Something From Something
When we finish one piece, we have to start another the next day or we’ll vulnerable to attack: the devils of depression, doubt, distraction and weirdness are drawn to us, armed. Starting a new piece is our only defense.
How? A topic and a deadline already set out in advance of finishing the previous piece. If I know L. is going to trade essays with me at the end of the month, and we’ve assigned ourselves a topic (she’s a topic creating genius; see also Abigail Thomas.net) I will get the writing done. The topic and the deadline are how you get the airplane parts on your tarmac.
You extend yourself piece by piece, looping each new one to the previous. Maybe it’s like knitting. I don’t know anything about knitting except that sound the needles make is really annoying. I can’t imagine knitting—stabbing thread with needles in order to produce nubby things that itch (vital life-enhancing exception: Diane S’s boiled slippers) but I do know you can’t make something out of nothing
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You’re so right, it must be one new piece after another. Not sure about the knitting analogy - I do knit, but that is my distraction. I guess it works if all your pieces are part of a whole. Mine don’t tend to be, so I see it more as a scarf with big gaps…!
Dianne S is working on socks. The boiled slippers are one of the best points in life.
RP
So Tania, I’m loving the big scarf with gaps analogy sooo much. But I’m thinking the knitting doesn’t mean the pieces have to relate thematically or anything–it’s more the process–? Does that make sense?
the knitting analogy is brilliant - this is how it works:
every knitter has a bag of yarn. you have no idea what’s in the bag. some expensive yarn you had to buy, leftover yarn from a white and red hat, and yarn your sister sent you in the mail.
every knitter also has about three projects going. a shrug, a baby bib/burp rag set, and a scarf to match aforementioned hat.
while you are knitting, you are focused on the small movements: yarn wrapped properly around fingers, needle slipping to the back, pulling yarn through hole, slipping stitch to right needle. you are thinking, “what a great row of purls. forty-five purled stitches. excellent.” you should not show these purls to your boyfriend. he will say, “i don’t really see how that’s going to be a bib.”
you should examine your store-bought sweater and think, “this is just a bunch of stockinette with a little ribbing on the cuffs. i know how to do that.”
when you finish all your projects, you’re not quite sure what to do with your big bag of yarn. good ideas: make the red and white hat in new colors, make the same socks your sister is knitting, knit 4″x4″ swatches to get gauges for all your yarn, crochet something.