Winter

 

I live in a place where there are seasons.  Sometimes too many seasons if you take into consideration climate change.  Now we have wildfire season, which can encompass elements of spring, summer AND autumn.

But never mind.

Winter is a time to hibernate for many of the animals that live here.  Bears, most famously, but other critters also go into a dormant phase.  Plants go 'quiet' as well, conserving their energy for the first faint hint of spring.

So it is with other aspects of life.  

As someone who has worked in a field of being creative most of my life, I have become accustomed to the so-called fallow periods of life.  

The thing is, fallow doesn't mean nothing is happening.  Mostly it just means that deadlines are far enough in the distance that I can kind of ignore them, or I can do the kind of research or preparations I need to learn enough to deal with whatever 'big' project I am about to tackle next.

And sometimes?  There can be a very long list of things that need to happen, during which time it may look like I'm not accomplishing very much at all.

So last summer I agreed to teach some classes for the School of Sweet Georgia (SOS).  It took the better part of 6 weeks to work out the shape and format of the classes.  Figure out what I needed to show as examples/processes to make my point(s).  Order in yarn samples.  Weave samples.  Design a project for the one class.  Schedule the steps to be involved.  Work out how to film segments out of sequence in order to capture the maximum amount of information in the shortest period of time.  During this time, nothing much appeared to be happening - no new projects, no pretty pictures to post.  Not much happening in terms of inventory created, new designs to implement and offer, no stash busting - because I was sampling new-to-me yarns.  I was learning.  Adding to my foundation of knowledge.  Increasing my information database.

One class took all of one day to record.  The other took over 2.5 days which left us enough time to tear down and pack up and still leave by close of day so that Doug and I could hop in the van early the next morning and make it home in one day.

And then it was time for the post-production.  The SOS team swung into action and late last night I got a link to Vimeo so that I could review the first class that will be launched - mid-January.  (Date to be confirmed based on how the last bit of post-production goes.)

I had a bad night.  I've been dealing with chronic nerve pain and covid is making things even more difficult because I need to see a specialist in Vancouver and between climate change damage (roads wiped out in multiple places) and covid, travel is not really something I want to be doing.  Plus winter - when you never know if there will be good driving conditions or if the entire route will be 'safe'.  Because the better part of 800 km through mountains/high elevations can present a challenge even when the weather is good, never mind bad.

However, I have made a start.  So far I've reviewed 3 segments.  There are 14 segments.  Some of them are fairly short, some of them a lot longer, but I'm taking them in order to make sure that we got everything.  Because filming out of sequence, something might not have been put in the 'proper' place.  The editor says I need to let her know asap if there is anything amiss because we are also heading into the holidays and some people expect to take a few days off from working!

So my goal is to get all of the segments reviewed as quickly as I can so that the editor can finish up their job and the final steps of adding whatever else needs to be included can be readied for posting to the SOS website.  

And then...launch.

For now I have sat at this computer for far too long and I'd really like to spend some time at the loom.  And then I'll do another segment.  

One bite (or perhaps byte) at a time.  One step.  Then another step.  It's how we make progress.  Even when it seems to take a very long time.  Winter will eventually end.  Spring will come.  And not every day will be sunny, but not every day will be dreary.  

In the paraphrased words of Winston Churchill - when you are going through hell...keep going.