The Land of Someday
Sep. 15th, 2018 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neadodsWe all tell ourselves that someday, some day, some mythical day in the future when...
... school is over
... the moving boxes are all unpacked
... the debt is paid
... the decluttering is done
... the big whatever is finished
Then - and only THEN - is when you’re free. Free to read all those books. Free to do that frivolous project. Free to learn that useless but interesting-looking skill. Free to do that thing - you know *that* thing - that you were going to FINALLY do... someday.
Those who’ve followed me on Live Journal and then Dreamwidth know what a long, strange trip it’s been for me. Thousands of dollars of debt to pay off. Seemingly unending methods of decluttering and reorganizing. House renovations done piecemeal via the Good Old Boy network to keep them affordable. Those new friends reading along via Pillowfort - welcome to my weird life, because I intend to use PF as a combination of my now-deleted Facebook and LJ.
Anyway, I’ve spent almost my entire adult life in that state of striving for someday. Along the way I gave up things I thought I would never sacrifice (who would ever stop going to MediaWest Con after 25 years?); discovered things that I never knew were in me (3 years of open hearth cooking demonstrations at a local site I hadn’t even known had existed.)
I lost some things I loved. Reviewing books didn’t kill my urge to read for pleasure, but the unending “Oh, but this is more important” shoved pleasure reading into a pleasure with overwhelming guilt. I’m... still working on that one.
But this week... Well, a little background first. I knit. It gives me something to do with my hands that burns off the nervous energy and even that little edge of anxiety when I sit in a group or watch TV or what have you. Except it’s always been hard to knit in the hot summers and nigh onto impossible this summer when the temperature and the humidity are both consistently over 90. Casting about desperately for another good portable project I first tried kumihimo, then English paper piecing.
Wow, I can see why it has such a cult in the patchwork community! I can’t do it without looking down, not if I don’t want blood everywhere, but it’s addictively quick and amazingly portable - even moreso than knitting.
Being the creature of mad enthusiasms I am, I of course had to come up with a big project idea. What shape? Oh, hexagon, accuquilt makes a wonderful cutter that makes both paper and fabric pieces at once. What form? Oh, I know what, a rose window quilt! I’ve always wanted one. What fabric? Wait, a dim memory serves... don’t I have a pack of fabric actually labeled stained glass?
If I hadn’t recently finished the decluttering I never would have found it. You have to understand - I haven’t quilted since I discovered knitting, so we’re talking over a decade now. But I didn’t get rid of everything - just the stuff I didn’t think I’d use...
... someday.
It took me less than 5 minutes to find the pack. (I am REALLY pleased with my decluttering/organization these days!). 33 fat quarters of fabric, as pristine as when I bought them god knows how many years ago.
And I suddenly realized, this weekend while I finish a book I *want* to read as background for the upcoming Jane Austen anniversary, as I prepare to cut into my long-hoarded fabric I realized that I have, unknowingly, finally staggered through the gates of my long-held goal.
Someday... is now.
... school is over
... the moving boxes are all unpacked
... the debt is paid
... the decluttering is done
... the big whatever is finished
Then - and only THEN - is when you’re free. Free to read all those books. Free to do that frivolous project. Free to learn that useless but interesting-looking skill. Free to do that thing - you know *that* thing - that you were going to FINALLY do... someday.
Those who’ve followed me on Live Journal and then Dreamwidth know what a long, strange trip it’s been for me. Thousands of dollars of debt to pay off. Seemingly unending methods of decluttering and reorganizing. House renovations done piecemeal via the Good Old Boy network to keep them affordable. Those new friends reading along via Pillowfort - welcome to my weird life, because I intend to use PF as a combination of my now-deleted Facebook and LJ.
Anyway, I’ve spent almost my entire adult life in that state of striving for someday. Along the way I gave up things I thought I would never sacrifice (who would ever stop going to MediaWest Con after 25 years?); discovered things that I never knew were in me (3 years of open hearth cooking demonstrations at a local site I hadn’t even known had existed.)
I lost some things I loved. Reviewing books didn’t kill my urge to read for pleasure, but the unending “Oh, but this is more important” shoved pleasure reading into a pleasure with overwhelming guilt. I’m... still working on that one.
But this week... Well, a little background first. I knit. It gives me something to do with my hands that burns off the nervous energy and even that little edge of anxiety when I sit in a group or watch TV or what have you. Except it’s always been hard to knit in the hot summers and nigh onto impossible this summer when the temperature and the humidity are both consistently over 90. Casting about desperately for another good portable project I first tried kumihimo, then English paper piecing.
Wow, I can see why it has such a cult in the patchwork community! I can’t do it without looking down, not if I don’t want blood everywhere, but it’s addictively quick and amazingly portable - even moreso than knitting.
Being the creature of mad enthusiasms I am, I of course had to come up with a big project idea. What shape? Oh, hexagon, accuquilt makes a wonderful cutter that makes both paper and fabric pieces at once. What form? Oh, I know what, a rose window quilt! I’ve always wanted one. What fabric? Wait, a dim memory serves... don’t I have a pack of fabric actually labeled stained glass?
If I hadn’t recently finished the decluttering I never would have found it. You have to understand - I haven’t quilted since I discovered knitting, so we’re talking over a decade now. But I didn’t get rid of everything - just the stuff I didn’t think I’d use...
... someday.
It took me less than 5 minutes to find the pack. (I am REALLY pleased with my decluttering/organization these days!). 33 fat quarters of fabric, as pristine as when I bought them god knows how many years ago.
And I suddenly realized, this weekend while I finish a book I *want* to read as background for the upcoming Jane Austen anniversary, as I prepare to cut into my long-hoarded fabric I realized that I have, unknowingly, finally staggered through the gates of my long-held goal.
Someday... is now.
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Date: 2018-09-15 04:41 pm (UTC)I looked up English paper piecing and watched a video tutorial, and holy mother of ghod is that finicky! I can't imagine how it would be portable, with all the little bits and pieces and needles and thread. I'll stick with my kumihimo for "it's dead in the dealer room" and "waiting in the doctor's office", because once I have the board set up it's basically one piece -- no odd bits to drop and lose.
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Date: 2018-09-16 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-18 04:15 am (UTC)