The Next Thing

Two days ago, as I was driving along Harrisburg feeling quite wonderful because of sunshine and clear blue weather, ideas for the 'next endeavor' began to dance through my head. Two ideas surfaced as worthy of pursuit, one right after the other, and I my thoughts are moving as if I were watching a tennis ball. Side to side, wanting both.

Today, however, I am focusing on one and thinking of words to describe it for a new grant application that is due in eight days. Yes, I'm going for it. Why not?

I cannot remember the moment when the idea for Second Seating came into being. I do know the date of the first concept paper for the project, but that specific 'a-ha' moment when I became a conduit for the idea itself has vanished from my memory. However, should either of these two new ideas become the 'next thing', I have documented that moment driving along Harrisburg (where METRO is at work on the new East End rail line) when the ideas first shot through my head. I'll remember when I smiled and said this is the moment.

Days ago, I shared an impromptu cup of tea with a friend and we talked about how she felt when I spoke at an evening gathering in the Second Seating space. Her response prompted my mind to take immediate leaps here, there and everywhere. Another friend reminded me about an offer I'd received two weeks ago for help in writing a grant for something incredible.

I've always known that Second Seating was a warm up exercise. It is the first of many more spaces. Sometime last week in the middle of the night, I had a flash forward vision of myself as a woman in her 70s creating and managing a new business that involves making spaces that perhaps, for a moment or forever, change the people who enter them. Because in these spaces, they 'see' differently or feel an unnameable emotion or are overcome by words painted on a wall or a flock of flying chairs or an urban garden as gathering space.There is so much more to come.

Therefore, I need to eat vegetables by the truck load, walk miles every day and do a little house cleaning before it all begins again. And it wouldn't hurt to make a list this weekend of where all the things still left at Second Seating will be stored, so when the carpenter and electricians come next week, we'll be organized and ready to clear that wonderful space and move on to the 'next.' There is plenty of work to be done to disassemble Second Seating. While writing the first grant application for what's going on in my head. It is ever thus.