Tag Archives: Knitting

'Tis the season, Stillness, wellness

‘Tis

‘Tis the season to do a lot of things well or wrong, too fast or too slow.

For me I do all these things mostly at once. There is baking and hosting and cleaning and family I want to see and then there is knitting and writing and not enough time for either because something is in the oven or needs to be or has burned in the oven or someone is coming over and napkins need to be ironed and lets not forget decorating and all of a sudden it is midnight or 4AM and neither time is my best time and the list is still long.

It is like I conflate an entire year of want-to-do or need-to-do into six weeks.

Stop.

I posted a list I found about Nine Types of Rest here is one: Stillness to decompress.

At the end of this week I plan to practice some stillness. And go to a new bookstore, find a chair, and kill time looking at something for a while. Then I am going to drink a hot, big, over-the-top coffee drink. And walk in a park. Or, stay in bed all day with a book. We shall see. Hold me to it?

What will you do to find rest in this season of joy and heartbreak?

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Choices, Knitting, Read, writing

Essentials.

What I am reading: The Empathy Exams, Leslie Jamison —  The Tao of Raven: An Alaska  Native Memoir, Ernestine Hayes —  Dancing Bears, Witold Szablowski.

What I just finished : The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister — Devotions, Mary Oliver — Songs of Willow Frost, Jamie Ford.

What I am knitting: A vest out of maize-colored Rowan Felted Tweed. A Churchmouse Yarn cowl pattern, wildly adapted to what I had in my yarn bag. An orchid-colored Alexandra’s Airplane scarf out of Rowan Kid Silk Haze and beaded with pink iridescent micro-beads.

What I am writing: Draft #20 of a personal essay piece, about to be submitted.

You get the picture: books, yarn, needles, paper. Last weekend my cousin and I went to an estate sale, early in the morning while the dew was still shivering on the cherry blossoms. We parked by a stone archway and stepped into a long room anchored by a walk-in fireplace, fully ablaze. I wandered this old farmhouse, stripped bare and crackling with story. When I returned to the front room the owner was saying “It just got away from us.” I fingered a chipped bowl full of scissors. My heart broke around the edges.

There is letting go and there is not keeping up. I want to be the former, smart and brave and realistic when the time comes. Recently the time has come for certain things: clothes I will never wear, shoes I cannot walk in anymore. And books. And furniture.

I sense I am in a race with myself, a new look at the future —  to not be caught short of sense and burdened by stuff. Last year’s health scares just simply brought home that  there is not an endless stretch ahead. So what do I really need each day?

Books, yarn, needles, paper works every corner of my brain, now that I have it back inside my head. Everything is portable and can be pulled from the same bag. Perhaps a toothbrush would be good.

And the people that love me, that are on this journey with me? I will have toothbrushes for all of you, too.

Ten months and counting from that double-whammy last year. I am learning to pack a bag of the essential ingredients and let the rest go.

 

Bainbridge Island, March 18th, 2018 Camelia

Bainbridge Island, March 18, 2018. Camellia blossom: essential spring.

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