life Archives - Ingrid Murray

Living, Intentionally

White blossoms on a branch in sunlight, backlit by a blue sky.

Today I turn another year older (and hopefully, another year wiser). I’m grateful I’ve given myself every chance to keep going, and am celebrating my softness, my childlike delight in the small things, my kindness, my creativity, my sense of humor.

A few lessons learned in my time on earth thus far:

All we are ever granted is the present moment. Make time for the good things, the off-screen things, the people and hobbies and activities that make our days meaningful. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.
You are important. You are worthy of love and gentleness and peace and safety. Never, ever abandon yourself. Seek out the tools you need to trust yourself more, support yourself more, and be your happiest and healthiest.
The little things are, in fact, everything. Don’t wait for those rare moments of perfect euphoria; find joy in the everyday.
Art-making is a spiritual practice. Keep creating.

(There’s so much more goodness to come.)

Atelier No. 5

A wooden table with a beginnings of a handmade book and bookbinding supplies.

I am exceedingly excited to share that I joined a shared studio space at Atelier No. 5 in the south of Koln. This opportunity allows me to connect with the artist community, build new relationships, and spread out and get messy (without the threat of curious cats).

Other artists currently at the space include:

Daniela Buchal
Bernadette Cornelius
Caro Döring
Martha Frances Ebken
Manu Beermann
Anja Meyer
Anke Ricklefs
Tanja Schmiechen
Claudia Tober
Juliane Trautmann

So much more to come.

Butterfly Words

A close-up of orange-yellow berries and leaves against a concrete backdrop.

Orange-yellow berries and green leaves against a concrete wall.

Words swirl around my head constantly. I rarely extract them, afraid of the uncertain consequences of others knowing what I really feel. The danger of expressing myself, of it being the wrong thing said the wrong way.

I have a deep fear of being misunderstood. Of being punished, cruelly, immediately, publicly, for my own imperfection in expression, for letting myself tumble over my own lips and into others’ ears, eyes, and brain.

So I keep them, these thoughts, worries, and wonderings. I keep them tucked in my head and heart, where they beat against my skull and ribcage like butterflies desperate for the sun, for pollen, for the wind.

For their own good, I think. To keep them safe.

Recently, though, I have felt a nudge to open that cage, to let the viscera of my inner world spill out into the real world. My gatekeeper is exhausted, and I can’t help but think fuck it. Let it be what it is.

(I’m reminded of Anais Nin’s apt if oft-quoted line: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”)

The imperfection and mess I find so easily in my art journal, I want to decode all that and say what I mean, mean what I say, to shed the cloak of politeness and dive into raw, real authenticity. For too long I’ve squeezed myself — my brain, my lungs, my body, my being — into the tiny (but ever-changing) box of What Is Acceptable, and I’m tired and sore and cramped in weird places.

Freedom ↔ safety.
Scrubbed raw ↔ a veneer.
Butterflies.

Fuck it.

Pinch Me

A fluffy gray and white cat sleeps upside down in a sunny windowsill.

A view looking up into just-leafing trees in early spring.

This morning, six weeks after moving to Germany — and after years of wanting this to be my reality — I marveled that I’m here. This happened.

My husband and I came back a few days ago from a trip to see his family in Tunisia; though we saw ancient ruins and the ocean and had a wonderful visit, the most magical part was coming home. We live together. This is our everyday life.

It still feels like vacation.

(Un)Making a Home

A view of a living room that is well lit, cheerful, and artistically maximalistic.

A completely empty room with sunlight shining through the windows.

Familiarity is comfortable and change, no matter what it looks like, is unbearably hard.

Earlier this month, I said goodbye to an apartment I loved deeply, a safe space that was home to me for longer than any other place before it. (And look at that light!) This is the first place that I settled into and made my own. I celebrated my 30th birthday here. It was my cats’ first home, and where I honed my artistic style. While living in this apartment, I made friendships that will last a lifetime; I found my center and my self worth. This space saw me through the pandemic, through anguish and big joys, and I grew more here in the past five years than in all the years prior.

Before leaving, I worked for days alongside my mom and best friend, running on adrenaline, sorting through and clearing out a literal decades’ worth of things. We scrubbed and painted. We sold my car.

I kept little, but I’m grateful that so many of my things, curated with love, now live in my friends’ and family’s homes.

When the space was empty, we drove to the airport with my two cats. And after 14+ hours of travel, my mom and I arrived at in Cologne, Germany, and I was reunited with my husband.

My mom went home yesterday. It’s been a little over a week since we left Baltimore, and I am still acclimating to the time difference and processing all the change that’s happened and all the change to come.

And yes, while I’m thrilled to finally be here, it has also been immeasurably hard. But we are resilient, even when things are uncertain, even when we take a big leap outside of what is familiar. And through all this change, I’ll learn that home is anywhere there’s a sense of belonging — and vice versa.