Floundering
If only getting through this week, this month, this semester were as easy as making a quilt. Playing with the design. Deciding on colors and shapes. Cutting the squares. Sewing the pieces together. Instead, the colors of my paper elude me. The shape of my ideas hides just out of reach. When quilting I can work for hours, when writing moments feel hard to sustain sometimes.
After taking a much needed break and doing some yoga, I came across this old quote from a fortune cookie “Use your abilities at this time to stay focused on your goal. You will succeed.” And I know it’s true. For a moment tackling the work again feels as easy as quilting. But then the aching wrists take over again as I sit down at the computer. And the night feels endlessly long. And I stare at the screen feeling the stress build, because really, it’s actually not possible to accomplish all of this in the time I have.
As I think about it I remember that sometimes making quilts can feel kind of endless too, but as I sew square by square and see it starting to come together, it’s a lot easier to focus on the finished goal. And imagining how much my friend (in the case of the picture here) is going to like it helps too. With my work all I have is my own satisfaction at being done, and meeting expectations.
Back to it for now, trying to think of paragraphs as squares, of ideas as colors, hoping to find the inspiration to keep at it.