Fleeting Moments

 

One thing about living farther north is that during the winter I actually get to see the sunrise.  As the sun tops the hill to the east, it throws brilliant light onto the hill behind our house.  It got even more spectacular a few minutes later when the entire hill became bathed in the golden glow of the rising sun.

It was a good reminder that every storm will pass.  Nothing lasts forever.  Things change.

After about 6" of heavy WET snow yesterday, today we are being gifted a day with clear blue sky and sunshine.  Since I have to go out today, I'm not complaining!  Our street isn't in very good shape, but the main roads should be cleared by now and the route to the guild room is mostly on main roads.  Since I haven't been out of the house for a while, I'm looking forward to a bit of an excursion.

(I actually left the house on Thursday but wasn't able to get to my hairdresser, so I don't really feel like that bit of a drive counts because I didn't get to have time with someone else, just a rather frustrating drive!)

This week I started digging my spinning out.  I'm not entirely sure why I'm back to spinning - except that the universe keeps nudging me to do it.

For those new to the blog, I actually started spinning before I fell down the weaving rabbit hole.  Upon reflection, I'm glad I did because I started weaving with a basic (*very* basic) understanding of how fibres got turned into yarn.  The lessons learned at the spinning wheel underpin a lot of the knowledge I have about weaving.

When I became immersed in weaving for sale, teaching and writing about weaving, I got rid of most of my spinning tools and for many years did not have a wheel.  Then wheels began appearing in my life.  Gradually I was enticed back into playing with fibre.  But spinning had moved on, so to speak, and once again I'm an anomaly.  I prefer supported long draw and over the past few years I have acquired a blending board which allows me to make rolags without hurting my neck as much as cards do.  And while I will never be a technical spinner, I am having fun blending colours, making unique combinations, then spinning them into textured yarn.  I could get more consistent yarn if I worked harder at it - I know the principles - but I have plenty of fine smooth yarn for weaving.  This textured yarn is great for knitting.  And I get to play with colour in a way that is different from how weaving affects colours.

The past two years has been pretty fraught, one way and another.  Facebook reminded me that it was just two years ago I was back in California meeting with my editor with the final push to get The Intentional Weaver out into the public.  

I put the spinning away because I was just too busy, too distracted, too...tired...because there was just too much other stuff that needed doing.  And I needed the dining room table to ship the books (about 250 of them on the pre-publication special offering).  Once the book was 'done', the conference was in high gear, and once the conference was done, I was finally able to focus on me and how disfunctional my body was by that point.  And then it was shutting down my business, dealing with retirement, trying to figure out how to encourage my body to keep going, if not actually heal.

It's been a long journey.  But I have also lived a long time now.  I was never sure I would get to 70, although I hoped.  And...here I am.

Now I am learning to really double down and appreciate those fleeting moments of quiet joy, like the golden rays of the sun on a pristine hillside of fresh snow.