Fiber versus Clay

I was able to take yesterday off, giving myself a lovely four day weekend. Pretty soon, a coworker will be going on maternity making this impossible, so I grabbed at the chance. And it was SO nice. I couldn’t really think of how Mom and I should spend the time right before her train left, so I thought we’d have a picnic. We grabbed some sandwiches, and I drove us over to a walking trail on Bayfarm Island. I thought it would be nice, but windy and cold like it always is.

It wasn’t. Where we sat at a picnic table we had the perfect view of San Francisco, Alameda, and the South Bay. I’m talking postcard, bridges and sailboats and all. And it was almost too sunny and warm – we had to shed our sweaters. We walked after lunch and watched the squirrels and egrets and pelicans (and the really rich people in their glass houses – I like my glass house better). We walked so far I got a little worried on the walk back that we wouldn’t make it to the train on time.

Then again, that would have been okay. It was SUCH a nice visit.

So today, back to work. I would say back to the real world, but I just realized I don’t feel that way. My real world is right here, where I’m sitting right now. Adah on her chair, Digit out roaming, the secret project lying on the couch so close to being finished that I can put it aside and start work on the not-secret baby project for the friend of a friend. Can’t wait to get my mitts in that Mission Falls cotton – it’s been all wool all the time, and I need a break. A little, tiny, cabled break, yowza!

You gotta love a Pioneer

Melissa said something the other day that just rocked my world in a big way. For at least seven years, I’ve struggled to think of writing as getting the clay on the wheel. Once that clay is on there, once you’ve glopped it, and centered it, and pushed and pulled it, only THEN can you start spinning, start making it into something. It’s a good writing analogy. It’s fine.

But I’ve also thought: heck, I wasn’t very good at throwing pots. Whenever I did, the clay would tip and slant and slide right into a whumping lumpen blob that wasn’t even ashtray-salvageable. So in the back of my mind, I’d always had a problem with the clay idea.

Now she’s made it evident to me the analogy I’ve been looking for. In her October 8th post (and I just looked it up, and hell, I’M mentioned in the same paragraph), she writes “It’s not about lining up goblins to act as quality control managers at the gate and only permitting the best stuff to come through, it’s about letting it flow. The refining comes later. At this point we’re just shearing the sheep and gathering the fleece.”

Shearing the sheep and gathering the fleece. That’s IT! That’s what I’ve been doing for the last year with this book-project. Ain’t no clay about it – fiber is what I understand. Only after I get all that fleece carded and spun will I be able to knit it into something. I’ve been blocked lately, terrified of approaching the page because I have a Goblin Extraordinaire whispering that I don’t know where the hell the book is going, or even WHY it’s going, and I might as well eat chocolate instead. Well, screw him. I’m going to write today, even though I don’t know where the hell the book is going. That’ll come, once I’ve got those sheep good and naked.

Enjoy your weekend, write, be happy, knit a little if you like, and love someone up.