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Wow, so. It's been a long while since I journaled last. At the start of the new year I will give myself the challenge to do a daily journal longhand. I plan to make a book to use. I need an awl for this, to punch holes in the paper. For the cover, I think I will sacrifice my colorful skirt. The one I've had since high school... kind of the iconic Caitlin attire. But it is shredded, nearly, like a tattered flag. The hole in the bottom has ripped and expanded so that the entire bottom piece is almost severed. Other holes appear daily. I wear it so much. Ryan calls me ragamuffin now. So I named us the Ragamuffins.
Anyway I found a book in the library that teaches you how to make cloth books. I want to use my skirt as the cover for this new journal. I want to use the rest of the skirt for a headband of some kind, belts, bracelets. Since finding that skirt at Ross back in... 2006? I have not found a similar skirt since.
It is a long way off, the start of the new year. I don't want to wait, but I want to be able to give the journal my full thoughts. Until then my months and my thoughts are occupied. Knitting occupies them, a project I took on impulsively and cannot now back out of without much shame and disgrace to my name. I don't think I am obsessed with knitting in that I cannot control my urge to knit, but I am devoted to it. Now, certainly, with this project, I am devoted to it. The project is necessary because I must prove to myself that I can set goals and complete them for no other reason than my own satisfaction in completing them, my own joy in the process. No grades or approval from others.
I'd like to talk about how this project came about. The "New Year's Resolutions" I call them. Five dresses, five months to complete them. I've already finished one, and it took me almost exactly one month. I'm about halfway or 3/8 of the way done with the second one.
It happened because I want to leave Idaho so badly, but our estimated date for leaving isn't until the new year. Also at the new year we will be in Atlanta, Georgia, for five nights of Umphrey's McGee. That would be a very fanatical thing to do on its own - the expense of tickets, transportation, hotel, and food alone is quite an investment to see one band. From the outside I can see myself, giddy as a teenager. I like this. I like that I can do things like this. It keeps the child alive! Also Umphrey's fucking rocks. It's very hard to convince anyone else of this fact....
I just wanted to fill the time, and to have some awesome, funky clothes to wear to Atlanta. So I decided - hey - I have five months to kill before Atlanta. How long does it take to knit a dress? Hell, it can't take more than a month. There's five months. That's five dresses. What fun. No problem. Nevermind I've never knitted a shaped item of such scale. It's basically a sweater's amount of work (I assume... unless sweaters are more fiddly than I think they are). Nevermind that each dress will cost, in yarn and time, significantly more than such an item would be worth to a consumer. I knew that each dress would present its own unique challenges, that I could potentially waste hours on stupid mistakes, but that itself is exciting. The first dress, I already learned so many things I never knew before, not least among them PATIENCE. I made so many stupid mistakes on that dress that cost me many frustrating hours of frogging back finicky cables. But I learned: cabling without a cable needle, how to knit a picot hem, how to pick up stitches along a neckline and armholes, and how to fudge a seam when you're so tired of looking at the same maroon yarn that you just want the damn sweaty thing OFF your lap.
Anyway... patience. One of my coworkers called me "chill" the other day. For a chronically anxious person to hear that, well, I know the knitting has been paying off. I am also more dextrous now, and more graceful. I don't drop things nearly as much as I used to. Knitting so much has helped me center my thoughts on command. I can find an approximation of myself in a moment and enjoy the moment and just be. Patience gained from knitting has also improved my relationship with Ryan. It is now easier for me to let go of petty things, unless I am already riled up... I'm still very sensitive. It's a work in progress. But if you can't enjoy the progress, there's no point to any fucking thing at all.
That's also why I'm so intent on finishing this project. So I can get on to the next one, the next project, the next set of opportunities to develop as a person. One of the biggest realizations I've had is that all the time you spend worrying about the future or about the past is time you're NOT spending developing your mind outward in positive ways. So, ironically, you manifest your own worries, you perpetuate your own sense of failure with every moment spent lost in anxious rumination. It's very clear to me now. I don't need to worry about other people's expectations, I don't need to worry about being successful and career-driven, all I need to do is keep expanding my mind and myself, and the other worries will evaporate.
Well, it isn't quite that easy, but it sure as hell keeps the maze simpler in my head.
Over and out for now. I have some knitting to do.
Anyway I found a book in the library that teaches you how to make cloth books. I want to use my skirt as the cover for this new journal. I want to use the rest of the skirt for a headband of some kind, belts, bracelets. Since finding that skirt at Ross back in... 2006? I have not found a similar skirt since.
It is a long way off, the start of the new year. I don't want to wait, but I want to be able to give the journal my full thoughts. Until then my months and my thoughts are occupied. Knitting occupies them, a project I took on impulsively and cannot now back out of without much shame and disgrace to my name. I don't think I am obsessed with knitting in that I cannot control my urge to knit, but I am devoted to it. Now, certainly, with this project, I am devoted to it. The project is necessary because I must prove to myself that I can set goals and complete them for no other reason than my own satisfaction in completing them, my own joy in the process. No grades or approval from others.
I'd like to talk about how this project came about. The "New Year's Resolutions" I call them. Five dresses, five months to complete them. I've already finished one, and it took me almost exactly one month. I'm about halfway or 3/8 of the way done with the second one.
It happened because I want to leave Idaho so badly, but our estimated date for leaving isn't until the new year. Also at the new year we will be in Atlanta, Georgia, for five nights of Umphrey's McGee. That would be a very fanatical thing to do on its own - the expense of tickets, transportation, hotel, and food alone is quite an investment to see one band. From the outside I can see myself, giddy as a teenager. I like this. I like that I can do things like this. It keeps the child alive! Also Umphrey's fucking rocks. It's very hard to convince anyone else of this fact....
I just wanted to fill the time, and to have some awesome, funky clothes to wear to Atlanta. So I decided - hey - I have five months to kill before Atlanta. How long does it take to knit a dress? Hell, it can't take more than a month. There's five months. That's five dresses. What fun. No problem. Nevermind I've never knitted a shaped item of such scale. It's basically a sweater's amount of work (I assume... unless sweaters are more fiddly than I think they are). Nevermind that each dress will cost, in yarn and time, significantly more than such an item would be worth to a consumer. I knew that each dress would present its own unique challenges, that I could potentially waste hours on stupid mistakes, but that itself is exciting. The first dress, I already learned so many things I never knew before, not least among them PATIENCE. I made so many stupid mistakes on that dress that cost me many frustrating hours of frogging back finicky cables. But I learned: cabling without a cable needle, how to knit a picot hem, how to pick up stitches along a neckline and armholes, and how to fudge a seam when you're so tired of looking at the same maroon yarn that you just want the damn sweaty thing OFF your lap.
Anyway... patience. One of my coworkers called me "chill" the other day. For a chronically anxious person to hear that, well, I know the knitting has been paying off. I am also more dextrous now, and more graceful. I don't drop things nearly as much as I used to. Knitting so much has helped me center my thoughts on command. I can find an approximation of myself in a moment and enjoy the moment and just be. Patience gained from knitting has also improved my relationship with Ryan. It is now easier for me to let go of petty things, unless I am already riled up... I'm still very sensitive. It's a work in progress. But if you can't enjoy the progress, there's no point to any fucking thing at all.
That's also why I'm so intent on finishing this project. So I can get on to the next one, the next project, the next set of opportunities to develop as a person. One of the biggest realizations I've had is that all the time you spend worrying about the future or about the past is time you're NOT spending developing your mind outward in positive ways. So, ironically, you manifest your own worries, you perpetuate your own sense of failure with every moment spent lost in anxious rumination. It's very clear to me now. I don't need to worry about other people's expectations, I don't need to worry about being successful and career-driven, all I need to do is keep expanding my mind and myself, and the other worries will evaporate.
Well, it isn't quite that easy, but it sure as hell keeps the maze simpler in my head.
Over and out for now. I have some knitting to do.
