The green world isn’t giving me anything else tonight. The weaving is done, and off the loom, as finished as it will ever be, that green and blue study. The leftover warp, the test patterns for the next piece, colors limited by my decision to actually make something other than a sample out of it, an unplanned series of experiments that became something, or will. An exploration of warp-faced twill to use with a hand-dyed warp. What a surprise to see the wrong side, and like it better.
One of these days I’ll learn how to write the way I weave, or at least approach writing in that way: savoring the excitement of finding a new project, running the yarns through my fingers, sorting and ordering the colors, winding them around cards to fix the color ways in my mind. The urgency every day, the wish to get to the loom, and the freedom to just stop when I’m tired. The nearly total absence of deadlines, even self-imposed. The slack. Even through the long middle of each phase—the winding, the warping, the weaving, the pleasure of the rhythm of it, the freedom to just stop. Yet the end calls me, keeps me coming back, as much as the doing of it. I want to be done, and I’m not afraid to be done, because there will be another warp, more weft, and more skill in the weaving of it. And, weaving, I learn to love my mistakes. I can take them out, if I notice soon enough. But mostly I don’t mind. Mostly I’m happy they’ll be invisible to everyone but me, and that’s just fine. Writing is a lot like weaving, or could be. Just a bit of planning, a lot of showing up, continual striving, and infinite acceptance.
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