The Persistence of Water

 

My mother always used to ask me where I got my 'bull-headed-ness' from.

Pot calling the kettle black but also?  There is the persistence of water.

Astrology tells us that people are born under certain signs.  Mine is Cancer (the crab) and I'm 'water'.  While I don't ascribe to much of what astrology says is true for people born under these signs, in some ways I do.

Take persistence.

When I grab hold of an idea it takes a lot to get me to let go.  Very crab-like.  When obstacles arrive in my path, like water I seek a way beyond them.  Sometimes that means I divert my course of actions around.  Sometimes I go under.  Sometimes?  I simply rise up and go over.

As I look back on my life, I see how many times I have approached my career in weaving with just this strategy.  Just keeping on, keeping on.  Wearing away the obstacles.  Tunneling below, slipping around, or pulling on all my strength and energy to rise up and simply flood them out of my way.

This is not always a good strategy.  I did a major burn out/depression doing just that.  I hated to let go of something I'd invested a lot of time, effort and, yes, money into.  

When I finally sought help, the doctor said that it will take the exact same time to recover as I spent digging that hole I'd dug myself into.  And she was right.  During that nearly 18 months of recovery I spent a lot of time examining my tendency to persist.  Persist until I'd buried myself in health issues.  

So now I try to remember that lesson.  Yes, it's good to have a plan.  It's good to have an alternate plan if the first plan doesn't work.  It's good to persist.

But when the well of energy runs dry, it's time to stop.  Maybe let that project go.  

So it was with my second self-published book.  I let go of it multiple times as I dealt with other things, like the house renovations, my mother's ill health and death.  And my own ill health.

But apparently it was meant that I complete it.  I just needed to conserve my energy and stop and rest, replenish when I ran low.  Eventually it would start reminding me of all the work I'd put into it already and if I just kept on going, I'd have a book.

In the end, the persistence of water won out.  And I have two self-published books.  I also have 40+ years of teaching, writing, weaving/selling my textiles.

Now I'm hitting another milestone in a month and coming to realize that my well of energy/water is not able to replenish as quickly as when I was younger.  A sign of aging.  A level of acceptance I am working on.

And yet, I persist.