I made it home on Tuesday and had a lovely Christmas Lunch with Group R members on Thursday, but otherwise been dazed and confused and waking up to some all-too-vivid dreams. Most of all I've been having difficulty readjusting to my excruciatingly cruisey "normal" life, though I have managed to do half a dozen loads of laundry in four days. (Compared to the normal two or three a week.)
The flip side is I've been enjoying the empty-headedness, not planning, not thinking, not worrying, just existing, which, left on my own device, is nearly impossible to achieve.
I've slowly come to realize 2011 is coming to a close, (I really was that busy the last seven weeks,) and feel disappointed my weaving year wasn't as productive as I had planned, due mostly to my trouble with my left arm, (and the cursed mountain of the second lot of firewood,) but then there was the flood in Queensland, the quake in Christchurch, (and a few other places like Chile, Turkey, and China from memory?), the quake/tsunami/nuclear fallout in Japan, and dad's ill health to contend with. That I am not depressed or crazy-hyper around now should perhaps count as a small achievement.
The afternoon I came home Mom asked, and at Group R lunch Ronnie asked, if I was back in the creative mode; I had to think what that is. I'm not, in as much as I don't have gazillion future plans rushing in my head; luckily, I have a few warps which have been planned a while ago and all that needs doing is weaving them, left arm permitting.
Group R met once while I was away. (There was a meeting planned a week after I was supposed to return.) They decided on a small homework over the holiday season, the instructions to which reads:
"Each of us will take a 30-cm square of white or natural-coloured fabric and do whatever we want to it (but nothing overtly artistic) while keeping a journal about the process. It has to remain the same piece at the end of the process. No cutting or stitching. No marks, no pencils, etc. We’ll bring our pieces to the next meeting. Maria has already started and is discussing her progress in her blog.
"Some of the examples of things to do (in addition to the ones listed above) are:
* Wipe the table with it
* Do something to it when you’re angry
* Make prints using cut vegetables
* Drip ink, tea, paint or anything else on it
* Rub it with dirt, handprints, fingerprints
* Tie it with string and swing it at a wall
* Use as a napkin and document your meal
* Chew on it
* Eat colourful candy and lick it"
I was so out of my head and in my then-real life, living from second to second helping Mom and meeting Dad's demands, when I read the instructions I didn't want to waste my life on any airy-fairy (OK, arty-f@rty) homework. But you know I do like to participate, so I feel a square piece of fabric coming up. Or not. The others were having fun with it from what they discussed during lunch.
This is my 2011 summary; not the overlong list of things I did do and longer of what I had intended but didn't manage so hope to do in the coming year. But this was my year.
And here is a typically Nelson holiday wish to you and yours: Happy Holidays! (More Japan pics coming up incrementally.)
1 comment:
"No marks, no pencils," but "Drip ink, tea, paint or anything else on it" ?? I guess you had to be there.
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