If I accomplish nothing else in the next 10 months, 2020 will have been a banner year. I’ve had my work exhibited in juried shows in Chicago and Boston, and have a show up currently closer to home. And then this happened—a feature in Seven Days, Vermont’s largest and best news and arts weekly.
Each of these required time, and effort—let’s just say I’ve learned a lot in a relatively short time about preparing one’s work to hang (properly!) in a gallery, and all of the 52 Small Meditations on Peace had to be assembled and mounted in time for the local exhibit. I travelled to Boston for the opening of that show. And then there was an interview, and then a photoshoot, for the Seven Days article.
Really, these are the very best problems to have! But all the distractions have meant very little time or energy for actually MAKING anything new. I have not stitched a single temari ball so far in 2020. I’ve completed a couple of infinity scarves, but then my cats chewed the cast-on edge of one of them just before I finished it. I still have to figure out how best to mend it.
Finished and ready for blocking… and mending.
And pacing anxiously like a restless tiger in the back of my mind—taxes. Assembling the documents and paperwork and most importantly the brains I needed to do that, as soon as possible, to deliver to my accountant. Oooph.
I’m not great when it comes to paperwork.
Well, all that whirlwind has settled down now, and the taxes are done. I had been looking forward to this point, to settling down with a nice basketful of temari to stitch, knits to knit, and embroideries to embroider. Time to think about new work, new directions, new ideas…
Temari with the first wool wrapping. Now they await the actual background wrapping and then stitching.
But not so fast. (Warning: a little personal disclosure follows.) A week and a half ago I got pretty well smacked around by the flu (yes, I had a flu shot, but that didn’t help this time). High fever, and quite possibly the worst sore throat I’ve ever had. Then, just as I was emerging from the flu, I suffered a sudden and extremely painful deterioration in my temperomandibular joint. I’ve had TMJ issues for years and I knew this day would probably come eventually: at this point I cannot close my mouth completely, and I certainly cannot chew anything at all. I have limited range of motion, so yes I can talk and open my mouth somewhat. I may know more by the end of the week, if the swelling and inflammation have abated enough for my dentist to assess the situation. For now, though, I must be patient and eat a lot of yogurt, custard, applesauce, and purees. And now, thanks to my skewed jaw, my body is overcompensating everywhere else, leaving me with back and neck issues that I can’t ignore.
The result of all of this, aside from major sleep deprivation, is that my creative mojo has gone AWOL. When I look at my temari threads they do not speak to me. My 25 Million Stitches panel languishes, although the world’s refugees whose plight this work is meant to spotlight continue to face challenges and difficulties far worse than mine. And at a time when national and world events beg me to embroider hope or pain or anger or answers, my needle is silent.
Lost at sea
So, I’m taking refuge in knitting. I’ve got an infinity on the needles in gorgeous Malabrigo Arroyo
and just yesterday I took bits of 16 different colorways of Koigu and spliced and wound them into two magic balls, which will eventually make a new fringed linen stitch wrap. Of course, I should have taken a photograph of all the colors before I wound the balls! but now you’ll just have to enjoy the slow reveal of the colors as I knit.
I hope, as I stitch, to regain a little personal equilibrium, which will then help me to cope with events and issues in my personal life and in the wider world as well. Because I don’t think the 2020 roller coaster is anywhere near done with us yet.
