Peace and Quiet

 

I am in count down mode with my next back injection booked for next Tuesday.  I feel like I'm about 3 weeks 'late' getting it, but there isn't much that can be done.  When I made the appointment, it seemed do-able and I'd be 'fine'.  Today?  Not so much.

On the other hand, some of the other treatments appear to be gaining a toe-hold and after a perfectly miserable weekend, yesterday I didn't feel too bad.  But my 'job' today is to begin threading and that isn't a posture that my lower back much likes, so I suspect I will take some time today to finish the samples needed for the current article (deadline is approaching rather quickly!) and do the final polish for the next two, booked for the following issue.

Or maybe it was the appointment with the chiropractor who gave me a pep talk which helped.  Or maybe it is just that I made enough progress that I was able to lift myself up an inch or two by my bootstraps (which is such a fantasy - it was the helping hand from several people that allowed me to get up and move forward).

And that's the thing.   It is rarely ever a solitary 'job', to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get going again.  There are constant 'helping hands' that help to drag yourself forward, even when you think you cannot.  Sometimes it is a well timed comment that knocks you off your precarious perch, trying to not fall off and you realize you don't have to fall, you can just lay down and roll down the hill and not wait for the loss of balance and out of control of tumble downwards.

All of my medical team know how important weaving is to keeping me rooted in reality.  But in the end, it will be what my body will tolerate that will be the determining factor in what I can - or cannot - do.

One of the most difficult things to overcome is my own stubbornness.  My own determination.  My own expectations of what I could - or should - do.  

After the interview with Textiles and Tea, I had some time to think about my life and what I want to do with the rest of it - however much 'rest' there is.

For all the help I have received in my life, for all the support and encouragement I have been given - I would like to help others, as best I can.  A thank you.  A gesture of gratitude.  I could sit back and never do another thing other than read books or build puzzles.  But that begins to feel very...unfulfilling...after a while.   Pointless.  Selfish, even.  

Talking with a colleague a couple of years ago, we talked about impostor syndrome.  We both deal with it.  It's hard to accept that we have a level of 'expertise'.  I say that not to lift myself up, but to say to that inner child who was constantly told that they were never enough, that they were insufficient, to think that I would never, could never, be enough, and to assume that I was, was a fantasy.  That I was an impostor.  As we talked my mouth blurted out "I wrote a book because I know shit!"  We were both shocked into silence until we laughed and laughed.  We gave each other a big grin.  And I think we both began to shrink that inner child who had been told for years that they would never be worth while.  That we could develop a level of expertise in something - anything.  

Am I saying I will write another book?  Hell, no.  

But I *can* write articles.  

So, today I will tackle those things I'm doing for WEFT.  I cannot say I have the one, the only, the 'true' story.  But I can say I am doing my level best to try and understand all the things that go into the challenge of taking yarn and weaving it into a textile.  I will try to shed a little light.  Perhaps point out pitfalls in our 'usual' thinking.  And encourage others to find out more.  Because the life so short and the craft so long to learn...