A World Without Words

Sorry, it's been a while. I have two reasons; I pondered this one train of thought for over six weeks, but the harder I tried, the more tedious and uninteresting it became, so I needed to give it a rest; the other reason is, I have been weaving. And I noticed when I am in full weaver mode, as I have been, it is jolly tiresome to try to think with words.

I count and count and recount warps; measure warps; thread them through heddles and reeds; fringe the woven shawl; wash; press; and photograph. I have images rush through my head, and I capture them on whatever piece of paper at hand, with color blotches (crayons, pencils, pastels, whatever is the quickest), yarn samples, lines/squiggles (I can't draw), and a few words (most of which read like gibberish after a few weeks). And I spend days seeing yarns, textiles, images and colors, immersed in a world without words, where translating thoughts into words is disruptive, and the lovely images fly away while I'm looking for the right word.

This has been an unlikely transition for me. Since around age seven, I've wanted to be a writer, a poet, then a linguist, so I've had an amicable relationship with words, and believed congition was possible only through words. Then I became fascinated with Philosophy and the first dead man I read was Descartes, so I've been examining my life ever since. I have to plan, analyze, evaluate, summarize and review elements of my life meticulously, in words, before I can move on. I talk to myself often, but it's not as much talking TO myself as it is talking BY myself, tidying up my thoughts, and rehearsing in case someone asks me what I think.

When I decided to become a weaver, I needed to think differently, and I came to realize I needed to shut out the constant flow of words in my head. It took me a good part of five years to train myself, and up to now, this has been the hardest thing about learning to weave, and it's still on-going.

I love to weave and I love to write. I now know I can shut out words from my head, but it took a while to come back to the Word World, and now I'm afraid I'm stuck here before I can return to colorful side. Wish me luck.

And what do you know, this relates to THAT other train of thought.