I had a student of mine come by and ask me to make her booties and a hat for her first Grandchild. She had picked this sky blue yarn with a thread wrapped around it with bobbles attached. Truly it is a charming yarn to look at and when the project is done it looks as sweet as pie. But getting there...now that is a totally different story.
First of all, just trying to make sure that those little bobbles get through the stitch is agonizing...secondly; it throws the gauge way off. She wanted newborn sizes of everything and it made all my patterns a size up which meant I would have to rewrite any pattern I had.
So all other projects had to go to the back burner as I worked on this commission. My sweater...my shawl. I am so behind it makes me want to cry. I thought I could just knock these out...well you know all the cliches about assuming...
This got me thinking about my trip to the dentist. The Valium did its job and I was good and non-stressed. I can't tell you how many times I fell asleep in that chair. But it's what happened afterward that got me pondering.
You see I couldn't compartmentalize anymore. I couldn't multi-task or do more than one thing at a time. My brain was so relaxed and calm that all it could do was think of one idea and focus on that. For instance, I put in a load of laundry and then since that was all there was to do at that time promptly forgot about it. In fact, in all fairness, I can't remember putting it there in the first place.
I tried to do things like pack my bags for the next day like I always do...and I kept getting lost. There was no list in my head to follow of things that needed to be done...and I felt very helpless.
I thought to myself how does anyone function like this day to day?
Then I realized that this is what meditation is supposed to be like. A singular focus...flowing from one thing to the next without worrying about all the other things there are to do...it was about giving all to each moment before moving on to the next.
This is what surrendering everything and living in the moment felt like.
Right now in that moment, something became very clear to me that has bothered me non-stop since that day...I am like that yarn I hated working with. All the things I fill my day with are like the bobbles on the thread...a thread that clings to every aspect of my day. Just like Atlas with his world...I don't leave home without my thread. Sometimes that thread becomes wound around itself so many times with all I am trying to shove into a moment that it becomes a bobble. Unfortunately, this is a regular part of each day.
But the most horrible truth is that I felt totally at loss in a world of surrender. I need to do more than one thing at a time now and then to make things work. If I don't pack up the books that need to go to the post office a day before I need to go...they might not get there. If I waited for the most opportune time to take them then I would owe money for not getting them back before the deadline.
Singular focus cannot cook food while unloading the dishwasher...to do so would be to dishonor the food being prepared or the task of cleaning the kitchen.
So where does that leave me? I've realized that as much as I would like to make some things happen in my life...to do so would make more bobbles then I can handle. I need to acknowledge that now is not the time to try and take on a second income. I cannot manage it. I work 40 hours a week, visit my parents as much as possible, have a second family living in our home, a son who usually has homework every night, a house to clean, clothes to wash, a family to cook for and a bunch of other stuff that is the central basis to my life.
Just managing to juggle all these things is a miracle to me. If I didn't have the love and support of my wonderful DH, friends and family I couldn't handle all that I do. But I do and I am so thankful.
Every Fair I always have all these big dreams and then we get to the next one and I'm just happy to have stock. I work a little on each goal but I still don't get all the way there. We've tried to make time to work on our products but the truth is we are tired by the weekend. We only get a few hours of family time during the week and our weekends are precious to us.
That is why last Fair my biggest goal was to actually finish the QOH shawl...and I'm going to do it before May. But I still need to replenish stock. I've been doing these commissions non-stop and that is really great...I am very thankful that people are coming to me to make things for them...but everything has to stop when I get a commission and my other projects get put on hold.
I felt extreme guilt that I worked on the QOH shawl last Friday at meet-up instead of my commission. But it had been a hard week and I wanted to work with the yummy lamb's wool.
My poor sweater does not exist. It is not even cast on and I feel horrible about it. Everyone else is all the way to the cabling or farther and I haven't even started.
But this is the reason I am very selective about KALs and such. I know that things just get bogged down in my life for periods of time and there is nothing I can do about that.
So here I am at Friday again...the booties are done. That hat is in progress. My shawl is at 13 repeats of 15. My sweater is in little balls of untouched beautiful yarn...and all of it is...okay.
I will knit on the hat at lunch and my shawl at the meet-up and I will feel guilty about neither. I will get to the sweater when the hat is complete.
Just because I plan and organize doesn't mean that my life has to be totally filled with bobbles. When I look ahead it doesn't mean I can't shift my focus to the present moment. Knowing my limits and when to say, "No," is not a bad thing.
As always; all things will work out in the accordance of their time. I can plan and organize and create space for things but they all will become complete and whole when it is their time to do so. That is the way it has always been and I know that will never change.
Vixenpath will have what it needs to see us through another Fair. My shawl will get done. I will learn the lesson of taking care of myself and all the Dentists and Doctors will have been visited and I will catch up on my healthcare. I will learn to let go of the things I cannot change and lay them at the feet of the God and Goddess. I will understand that financial serenity is not based on a number but on the flow of prosperity.
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On a separate note. Look at this beautiful pendant the talented Birdsong made me. I love the energy that I feel emanating from this beautiful pendant. It has stones to represent each member of our family. I love the way the tree is interconnected yet the stones each shine separate and whole by themselves. If you want one of these for a gift or for your own family; send Birdsong a note and she can create a one-of-a-kind work of art for you.
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It is a little cold here but I think that we have seen our last snowfall (knock on wood). So my shawl shot will have to wait until next year. Oh well.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Ruinwen
:)
2 comments:
"...how does anyone function like this day to day?"
Speaking for myself? I don't! Things don't get done unless Outlook or my phone pop up a "HEY! LOOK! LISTEN!" like Navi in Zelda. :O
So this comment will be equally disconnected.
First -- I really love how you can tie your knitting to a spiritual realization in your posts. It's not only a great read, but is also a reminder to keep spirit in one's focus.
And about focus -- focus isn't on just one thing. A moment is made up of so many things -- sights, smells, sounds, touch, feelings, surroundings -- that being truly "in the moment" means experiencing and accepting ALL of those components of the whole.
Take sight as an example...even when you're looking at just one thing, you still see what's around that, you still have peripheral vision, you're still tracking the stuff you AREN'T looking at. Otherwise what you've got is just tunnel vision.
So yeah. Bobbles are inevitable, and it's not about getting around them so you can move on, but recognizing and honoring them too as part of your "moment". As long as you don't lose sight of the yarn at the core, you're doing okay.
Um. I hope that made any sense? Anyway....LOVE YOU!!!
I lost you for a while there! With Bloglines changing I lost a lot of my automatic updates and yours was one of them.
Staying in the Moment. I think it can be a matter of perspective. I can say that cooking is one thing and emptying the dishwasher is another separate thing and I can't be fully present to do both at the same time, but wait a minute. What if being present is, at that time, doing kitchen chores including the washing of dishes and the cooking of dinner.
See, what I'm trying to point out is that it's about perspective and how microscopically you look at what you're doing. I think one can break things down too far. Can a mother care for her toddler while at the same time cooking him dinner. Yes, I should hope so, or the toddler will be going hungry and that's not very caring of Mom, is it?
If I focus that microscope too closely then it could be said that I'm breathing, typing, and thinking all at once. Is that multi-tasking too? It is if I focus too closely.
Step back and realize that sometimes LIVING requires multi-tasking but that's okay. Stand back, look through a telescope instead of a microscope and you'll see that living is a single activity.
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