Taking Care of Business

 

Dreams are funny.  They are made of nothing but intent and vision.  Without the intent, there is just the vision.  The glimpse of what can be.  The possibility, not the reality.

So taking care of business becomes the energy through which dreams are then turned into the reality we envision.  Sometimes we fine tune the vision as things become clearer.  Or we give up.  The energy, time, money that are required become too taxing, too onerous.  Or other things happen and there simply aren't the resources to make it all work.

There are many pithy sayings - fall down seven, get up eight - is one of them making the rounds.  And it is true - up to a point.

What if the reason you fell down on the 7th time was because you broke your leg?  Do you, can you, just get up?  No, of course not.  Time must be taken to heal, to rest, to recuperate before you can even think about getting up again.

Like when I broke my ankle.  Not one but two bones, both displaced, requiring surgery and no weight bearing for 6 weeks.

I spent a lot of time during those six weeks fighting with my desire to get up and get going and quite literally not being able to do so. 

On the other hand, I had a loom that I could actually weave on because I had air assist and it was my right foot that controlled that so in the end, as soon as I could bear to have my foot down for any length of time I finished threading the loom (and getting into threading positions was fun - not!), and before I was able to walk, I was weaving.

Then, when I got the clearance to put 60% of my weight on my foot, the very first thing I did was bump down to the studio (it was the safest way to manage stairs - on my bum), crutched over to the Leclerc Fanny, and start treadling.  Breaking many of the adhesions that had formed as my ankle healed. 

I cried, dear reader, I truly did, it hurt so bad.  But in the course of treadling the loom, I did more good for my foot than if I'd done several weeks of physiotherapy, because I needed to open that shed in order to weave.  So I let the tears form and roll down my face and kept going, knowing what was happening, knowing that pushing through at that time would get me functional a lot faster.

A few weeks later the physiotherapist confirmed I had done the right thing and that he wished everyone with a broken ankle had access to a loom.

So in the end?  I got up again.  And continued to get up again through further health issues.

Even now I am still weaving.  Still getting up again.  But now my vision has shrunk, if you will.  I have fine tuned it based on my new reality.  

What drives me now is that weaving is providing not just physical exercise but a boost to my mental health.  If I can weave and generate endorphins I feel better for it.  Plus?  I'm stubborn enough to want to weave down my stash.

What I will do with all the stuff I'm making I don't know.  Because we are in the middle of an pandemic and options are limited.

But that is something that can be dealt with later.  

In the meantime I continue to weave.  To dream my fibre dreams.  To get up, albeit it more slowly, more carefully.  Because I'm stubborn that way.