There is a difference… (1)

…between tenacity and just plain stubbornness…

OK, I admit.  I’m stubborn.  It is a mission sort of thing with me.  I won’t ever admit defeat.  It has kept me going for 62 years.  I had teachers in art school who hated my work.  It only made me work harder.  That people pleasing thing?  Maybe, but I suspect that it is more of the shear joy I get when I accomplish something I didn’t think I could do.  I love a challenge.  Especially a technical challenge.  I get real kicks from sitting down and doing a series of perfect bound buttonholes.  Really.

Over the years I’d like to think that I’ve softened.  Raising kids, running a household and business, traveling on the road all the time, it sort of makes you pick and choose your battles. But there is a private satisfaction when I figure something out.  Something I can dig my teeth into.

I’m crossing my fingers that this blog reaches all my subscribers because there has been no issue in my life that has caused me more grief than to try and figure out why notifications were not going out to my subscribers.  The situation has I hoped been resolved.  It was literally an act of God that my tech support knew a higher up at Google and got things unlocked for me because I was actually blacklisted.  Please, if you don’t want my posts anymore, just unsubscribe.  I have a new plug in that lets you easily do it right on the notification.  No explanations needed.  Just do not put me in the spam box.  I’m hurrying to get this post out because my tech support is standing right here to make sure all goes as it should…

There are a lot of things that surround me at the moment, that should be bringing me pleasure.  I have been slowly working through my stash of bobbin lace pillows, finishing up old projects so I can move the equipment out and downsize some of my “hobbies”.  I already blogged about the “wedding” hankie that I finished for my daughter’s 25th birthday, started by my late mother in law 25 years ago.  That was last month.  I pulled out the next pillow with a small doily square, of a complex Buck’s Point, that has been on this pillow for years.  I have no idea how long.  I left off in the middle of a corner.  This is not just any old corner.  This corner required the addition of 5 extra pairs that come in and drop off in odd places.  I brought it to bobbin lace class.  The teacher blanched.  The person sitting next to me in lace class looked at my pillow and said, “Wow, I remember that.  I was in that class.  That corner was ridiculous.  I cut it off the pillow and moved on.”

So that kind of statement alone is sort of fightin’ words.  I become so stubborn, I will figure this out and won’t everyone be impressed.  Actually they won’t be because really no one cares whether or not I get through this corner.  I went to four lace classes in the past month, and barely progressed, ripping out more than I put in.  The teacher would sort of avoid me.  I don’t think she was in a mood to spend the hours figuring it out either.  Last night was the last class of the semester.  At one point I looked at the clock.  I looked at the lace.  I looked at everyone else in the room.  And I made a huge decision for me.  Huge.  You can’t know how big this is.  I took the scissors to the pillow and cut off the lace.  Done.  The weight lifted off me was enormous.  I didn’t fail.  I didn’t choose to spend my hours working on something that didn’t bring me joy and only bogged me down.  There is too much cool stuff waiting for me in the studio that actually does bring me joy.  The rest of the students were actually aghast.  The teacher patted me on the back and congratulated me.  

I came home and sat down at a puzzle I’m working on, I’ve had it on the table for a week, got the border done in short order and looked at this 1000 piece puzzle, of my favorite painting, “The Luncheon of the Boating Party” and said, what the hell was I thinking?  This is not fun.  All the pieces are virtually the same muddy shades.  I did for an hour and manage four pieces.  I do not want to be working on this puzzle six months from now.  Life is too short.  I have no doubt I can do it.  But why?  This is a whole new way of looking at life and I’m half scared and half giddy with the fact that I can just say, “cut it off…”  Or in this case, “pack it up”.  

I’m 84% finished a book I’ve been reading for a month now.  I have to honestly say I hate the book.  Someone recommended it, and it has been on the best seller list for a long time.  It was in my queue.  It is called, “The Goldfinch”.  It is about a stolen painting, and it involves drugs, intrigue, shady characters, characters who act badly.  I don’t like the characters, feel nothing for them, think the whole premise is ridiculous, and I am finding it painful to sit down and read.  I am so tempted for the first time in my life to just stop reading this book.  84% from the end.  Because, life is too short.  Two friends who read it felt the same, though they finished it they didn’t find the ending to be satisfying at all. 

The point here is I am weighed down by a lot of nonsense that I chose to do for fun.  It isn’t about prevailing and winning but about joy and being gentle with oneself.  My kitchen towel run for this year’s gifts is off and ready for hemming.  I want to do that.  I want to go visit friends.  I want to get a new warp on my big loom.  I want to weave off the Kathrin Weber workshop warp.  I want to sew some beautiful new things.  I don’t want to work on a lace pattern that only frustrates me.  I don’t want to work on a puzzle that does not bring me joy.  And you know what?  I don’t have to…

Stay tuned…