peeking out, because of kindness

This post is dedicated to the kindness of LauraLyn, who along with a few others of you, have sent me several lovely emails out of the blue, expressing concern and support for me whilst depression has been eating my brainz. Thanks to all of you for the hands outstretched, the kindnesses extended, and well, just everything.

LauraLyn offered this bit of insight taken from Alice Hoffman’s Survival Lessons, a tiny volume of essays she wrote. Alice wanted to remind herself, as a breast cancer survivor, that in the midst of personal crisis, turmoil or trauma, that there is still beauty in the world to be explored.

Indeed there is. Let’s go for some bloggy walks to seek out that beauty, shall we.

Sunday, Sept 21, 2014

Hullo, lovely GentleWise Folk.

I took a selfie! Mostly a proof-of-life selfie, but still. Here is me, breathing and dressed and everything.

After writing that last post, and after reading all your supportive, lovely, and uplifting comments, I realized I needed to do a bit of navel-gazing, as self-indulgent as that might seem. The Flails were back again with a vengence, and one day, tired of being frustrated with myself, I just Hit The Wall. I closed the laptop, went outside to sit on the front porch, and began asking myself the hard questions.

You know. The HARD questions, the ones that cause some of us to lose sleep and and lay awake thinking about What It All Means and What Part of Everything Do I Want to Participate In?

My perfect cats would NEVER do this. Tim, AKA the Great Northern Hunter, prefers to bring his half-dead mouse upstairs and plunk it down at my feet when I am sitting on the loo at 2 AM. Nice.

Still, sometimes you just gotta ask yourself what is important to Self. So I contemplated my at-times bejeweled belly button, and Had A Think and gave myself a wee Q&A session.

• Why was I fighting so hard to do something that was so difficult, bringing so much Flail into my life?
• Where had my blogging mojo gone?
• Did I even want to continue blogging?

That last one, wow. That hurt. Stop blogging? Well, yeah, it does seem as though I’m resisting more than I’m writing. So why keep doing it? Why keep blogging?

And believe it or not, my belly button simply refused to answer any of my questions. It did not even wish to offer advice.

It just sat there. Being Navel-ish. (The nerve!)

Do I want to continue blogging?

I’ve been posting on-the internet blog entries, in one format or another, since around 1996, 1997. Before that, I kept journals, in all sorts of blank books, from the mottled black & white composition workbooks to leather-covered volumes (usually purple leather; usually embossed with faeries, trees, hobbit runes, or the ever-popular Cats. At age twelve, I predictably chose a unicorn.).

I collect blank books, spindles, stuffed animals, and children’s books. Come over and play sometime.

I don’t remember exactly when I started writing about my life and its inhabitants, but by age eleven, I already had a whack of no-longer-blank-books lining the shelf above my bed. For a couple of years, I took to making decorative cloth covers for those black&white composition books, using my mom’s heavy grey metal stapler to attach cloth to cardboard, or else sewing the parts together with embroidery floss in the color of the week using a honkin’ big 2-inch “craft needle”. I took a batik class in sixth grade; most of my class practice pieces ended up as journal covers.

See? Even as a kid, for me, journaling was inextricably linked to craft of some sort. I pasted cards and drawings onto the pages, I sewed beads onto sparkly ribbons for bookmarks, I made those workbooks into little mixed media explorations.

In other words, I realized that I have been writing stories about myself, my interests, my inner life, and my crafting since before I could do calculus.

My new sewing machine loves to do strip piecing. Fortunately, so do I.

How does one stop doing something they’ve always done?

The answer is, of course: They don’t. If I stop writing down slices from my life, it will begin to take slices off my heart.

That’s when I started hearing objections from the Blog Demons…

But my posts are annoying.

Annoying? Yes, this is why you get dozens of supportive comments every time you post. Because you are annoying. Uh Huh.

It’s time-consuming.

Well, don’t write a tome every time you post, then.

I don’t know what to say.

And yet somehow, you always manage to say something.

I don’t tell funny stories anymore. So I’m boring.

Oh, for pete’s sake. Stop that.

I want to write, but I can’t do it on my own.

That’s what readers are for. And cats, apparently.

A Challenging Challenge

Writer’s block is normal, but hooboy does it suck. I’ve had a particularly rough patch of it this spring and summer, so methinks Measures Must Be Taken.

So here’s an Idea. See what you think….

I gather, from previous conversations with you-IRL, that many of you (being intelligent and curious beings) have Wonderings. You have Questions. Questions about me, questions about how to bind off and not have the edge curl, how to choose the right yarn for the right socks, Please-can-I-avoid-kitchener-stitch-forever-and-ever-amen, what can you knit if you live in Alabama, what about crochet, why is my studio such a peach pit, how did Tim lose his eye, how things are going with Melody and by the way, who IS Melody?

I say: Go for it. Bring on the questions. I need a little two-way interaction here to get me past my inner demons, back on the road to posting regularly again. (That’s my goal: Regular posting. Time schedule TBD.)

And my new goal to help me get started: One paragragh. One photo. One Chispa. We’ll start there and see what happens next.

My wee Origami Frog. He jumps, too. When he feels like it.

CHISPAS

~ I saw this one months ago, and it’s still at the top of my personal chispas list: Gentleman spins his hair into the playable strings of a violin. (Mommmeeeee,  Sharaz is playing my hair again! And she’s practicing Mozart this time. I’m BOOORRRREEEDDD of Mozart, plus the high notes bother my teeth.)

~ This artwork can only be found using Google Maps.

~ I am suddenly fascinated by origami after making a wee frog in the children’s exploraratory room in Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. (I was there to see the Yin Yu Tang House, fascinating)

1. This guy promised to fold a life-sized elephant from a single sheet of paper if his collections for charity hit a critical goal. They did, and he did.
2. Photos and videos from an exhibit of the work of 80 origami artists. When you look at it, it is hard to believe it is all paper.
3. Note wee teensy origami effort of mine own, above.

 

Obligatory Cute Animal Photo:

See the goldfish cracker on the table. Buddy sees it too. Buddy does not understand why it is not on the floor, but hanging in mid-air. Buddy does not understand glass-topped tables. We love him anyway.

Well, my friends. That’s way more than one paragraph; but truth be told, I have been writing blog entries almost daily…I just haven’t been posting them because of the Blog Demons. I didn’t want to edit this one too severely for fear I’d never think it was good enough.

But your kindnesses have brought me out of the woodwork…thank you.

much love,
Sandi