Fiberly pursuits and the life well-lived

You know, I was going to write yesterday but there was just so much work to do, and I was determined to get it done so that I could take time off for FUN things.  Well by the time I got caught up with actual work I was sick of my desk and sick of my computer and unwilling to spend any more time here, even for a blog post. 

I have been working on the linen tank:

I finished the body of the front and was up to the armhole shaping yesterday morning, when this photo was taken.  I am actually about half-way up to the neckline by now so the front is going much more easily than the back, mostly because the interesting landmarks are more evenly distributed on a front than on a back.  I am getting excited about finishing even though I know there is still a fair amount of knitting to do.

I've been doing other things as well, of course.  My interest in purging and cleaning has continued apace and I took another large load of things to my local donation center this week.  It is always hard, finding that happy medium between having enough and having too much, and deciding what is of value and what is not.  When I am in the right frame of mind it is usually best to take advantage, as opposed to those times that I am upset or otherwise stressed and am just discarding for the sake of venting frustrations. 

I have also been reading again and it is a conflict in time of course.  I can knit to a book on tape, but there remains nothing as nice as holding a good book in the hands, and turning the pages while savoring the prose.  Last weekend I was savoring the prose of Michael Chabon, as I moved up the queue in the local library system a little faster than I had anticipated, and The  Yiddish Policeman's Union arrived in my hands on Friday.  Now that was a GOOD book, and there is nothing quite like a good read to calm and refresh the spirit.

I suppose I am a dinosaur, with my interest in books and fibers, the pleasures of actually making things with my hands, and reading an actual book rather than staring dumbly at a screen and reading the text.  But sometimes it seems there is too much pressure to do more and more and more.  And with that brings more emphasis on instant gratification.  Click and read.  Buy online and ship FedEx and so forth and so on.  Stay on top of all the news of the world.  Sometimes I think it really does us no good to actually know everything that is going on as it is going on in the world, it just increases our stress and our sense of helplessness. 

Increasingly I am convinced that the life well lived is not the life with the most things crammed into it.

But here it is, the Fourth of July, Independence Day.  And I am happy to be a citizen of this country, and I am proud of those who we celebrate on this day.  And because of the efforts of those earlier great visionaries, I can spend the day with books and yarn and fabric.

Comments

[Gina]

I'm going to start skulking around the various donation centers in your town. I'll purge my stuff to make room for someone else's stuff. I do agree that it is all too overwhelming -- the pressure to do, to know, etc. I think of the Holly Hunter movie, Living Out Loud. She's watching the evening news, and all of the bad stuff in the world is just rushing at her, and she's having this stressful internal dialog about "how can I stop it?". Sometimes, we just need to push away from the computer, turn off the television, make a pot of tea and open a good book. Happy Fourth!