Working with keywords

It’s funny how life tricks you sometimes. My keyword this month was Health, and I guess I was taking it dead seriously…

I’ve mentioned Pain – and there’s been a lot of it to focus on. I’ve had headaches going on for weeks, my recurring gut problem has surfaced again and no painkillers help with either. So I get really, really tired, falling asleep around 2 pm, drag myself around to do just a few things so I don’t get cranky AND depressed. 😉

Here I was thinking I’d do all sorts of clever meditations and evaluations, reconnect with that body and get us all ready to be tuned up. Well, none of that esoteric stuff, I just ended up going to the doctor’s. Further examinations await, in the meantime I just practise nursing unhealth, ponder and accept.

I hope to be back on line for more ramblings about taming the artist’s mind, digging into my own behaviour etc. soon. But right now I think I just need to leave all that difficult stuff on a shelf and do everyday plain things and thinking. When I’m not worrying 😉

My activities are plain too. I can’t get my mind into tapestry gear although I’m participating in a Ravelry challenge, this is as far as I got:

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So it’s repetitive motion, simple designs, clicking the interwebs, reading when my head allows. (it seems to have cleared up for now at least) But it’s a great stash buster, this plain weaving. And if anyone has some advice on linen/linen warp/weft, I’m all ears, because that’s next! I can imagine some stretching and buckling, but how about shrinkage thrown into the equation?

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Not much of anything

A couple of weeks ago I had a million things I wanted to write about, words and ideas were in a queue. In fact I was on such a roll that I thought I could take a break and not be stopped!

Well baahaa. Come Monday and my head was completely empty. That was Monday before last. It appears that if I don’t go with the flow, the flow goes on without me and when I look up, the view is different. Right now, my brain is doing textiles, no words. Apparently I have no say in the matter. I’m doing a lot of things, they’re just not what I thought I’d be doing. I’ve not even been reading anything.

Ok, I do know what happened – last week I had some really bad headaches. And these happened. I guess I should have known that would throw my focus.

Emil Leo
So we took your seat, you weren’t using it!

I hope I can get back to what I wanted to say on Focus and Intention. Or perhaps what I had to say wasn’t all that important and I was therefore saved by circumstances. 😉

I do keep up the Bullet Journal. It’s not a planner, although it has dates and lists in it, I see it more as a suggestion. I write things down as I think of them and they may get done sooner or later. An upgrade from my previous napkin/post-it/envelope note system. And that works pretty well for emptying my head, I even remember to write down some of my design ideas.

I also work pretty hard on not postponing the little things. Yes, the wash room is cold, but you can go pick up the laundry, it takes 15 seconds. Yes, you can put that crochet hook back where it belongs NOW and not just leave it where you’re standing. All those things that are a tiny bit inconvenient right now but won’t kill you. I even finally whipped out the new sewing machine that I got ages ago when I broke my old one mending horse blankets. I simply could not face it if there was issues with the thread tension or something and I’d have to fiddle for ages and not get it quite right. With some things, I can do that dance forever if I feel out of my league. Well I made myself do it and while not as good a machine as the old one, it does, in fact, sew.

Now I’m in a bit of trouble because I’ve also run out of photos for my other blog. I could use some similar shots and whatnot, but we’ll see if I can keep it up. No painting has happened here since before xmas break, that’s the one thing I need the most quiet and the longest time to wind myself up to, and I just don’t seem to get it very often. So I have to dive into the old photo archives again. Because weather. Yuck. Why didn’t I spend all autumn making huge ponchos and hoods and cowls and sweaters from super bulky yarn on size 10 mm needles? Facemasks. Don’t get me started on the mud, at least we seem to get a short break from that now.

Come to think of it, I’m not doing too well in the quote department either. Do I really have to start writing more bad poetry to fill in?! I mean, it’s not like I can give up on the project less than half a year in… Can I?

I’m thinking of weaving things but I can’t show you the inside of my head. (I should be making more colour sketches, so I don’t forget) So many preparations, warping tapestry looms takes days when you get tired. And make mistakes. I’ve learned tonnes already. But I don’t know what to show you to make this post a little interesting. What would you like to see?

(And then I was saved by Pat Tyler. Off to play with orbs! I see collage-mandala potential here.)

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How about pain?

I wrote this post some time ago, then decided to save it for next month when my keyword is “Health”. Today I have one of my blinding headaches again, though, so obviously these thoughts surfaced once more as I’m going to have to admit I won’t be reading or writing anything much for a little while.

Incidentally I’m ALSO contemplating not writing so much in general, as I can see how I use blog time where I could otherwise have doodle time. So I may actually try that out for a while, as part of this month’s keyword “intention/focus”. More on that in my status report at the end of the month I think. On to today’s topic:


We’ve talked about Resistance in the form of procrastination, fear, interruptions, lack of energy, lack of ideas etc. There’s another form of resistance I’d like to ask you about – physical pain.

headache monsterThe one thing that disturbs me the most is my body. Headaches, stomach pains, fatigue, even hunger or cold. I. Can. Not. Concentrate. I’ve succesfully overcome most of my backaches (as in, they’re gone), my continually sore right thumb is a nuisance but not stopping me as such apart from the things it obviously can’t do. But the others – I can’t seem to beat them. I’m floored and useless every single time. When I wake up at 4 am for instance and get the brilliant idea of getting up to write down my thoughts instead of ruminating, I end up just sitting here shivering and unable to think as well as I did under the covers, since the house is only about 15-18 C at night. (I guess I need to have a set of really warm clothes in my office or the bathroom for such occasions. Something that doesn’t itch 😉 )

Can you do your work through physical pain or discomfort? Both the light rumble and the cold sweating, headsplitting kind. Mind you, there’s nothing actually wrong with me – it’s really over the top over nothing. At a frequency that would get you fired from virtually any normal job (as if I’d want one, LOL).

Not ok. Some people tell me I should be nice to my body and coddle it like it was a beloved infant. Please. I can’t stop the world every time the baby wants its way, which is me on my bum doing nothing, ever. It hates exercise. With a vengeance *. It wants sugar – lots. The way I see it, I have a body, it’s not what I am. I have to keep telling it off constantly. But I obviously need to do something different to make it cooperate with me and not with Resistance. I’m pretending to going along with the fatigue, but the rest is not going too well on the acceptance front.

Can somebody give me a crash course on body language, pls? I’m dead serious, I need to figure this out, and it’s proving to be a tough nut for me (Such as the water issue). I’ve been reading about reprogramming your brain circuits, “carving new tracks” so to speak, to replace old thought patterns, and I do believe it’s possible. I somehow need to change the story I’m telling about the body itself. I’m going to look into the philosophies behind Reconnective healing et al, but I’m interested in hearing if and how you manage to work through various types of discomfort that are not really “dangerous” as such.

Seems to me it would be a great skill if you could choose to not pay attention to these things, after having established that you’re not about to croak? Being comfortable with discomfort.

Or, as one author put it, who’s driving the bus?

Do different people have different levels of tolerance or body perception, is this simply an HSP thing?? Such as the professional athlete who keeps running with a broken rib. Can you change it or is it one of the hardwired parts of your brain/personality? If you can change it – how about other traits such as my need for alone time to center and concentrate? Could I make myself less noise and interruption sensitive? I know I’m probably reinforcing it by telling this story again and again, to justify my demand and to change the habits of other people, but could I do the opposite or is that too deep? I mean, basically I don’t want to have to be around people all day every day, so my inability is in fact a great excuse, but the theory is interesting anyway. Or is the problem in reality that I keep telling the story of interruptions (and pain), thereby cementing the event as well as my anger about it? This is a more esoteric variety, but curious nevertheless.

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* As an aside, I’ve invented a new sleeping pill. Whenever I feel that it’s one of those nights that will take me hours to fall asleep, I think about running. I feel the gravel under my feet, I see the trees and the light, I smell the air, I feel light and athletic (I actually night-dream of running so lightly sometimes, so I know how it feels). And BOOM, within 5 minutes or so of starting this fantasy I sleep like a log. That’s how much my body hates exercise, LOL.

Year of the Horse 2014

blavatarWell, technically not until January 31st. and not someting I normally pay attention to. Yet this is a circle closing for me, as I was born in the year of the horse and the animal itself is a lifelong love for me. The spirit of the horse is recognized to be “the Chinese people’s ethos – making unremitting efforts to improve themselves. It is energetic, bright, warm-hearted, intelligent and able.”

As I was contemplating the notion of making a journal based on “Word of the year” – or in my case as a multipod, word of the month, it struck me that perhaps I could use horses as the underlying image theme. The hero’s journey on horseback. Could this be a “the year when I finally return to myself – theme”?

I’m not really a journaling person, (but then I said I never do poetry and began to write haiku!) this blog is the closest I’ve ever come to a diary, and printed calendars I usually fill in for about 3 weeks. So when Quinn asked for our choice of words for the year I really just played along for fun. But then we got a bit of a conversation going and I thought about doing something with words and paints and mulled it over and then – guess what? I won the book!! (what a nice feeling to actually delete something from my Amazon list)

“Inner Hero Creative Art Journal” by Quinn McDonald is a book about silencing your inner critic as well as a collection of actual mixed media techniques that I’m really looking forward to trying out. And the topic, well, we all know how that’s just what I need! It just arrived in the mail today, but I’ll let you know at a later date how I’m getting along with it.

I’ve also mentioned before that for years I’ve had the title and loose idea for a book about Charlie, but been stuck ever since. Is this an opening? Time will tell! Any trick that generates good things is fine with me. Horses are as good a topic to bind together different crafts as any. Can I point my imagery in that direction for such a long time I wonder? I could do with a few limitations…

Charlie & Rollo

Apart from working with key words and the Hero Journal prompts, I’m also going to try out the Bullet Journal, as well as a sidekick to that describing various project ideas in more detail. Out with the post-it/back of envelopes/10 pads system and in with structure! I found a notebook with 4 colour sections to keep similar project ideas in the same general area. In fact my bullet journal does too, in case I want to expand the concept.

I don’t know if I’m a person who likes or benefits from working with key words like this. Not even sure “how it’s done” but I’m not going to spend a lot of time investigating how others do it, I’ll just be aware and see what happens. I know I can’t pick one single one for a whole year – so sue me. But I don’t mind giving it a whirl to see what it does. Unless I get sidetracked of course.

And – I have to make sure this is not just some thing to get me sidetracked from something else. It’s generating a lot of thoughts already. This is meant to be a tool for the work I want to do, not a new, big project in itself. If it’s not a helper, out it goes. You see, my word for January is

Intention/Focus (ok, so it’s two words, I noticed already)

But I fear if I go on, this will be a really long post, so I’ll save the rest for another day. My intention is to make a couple of posts about each month’s keyword, the questions I ask myself, progress, exercises until I run out of interested readers. If I really start blabbing I’ll just keep it to myself and post excerpts. We’ll see. Right now, I’m going to press Publish and shut my brain down for the day.

Caliber

Efficiency

While getting ready to reknit the bottom half of my ginormous blue tunic (scroll down to skip the chitchat and see what’s happening with that), I was pondering the conundrum of work ethic, focus vs. procrastination, efficiency vs. slow cloth. I feel like I’m flogging a dead horse by now, but apparently I’m a slow learner in some areas.

I’m having fun with this project of investigating my own reactions and preferences, so bear with me! (or skip to the images) Just a bit of thinking out loud as an add on to Wednesday’s post.

You know how I want to do ALL the things. Or at the very least, I want to learn about all the things. Which, if you give in to it, leads to either hurry, long hours or crappy jobs. If I had not given myself a deadline I would have re-padded Mimi to try on the sweater more often, with more lifelines, and been able to trust the result (I can’t fit knitwear succesfully on myself, that much I know), I might have not ended up having to frog. If on the other hand I’d not introduced a deadline, it could have taken me 2 years to knit instead of a month, because I would have gotten sidetracked by all the things.

So it turns out, it’s not only about beating procrastination and getting the job done, the focus also has to be on the quality. Goes without saying you think, but while I obviously want to do good work, my battle so far has been centered on simply the doing, finding a structure and discipline to make it possible to do all the things. In my head all/most of my interests are linked, and I’d like to keep it that way, even though I know I’m waving a shotgun rather than shoot with bow and arrow. (which I’d love to learn btw but I’m trying to save it for another lifetime. Like weaving. Ahem.)

Time is not of great importance with sweater knitting of course, since it’s just an innocent hobby, but I think I can use any activity to improve my general workflow and mindset. While efficiency is great, I need to be mindful as well, we don’t want to get run over by the stress monster (again). I still think one of the keys is to work more serial rather than parallel, so I have to be even more careful and focused about choosing each project. A change which in itself is a serious workout for Patience. Perhaps I should be content to not only set up my physical projects in serial production, but also the work with my inner issues. I just wonder if the list will ever stop growing! 😉

(yes, Arlee, I did read what you wrote on the practice instead of the performance)

Can’t have a Fiber Friday without show and tell of course, so here’s a smallcompilation for those of you not so interested in my little dance with Resistance. There are comments about each if you click the thumbnails.