As the snow starting falling last night, Andy did the grocery shopping and I darned a sweater. Yes, you heard me. I darned a sweater. I felt like a character in Little Women, huddling in my house to keep warm while the snow fell. Granted, I had a space heater and was watching Sense & Sensibility, but you get my point.
I’ve been a tiny bit obsessed with darning lately. My favorite rust-colored sweater got a whole in the elbow. I asked Jeannie about it and she gave me a quick lesson in darning. Four sweaters later, I think I’m getting the hang of it.
My technique is definitely improving. On the smaller holes, I can fix it right up where you can’t tell the difference. The larger ones are a little tougher. Below is a before and after of one of the holes in Andy’s sweater that I darned last night. You can tell the thread is pulling a bit, but overall, I’m quite pleased.
I’ve taken pottery classes on and off for four years now. Each class I’ve seen improvement, but when I take a hard look at what I’m creating, I see I have a long way to go. So, I’ve been thinking about what it would take for me to really improve? And if I were brave enough: what would it take for me to be really great?
It’s scary. What if I put in all this effort at being great and end up being not-so-great? If I piddle around with pottery and occasionally produce something good, it’s a success! If I direct a lot of effort into it and never “get it.” It’s a failure.
In the midst of these thoughts, a potter I’ve been following recently, Emily Murphy, posted a video by Ira Glass, host of NPR’s This American Life, on persevering to be great in your art. He describes the exact place where I am: the period where you’re creating something that’s trying to be good, but you know it’s not. You know what is good, but you’re not yet creating it. I found his thoughts brilliant:
I’ve been scouring the blog-world to broaden my exposure to different types of pottery, new ideas, etc. This was posted today and thought it was amazing…
Over the last six months, I’ve seen, felt, and thought a lot about suffering. We live in a culture that sees suffering as an anomaly; where suffering can’t or won’t happen to us. But it’s not true.
Children die. Jobs are lost. Spouses leave. Minds are sick. Bodies fade. Hopes are delayed.
I’ve been reading a lot lately about the life of Henry VIII and his children during the 1500’s. One theme running through all of their stories is their preoccupation with the need to produce children, specifically male children, to continue the Tudor line of the English monarchy. But the prospects of pregnancy and child birth were treacherous. Not only did many women die in child birth, but many, many, women gave birth too early, had stillborn children, or saw their children die in infancy.
As I read more, even though theses issues were more common, I believe that the parents’ sense of loss then was the same as it is today. The difference is that in the 1500’s there was an expectation that this could happen. Today, we don’t.
Do we expect to get laid off when we start a job? Expect our spouse to leave us when we get married? Expect not to be able to have children? Probably not. Nor do I think we should approach life with fear and trepidation at the “what ifs”. But if we turn a blind eye to the prospect of suffering, we risk being swept away be the sea when it does happen.
For now, I am well aware of suffering and hope to live with that awareness without fear. But my hope beyond that is to consider it pure joy when I meet trials of various kinds, for I know that the testing of my faith produces steadfastness. And steadfastness’ full effect is that I may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing…. I’m still working on that.
It was spring semester 1999 when I first heard of Texas. I was sitting with Bry and Erin in Aix-en-Provence and enjoying the sun and peace of a restful weekend, which was rare for Erin and I at our language/party-school in Cannes, a couple of hours away. Bry had us listen to Texas’ White on Blonde album and I loved it.
Partly because of the memories it evokes and partly because I just enjoy their music, I periodically will check iTunes to see if they have a new album. As I was checking today, It looks like the band decided to go their separate ways. The lead singer has a solo album, which seems kind of interesting, but my heart is still in Texas.
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