Be-calmed

photo from a walk through

 the Ancient Forest east of town

People sometimes ask where to find inspiration.  I find it all around me.  The bark of this huge cedar tree reminds me of a textile - one woven in collapse weave perhaps.  Or an irregular twill.  With several shades of grey and a kind of yellow/green moss colour, a little beige (wood).  All set off by the green of the Devil's Club leaves (the size of very large dinner plates).

I find myself today in the eye of the storm.  Calm when I would 'normally' be scrambling trying to make one more thing, do one more thing, more, more, more...

After making a few more decisions yesterday, however, I find myself calm.  Maybe because I just don't care anymore - I'm done with the mad scramble.  I'm done worrying about whether or not I will earn enough money to pay the bills.  Instead I am getting rid of the bills.

The invoice for the city business license arrived this morning.  I opened it and...I didn't care.  The license expires on Dec. 31 which is when my business officially closes.  I will likely go into City Hall, hand it to them and tell them to cancel it so that they don't keep sending me reminders.

Yesterday the business phone rang and a call centre voice asked to speak to the business owner.  I said "no" and hung up.  I just don't care.  That line will be discontinued in January and I will no longer have to pay that bill, which also arrived in today's mail.   Plus there won't be spam phone calls, frequently several every day.

So I continue to whittle away at the things that will soon become irrelevant to me.  We will probably have to take a long look at our finances, but our needs are few, we don't want for much.  Getting rid of the grind is bringing me a peace and calm I haven't had for a very long time.

And it's all good.

Press Pause

Over the weekend and yesterday I discovered that I am more than ready to end my professional life.  Beyond ready, in fact.  At one point yesterday I threatened to cancel the last two shows of the year because stick a fork in me, I am so done.

Sanity eventually prevailed and I adjusted my attitude, pulled myself together, came up with Plan B, and carried on.  I even managed to get to the Megado and carefully weave the rest of the scarf I'd begun before the show. 

My life for the last 40+ years has been all about the scramble, from one deadline to the next.  One job to the next.  Looking ahead, sometimes years, booking shows, booking classes, thinking up one more Big Project.

Since around June of this year, I have had to completely re-think everything I have been doing.  Let go of expectations.  Acknowledge the reality of this moment and that things may never get better.  At this point, I'm just working on trying to not let them get worse.

When some people find out I'm retiring they assure me I will be busier than ever.  If I wanted to stay busy, I wouldn't be retiring...the fact is I cannot maintain the kind of schedule I have kept for the past four decades.  That's the whole point of retiring!  I needed to Press Pause on my life as it was and begin to craft a new one.  One with less stress.  Fewer deadlines.  More time to stop and think.  Read.  Coast.

A life with fewer rolling deadlines will allow me to think more carefully.  Dig more deeply.  Explore further than I could when I was distracted by the daily grind.

So while I won't be sitting on the sofa eating bon-bons, I look forward to a more thoughtful approach to weaving.  And living.

Someone asked what I was going to do and I had to admit that right now?  I have no idea.  I have to make it through the next three months, finish closing down my business.  Take care of some health issues.  Maybe by the time the solstice arrives I will begin to see the light of a new life.  Until then?  Just taking care of business.  Because I'm not a quitter.  When I say I'll do something I will move heaven and earth to do it.  Studio Fair and Art Market, I will be there.  Come and say bye. 

PS - I no longer accept credit/debt cards.  Payment by e-transfer/Paypal/cash/cheque only

So, How's Your Day Going?

Today is day 1 of the first of the last three craft fairs I will do on my own.

The universe (or whatever) has made it abundantly clear that I need to stop.  I need to transition over into a new way of living.  A new life.

Apparently I'm not doing this quickly enough.

Yesterday the van started dinging - the tire pressure alarm was going off.  Doug assured me he'd just checked the tire pressure and while it was a wee bit on the low side, nothing to worry about.  Nothing to be (heh, heh) alarmed about.

It continued to ding every time the motor was turned on, so Doug decided he'd better take the van to the shop and see if the alarm was giving a false reading.

This morning we got up with the (very early - for us) alarm, and slowly started getting ready for the day.  I still had some last minute tweaks to make to the display and get Square set up.  Something I knew would take me some time, since I'd not used it for quite a long while.

Doug headed out to the van and came back in.  Oops.  Front passenger tire on the van was pancaked.

No worries, I'd simply take the truck and go on up while he dealt with the van.

Erm, completely frozen truck.

Doug managed to get the truck open but while I waited I thought about the fact that it really is time for me to stop.  I just have a few more things to get done.  But if ever I had doubts about quitting?  The universe reminded me again this morning that nope, I do need to stop.

I had kind of agonized about posting a 'farewell' notice in my booth, wondering if people would accept that it wasn't meant as a sales pitch, just a sincere desire to thank all those people in the community who have been there for me.  In the end, quite a few people have come to talk to me, to say they own my work, how much they have enjoyed having my textiles in their lives, their homes.  Several have expressed the opinion that I have given it a good run and it's perfectly fine for me to 'retire' even if they will miss me - and my work.

So, my day is going ok.  Now.  How's yours?

Re-Imagining

I think one of the reasons I have been struggling with this whole 'retirement' thing is that I don't really want to 'retire'. 

I am tired.  That much is true.  I have been dealing with nearly constant fatigue and lack of energy since about 2006.  There is nothing quite like a body that has been worked hard and is now struggling to keep going.  And that, dear friends, is pretty much where I am at.

Two significant health issues, both of which have fatigue as a primary symptom, not to mention adverse drug reactions with fatigue as a primary symptom, means I am tired.  All the time, tired.

When I was younger I would race through the days, fueled by adrenaline.  Seems that is not exactly inexhaustible.  One can actually run out.

So here I am, about to set up for the first show of the year with no adrenaline to draw on.  The only way to keep going is to just...keep going.  But now I have an end in sight.  An end to the scramble.  The headlong rush to leap over each deadline as it rolls by.

I have regrets, of course I do.  But I am also pragmatic and it is time to accept the fact that I have given it my all.  I have done things I had no idea I would be able to accomplish.  I have been places and met people - all because I had this idea, this dream, that it would be possible to do this thing as my life's work.

The benefits have far outweighed the negatives.  But I'm tired.  It is time to imagine a different life for myself.  And I think I've done a pretty good job of that, too.  There are still some obligations to complete, stash to reduce, things to get rid of, one way or another.

Time to cut back.  Time to rest.  Who knows, maybe in the end I will discover that the adrenaline well will begin to refill and I will be able to feel more energetic again. 

But if not?  That's ok, too.

Today is 30 days away from my next clinic appointment.  I think my remission is holding.  I hope so because I still haven't recovered from the adverse effects of the last cancer drug.  In my special snowflake-ness, my body seems to have slipped into a completely unexpected hiatus from the cancer.  I am hoping very much that will continue because I want to continue to teach for a while yet.  I am hoping to hear from Olds College soon about 2020.    Stay tuned.

Prep Time

Last weekend Doug went pressing, getting the finishing press on the last of the place mats done.  While waiting for the press to heat up, he loaded up the rest of the inventory stored there, then Sunday night boxed up all the inventory stored here.  Tuesday his helper came and the two of them carried all the boxes and bins upstairs and out into the carport in order to load up the van.

Meanwhile I was fringe twisting my fingers to the bone (so to speak).  I have three more scarves to do but my wrists are beginning to hurt on top of my back, which has been hurting all along.  (Growing old - and decrepit - is not for sissies!)

It feels very odd, this not scrambling like mad, trying to make more, do more.  Recognizing that this is the last year to do craft fairs on my own hook.  The local guild has a booth at the big craft fair each year, and I have discussed the fact that I can sell through the guild booth on consignment, both there and at other venues the guild takes part in - like the fall fair and the annual guild sale.  So I'm not gone entirely - because my inventory won't be gone.

It also feels very odd to not be scrambling trying to fill up my calendar with guild and conference teaching opportunities.  Or article submission deadlines.  The oddity continues because the college has been going through some changes and I won't know until well into the new year if I will be teaching at Olds.  Since I'm not contacting other venues, I can hold dates open for the college - am happy to do so, in fact. 

But it all feels...odd.

I feel some kind of public acknowledgement needs to be done, so I will likely print out a 'farewell' letter and post in my booth.  I'd like to let people know that I'm done but also - especially for the local people - give information on where my textiles will continue to be on sale.

We are pretty much through autumn, heading into winter.  We had a huge wind storm the other day which ripped most of the rest of the leaves off of the trees.  Things are looking sparse - and sad.  Autumn colours have faded and overnight frost is now routine.  I'd be much happier if we had some sunny days at least.  The daylight hours are getting shorter, made even more so due to the overcast dreariness.  The forecast is saying some sun over the weekend, so I am hoping that happens. 

I am in persevere mode right now.  One day, one job, one deadline at a time.  Getting through the next 4 weeks, then through to the solstice.  When the sun begins it's slow gentle return.

Broken Record

Blogger gives statistics on page views and I frequently find it interesting which posts from the past are being read.

As I scroll through I am somewhat dismayed - at times - to see how frequently I address the same things over and over again.

When I chose the title for this post it suddenly occurred to me that the phrase 'broken record' will be meaningless to a large swathe of the population.  Because in order to understand the reference, folk have to have experienced an actual 'broken record'.  The vinyl pressing that a certain age bracket (mine) used to listen to for their music (and poetry and audio books/plays).

Over the years I have learned that people need to hear the same snippet of information over and over again before it will stick in their foundation of knowledge.  I developed short sharp sentences to focus on principles:  Never use a knot where a bow will do; a thread under tension is a thread under control, and so on.  In class I repeat these things over and over when something happens to illustrate the concept.

Recently someone who is educated in how people learn commented that people learn something in a linear fashion and until they learn step A, they can't learn step B. (I paraphrase.)

This is something I have noticed in my own practice.  And so, in a classroom of mixed experienced students, I find that it may take multiple repetitions of these principles before the ah-HA! moment for each arrives.

And why I keep stepping up onto my soapbox and repeating the same principles over and over again until I begin to tire of hearing my own voice.  And why I wrote it all down, to the best of my ability.

Comfort Zone

One of the benefits of working only from my stash is that I have to be bolder in my colour choices.

Rayon chenille has been a wonderful yarn to force myself out of my comfort zone of colours that I prefer to work with.  When I'm doing a scarf series using it, I tend to weave plain weave (for reasons) and make the coloured stripes in the warp the design element.

I will routinely begin with the proportions of the Fibonacci sequence, tweak them, make a stripe that can be interpreted in a variety of different colours in those stripes.

For this one, the value for '1' was 2 ends.  The proportions were then 5:3:1:3, repeat.  This created a fairly static stripe sequence but a lot of people like to have a symmetrical stripe.  (I have done asymmetrical stripes, too.)  One of the ways I added more interest to this cloth was to change which colour went where in the sequence.

Beginning with 5:3:1:3 where 5 was colour A, 3 was colour B and 1 was colour C, this scarf alternated so that the first stripe was as above, then the second was A:C:B:C.  The other selvedge ended with colour A so that both selvedges are the same.  The weft is nearly the same as colour A but not quite - I'd pretty much used up colour A in the warp so something that was very close in hue and value was used.

This combination was not my first but closer to my last - as I was beginning to run low on sufficient quantities of solids to make a two scarf warp.  While the scarves have not yet been wet finished, I'm pleased enough with them that I think they will look even better once they go through the magic in the water.  For now it's the dry finishing that needs to be done.