Spinning
I am learning to spin.
Not around in circles (I’ve been doing that in both body and mind since the day I was born, I’m pretty sure) but with fibers. While rummaging for something or other in the studio a few days back, I came across the little drop spindle Eric’s parents gifted me a few years ago as a Christmas present, and for some reason it was simply time.
Side note : this is the reason I never, EVER get rid of anything artsy - if I’m not drawn to a supply/technique/tool in the moment, it just means it’s not the right moment. But later…later I inevitably will be.
Anyhow - a big hank of deserty-hued wool was part of the gift, so I watched a couple of how-to videos and set to work spinning my first threads. After what felt like hours (because, honestly, it was hours) I felt that I had made enough thread to create a simple two-ply yarn - and after a little more twisting, all that effort left me with a few yards of my own hand-spun goodness. It felt like magic.
Later I was telling Eric about it, all giddy-excited, and I made some off-hand remark about how it was probably time wasted, just me messing around in the studio when I should have been doing something else. It’s the kind of thing I say all the time…the kind of thing he gives me a look for, telling me I don’t need to be so hard on myself and that it’s ok to play, to explore. It’s the kind of thing that usually comes out of my mouth and rolls off of my back in the same breath.
But this time, I felt the sharp sting of hurt and was immediately in tears.
It’s just one of those things - we come to expect that killing words will come from the mouths of others as opposed to from our own lips. Yet there I was, stabbing myself right in the heart. I don’t know why it hit me this time, out of all the times. Why the side of me that usually skulks on the fringes, looking for stolen moments to ignite little sparks of creativity, chose this moment to make herself known. But there she was. Here she is.
So, daily now, I’ve been taking a little time to spin (which feels like small courage in the face of such a busy and broken world). The going is still slow, but I’m learning to draft the wool smoothly, letting the twist travel up the thread and through my fingers and into the fibers beyond. It’s instant access to the flow state, and I have to make myself stop to eat, to drink. I have no plans for this someday-yarn, other than watching the layers and layers of it fatten up on the spindle, no great ambitions to share or sell or show off what this becomes. It is simply about the making.
I’m going to be spending the next couple weeks with family, digging into my roots and poking around some of the old haunts that form the foundations of by being. There will be no (or, at the very least, little) internet and I’m going to make a concerted effort to notice the things that, like my little spindle, capture my attention - regardless of whether or not I think they might someday be “useful.” It’s going to be an experiment of the heart.