterically amused at the fact that we have the room of our dreams, and are trying to figure out how to use it.

So we filled the bookcase with Chris’ CDs. I laughed as we walked out of our room to see the tv in the corner, blank and without attention: ha ha! We BANISHED YOU! I taunt. We held hands as we crept into the hallway to bring armloads of books from the studio into our new room. We listened to albums the whole way through. I beat madly on the djembe to a Ben Harper song, and danced to Yothu Yindi. We rescued old drawing manuals and sketched for a little while. And then I read outloud, with Chris’ arms around my neck. I turned to this page in the amazing Transitions: Prayers and Declarations for a Changing Life book by Julia Cameron:

” ‘Move your sofa and change your life!’
– Karen Kingston
When we change our living space, we change our lives…
Today I seek a spiritual alignment in my domestic space. I discard all that distracts me. Today, I put my life in order. I emphasise serenity and beauty in my surroundings. I allow increased cleanliness to prioritise my thinking. I create an environment that knows my highest goals and aspirations.”

What a serendipitously, sublime and spot-on affirmation to turn to.

And the flowers? What of the pink lilies adorning my house?
The wonderful book Living Out Loud by Keri Smith inspired me to buy a bunch of flowers – for the very first time for myself. There is a calendar in the book to fill in – and one of the activities for the month is Buy Yourself Flowers day. I am so deeply appreciative of me for taking the leaps and moving the sofa that I chose pink lilies.

I know it will take some time to adjust to this new tv-less, book-filled and lily-filled life of ours. There is joy, breathlessness and a tiny piece of fear in these large steps – the ones when you first take the leap and wonder if your wings will take flight.