Digest

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New Year, New Books

Even more medical wackiness this week. Vital appliance breakdowns and decorating upgrades in the house. New books made and a doubling of numbers for the monthly Stitch & Bitch hosted here. Another giant Sunday snowstorm (crossing my fingers we don’t lose power overnight).

I’ve been reading and researching a lot. Joined a PTSD and Chronic Pain group. Attempting to process. Shifted into a rare mode since Thursday, less reactive. I’m grateful for the difference in perspective. Started watercolour painting. Stopped watercolour painting. Think I’ll stick to planting seeds.

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Virtual Hoarding

Lots of medical drama this week but let’s avoid that and focus on the diligent squirreling away of everything I come across.

Pinterest is a tool sent directly from heaven for those who are visually inclined, have control issues and a penchant for amassing whatever they can get their damn hands on. An endless nebulous stream of captivating images linking to important information that you can so thoroughly organize in your own glorious schema of subcategories and keep forever? Fuck you/Let’s dance.

In true hoarder fashion, online and in person, I have so many things that I can pack some away and find them a year (okay, years) later, truly having forgotten ever having obtained them, and be THRILLED that they exist. Literally everything sparks joy. It’s like walking into a shop where everything is just your taste and, what’s that, it’s all free (now)! I mean, capitalism is awful, and I’d rather have none of this if it meant the world could be more just, but for now here we are.

Artistic expression reconnects me to the best parts of being alive. My favourite art hoard is a collection that makes me feel something every time I look at it:


  • Maryam Ashkanian
  • Anna & the Willow

  • Peggy Guggenheim with an Alexander Calder mobile

  • Stephanie Beck

  • Winston Howes, 70, spent a week planting each oak sapling in Wickwar, South Gloucestershire, after his wife of 33 years Janet died suddenly

  • Fusion Frames by Darryl Cox

  • Ron Mueck

  • Elizabeth Price – cerámica, escultura

  • Gerald Beaulieu

  • Tasha Lewis – The Herd

Turns out I fucking love giant sculpture.

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The Ridge

Link to February Playlist

When I was a kid, off path in Odell, I made sure to spin myself around to obscure my passage. Reached from unfamiliar angles, static landmarks can feel surprisingly fresh and previously unexplored. My favourite spot to chance upon was an oddly mono culture ridge where the wild stopped and you walked among giants.

Flash forward twenty years and there’s a trail from my new house that takes you there in exactly eleven minutes. While the mystery of crossing into a new realm is lost, I’m grateful that the majesty remains.

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Coptic

The genius of coptic binding is in the functionality. The book signatures are tightly connected to one another with no other spinal attachments to restrict movement, allowing the book to lay perfectly flat, comfortably supporting your hand as you use it.

Small Gallery of Coptic Books

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I Much Prefer the Mundane

music: courtney barnett – avant gardener
mood: struggling
Link to January playlist

  • View from work
  • View of storm
  • View of struggler
  • View at January Stitch ‘n Bitch

In September I visited an Osteopath for my chronic pain and he told me to do his recommended exercises twice a day for three weeks or more and then make a followup appointment. I had the best of intentions. Ask me how many times I’ve called to reschedule that appointment … or just do the calendar math, I guess.

Five exercises, three sets of eight to fifteen reps, two times a day (does anyone do it twice a day?). I’m using podcasts as welcome distractions and my phone always has CYG preloaded. The chosen episode relayed advice for/thoughts on the new year from excellent humans, relating to giving yourself permission(s). But … what does the human antonym of disciplined do with that.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the permissions I give to myself. When do I grow if I’m always letting myself off the hook and claiming it’s self-care. I certainly don’t understanding what gives me feelings of being at peace, what revitalizes me or relieves stress (aside from eating literally everything). It’s still hard to recognize when I’m on my way to feeling that I’m in a bad place until I’ve arrived and am stuck in the thick of it. How do I develop that awareness so that I may prevent or mediate?

When overwhelmed, I want to slow things down and I always seem to opt for the path of least resistance. Hibernate, plan or plan-to-plan on one side of my computer screen and distract with tv to suppress any real engagement on the other, then go to bed. I have a no tv before noon rule that has been helpful when it works, for morning productivity, but I also linger in bed for hours when I could be on my way to getting my shit together on any given day.

It wasn’t a low key week. Work was bonkers, I went to a lovely-but-too-big party, I hosted new-friend-strangers for a crafternoon, I spent a wacky amount on art supplies I promised myself I’d earn (through disciplined practice of alt mediums instead of just craft supply hoarding) but then I just splurged and bought them all anyway, and also there was/is a snowpocalypse going on (mostly freezing rain). I started the physical rehab. I always brought a lunch to work. I crafted with friends. There was a lot of good, but I could have been more intentional with my hours instead of just granting a boatload of non constructive downtime. Also, give yourself a break. Also, stop giving yourself so many breaks.