Birthday Musings

 

The past 10 months or so has been...interesting.  As of August 28, it will be one year since I fell and almost died.  The past 10 months have been a roller coaster ride that I never wished for but found myself on, anyway.

Which is sort of how 'life' works.

You make plans and then life knocks you over and you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

It is an interesting time, not just for me but for almost everyone.  Forces are afoot in society and the planet that feel enormous, too large for one person to deal with, or - perhaps especially - fix.

I keep circling round the same few questions:

What's it all about Alfie?

Why am I here?

What can I do?

What *should* I do?

I waffled back and forth if I should run a sale, as I usually do, this time of the year.  In the end I went ahead with multiple qualifications and much trepidation.  But if anyone wants, the sale continues at my ko-fi shop until midnight Pacific Time, July 9, 2025.  Buy two towels, get one free.

OTOH, after seeing that tariffs would be paused until later in July, this morning I see that the president of the US is sending sternly worded 'letters' to a bunch of countries who have been 'nasty' to him.  So I am hoping that my tea towels will be beneath the notice of US Customs.  

When I began this journey 50 years ago, my father was dying, I was stifling working at office jobs, I hoped for freedom to do what I wanted, suspected that I would love weaving.  I didn't really anticipate how much I would love teaching weaving.  How much my inner child wanted to write and discovered I was pretty good at writing about weaving.

In my mind I thought I would weave for 25 years, then teach for 25 years, then retire.

Well, that 50 years is up this year.  After I did all of it, all at the same time.

But I didn't die last year.  I can only come to the conclusion that there is something else I 'need' to do.  Some reason why I am still here, still able (with help) to write.  And still able (just) to weave.

I still have way too much stash that needs to be used up, somehow, some way.  Still have textile dreams that clamour to be born.

So, I keep searching.  Looking for something that calls to me.  Looking for answers to my physical issues.  Keep on keeping on.

Remembering that lighting someone's else candle does not diminish my own.  I can sit here in my 'office' and cheerlead others.  Encourage them.  Help them (maybe) understand what a complex thing bringing threads together to create a textile can be.  How everything depends.  Everything.

And how truly 'fragile' we humans are, so we really need to help others, if we can.