“Linguists tell us that we actually have not had a thought until we can articulate it through in writing. Therefore, the more we put our thoughts down on paper, the more firmly they are formed in our minds.”
― Jonathan Hayashi
Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest
Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week. A random grab bag of delights!
Honestly lately - I've been really digging playing my music on random. My musical tastes are wide enough ranging that I'm hard to pin down as a "likes that kind of music". I resisted forever because how weird to listen to such wildly different formats all smooshed together and right up next to each other... but... It's kind of entertaining. Like - what's going to happen next!? Though one morning the shuffle got stuck on playing the same Mark Lanegan song and Amanda Palmer song back to back to back to back to back to back... Maybe I just really needed to hear that message - I don't know!
Last week I talked a little about doing/listening to things that were really just entirely me & this is sort of that. It's... It's a little less like taking a slice of me than getting a kaleidoscope view. It isn't the right thing every time, but I'm definitely coming to appreciate it.
Medusa's Garden
When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.
WHAT'S DIFFERENT. I've heard that twice this week. I don't have an answer. I've been meditating every single day for the last two weeks. Sometimes I fall asleep during it. But. That's the only thing I can tell. Oh wait. End of last week my raw wool arrived in the mail. So those two things, but of the two... Well... Maybe they go together...
Let me start over. What's different? "You're more... composed, more together, more articulate, you seem way less anxious..."
The meditating. The pulling all the pieces of my attention back to center. Maybe it's helping. The wool we can talk about in a moment. :) But as for explaining what's different, I don't know - it seems like 10 minutes a day is not enough to make a difference, but maybe it is?
And maybe it was a fluke? We will be continuing with this experiment, however.
Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads
What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.
It is the TOUR DE FLEEEECE! Yaaaasssss! The Tour de Fleece is a celebration where during the Tour de France, spinners spin every day except the days that the cyclists also get to take off. We can wear yellow any day we feel like we're the head of the pack. We can join teams. It's all very entertaining and honestly pretty inspiring to see what people are up to. I'm pretty good at following spinners and fiber folks all over the place, but this has lit up all those networks like Bastille Day fireworks or something. I've spun every day so far & carded almost every day. Over the next few days I won't have so much opportunity to card, but I'll be taking my wee tahkli spindle on the road as it were. And maybe some knitting too. Since I've got projects. :)
So yeah, the wool is here! I washed it this past weekend - disgusting! Not sure, it might have scurf too (basically bad sheep dandruff), but it's possible that I packed the wool too tight in the bags and the water just didn't have enough space to really circulate and it trapped some goopy stuff... The worst of it I'm tossing - you can typically expect to lose about a third of a fleece just because it's the weird edge and legs and not great quality. I might end up washing some of it again too - at least a cold water soak to see if I can't loosen the worst of the vegetable matter that's caught in some of it.
There's something really soothing about the process of prepping then carding the wool too. And I think I've talked about spinning - it's like moving meditation for me. So it's possible that I just need more fiber in my life to keep me good and chill. We'll see. I'm only about two ounces into the five pounds that I bought! I may well be good and sick and tired of fiber prep by the end. And maude willing, hopefully I don't end up with clothes moths... I am really careful about trying to keep stuff protected, but... with the cats and the wool, there's always just enough food for them that I see evidence now and again which is super annoying, but mostly controlled.
Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life
Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.
So yeah. I don't think I've kept it a particularly quiet secret that I have anxiety & I'm seeing a therapist (who is awesome) for it. A friend posted this article onwhy survivors of trauma sometimes go silentthis week. It's about the physiological changes that happen in the brain in reaction to trauma and why/how it impacts speech.
I suspect my therapist would warn me away from saying "OOH, IT ME!", in part because we're working on normalizing the fact that other people experience things and have a hard time dealing with them and that's normal and it's not just me that has things that are difficult to deal with. Although part of the mediTation deal is to see if that reduces my anxiety sufficiently to avoid trying mediCation because... I know it helps so many people and... I'm having trouble reconciling my logical brain with my feeling brain on the matter. My feeling brain is super resistant to the idea of medication and... I'm working through that, but maybe the meditation is working. Anyhoo. I think she'd warn me away from it at least in part because we don't actually know and it's not particularly healthy to apply a label to oneself like that.
That said - my words do regularly go away from me. It causes me to substitute weird things in meetings which end with me explaining the storyline of Scarborough Fair/Ballad of the Cambric Shirt because I can't remember the words for the concept of 'scope creep.' Or just generally either not being able to get quite the right words in order or... yeah. just losing my words entirely. It's frustrating and embarrassing when it happens - I'm smarter than that. And it's the spoken word part of my brain - I think because the written word part of my brain can pause, backspace, rewrite, take the space to think and reframe and clarify and when speaking there are faces looking at you and taking in the information with an immediacy that makes it hard to backtrack, clean up... and when I pause, then all the words go away. It's not uncommon for me to throw my hands in the air and finish lamely with 'ugh, words are hard.'
My job is organizing information, and lately actually doing editorial review work, so... way to inspire confidence there. But what can I do but keep going and hoping that I'm not the only person this happens to and that others will treat me with the grace that I try to allow for others? I know words go away from other people too. It's not as bad when I'm relaxed and comfortable. Which is a little harder to pull off when I'm surrounded by super smart *and* articulate people. Meditation. Maybe medication. Maybe more fleeces and spinning.