Taking Time
Oh the late summer blues - they’ve settled in for their usual stay and I find myself lingering in every shady patch I encounter. There was a time, when I was small, that September first brought a break in the heat and the brown endlessness of this time of year - but alas! Those days are gone and I’m instead going into the new month with a kind of slow, grumpy trudge that I know will lift only with the first frost.
For many weeks, there was an orb weaver spinning and re-spinning a little world outside my studio window. He or she was exceptionally industrious - always, it seemed, there was a caught insect that needed attention or a bit of web that needed repair. And so, while I sat at my computer making endless edits and typing uncountable words, I watched that spider grow larger and stronger until - suddenly, it wasn’t there.
And I can’t say what happened. Maybe I grew lax in my observations and it had been many days since my neighbor had gone - but one morning I sat down to work and the window was empty. Just a few tatters of web clinging to the frame. So now it’s just me again, in that quiet space, working as honestly and efficiently as I’m able. I wish I’d made more of a point to say hello to my companion, while I had the chance.
Building courses has been a shift for me in so many ways. I’ve gone from working on projects that I can time, from start to finish, in a handful of hours to one that has already spanned years. I can’t say I’ve ever struggled so deeply with and for my art before - there are layers upon layers of nuance to this beast that I continue to uncover as I go. And just when I start to think I’ve made peace with taking the time it takes? Then it seems like the crush of self-imposed shame surrounding my working speed and lack of financial contribution arrives to try to pull me under.
And yet…
On the daily I’m given the opportunity to say I believe in myself, what I know, and what I can give as I whittle away at my list of to-do’s. I thought I’d be done before spring turned to summer, but will this accomplishment be any less momentous if it comes to fruition in fall? If anything, I think the determination it’s taken to see it through will help it mean more.
For the first time, I have something small to share - just the outlines of what the first two units will teach - but they are out of my head and ready to upload along with hours of video and sheets upon sheets of instructions written out with love. Two out of four at one hundred percent - almost unbelievable.
This shift to long projects, without any hope of timeline, seems to be a theme for me now, and finding joy in slow progress instead of quick gratification is my real work. In keeping with this, I finished hand-spinning the chunk of wool that I’ve been twirling away at in my spare minutes since June.
After the single thread was spun, I plyed two together.
THEN the resulting yarn was soaked and whacked against the edge of the bathtub to set the twist, carefully dried…
…and ultimately wound into a hank that looks surprisingly even. And beautiful. And like it wasn’t created during a time of emotional upheaval by someone who had never spun wool before but desperately needed some fiber therapy.
Finding a new path takes time. Figuring out who you are takes time. Making wondrous things takes time. And for the first time in my life, though it’s been a little painful, I’m really taking it.