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Veteran's Day and an Etiquette Question
2003-05-30 - 3:27 p.m.
Thoughts.
Let's see... I haven't updated in a few days mainly because I've been savoring something that I didn't really want to share just yet.
The night before last, the phone rang. While that happens a lot in our house thanks to Gorm being a deputy Kingdom level officer, this one was different. It was for ME. Yep, it was for me. And it wasn't someone trying to sell me something, it wasn't someone asking me to do something for them, it was someone that I cherish, whose opinion really matters. It was a person who has given me a LOT to think about in the past eighteen months. She's given me insight into myself and helped me find different avenues when I thought I was headlong into a brick wall.
I don't know how long we talked to each other on the phone... I wasn't measuring the time, I was enjoying the visit. It was as if she came through the phone into my living room and we sat down on the sofa and had a talk with each other's heart. The fears and walls came down and we talked. We talked about things that one can't really relate in emails as well as those things you can't always say in person.
While I still have a LOT of my insecurities, I believe that I've done a lot of growing in the past 18 months, and as I relayed some of the happenings, she agreed with me. She congratulated me on the awards I've won as well as the Baronial Artisan award, but what meant the most was when she said I sounded happy and more sure of myself and she could feel the self-confidence I've been able to find. She said she was very happy for me, and that she enjoyed seeing the positive changes I've made in the past 18 months.
Somehow, some way, I've gone from being the scared, pissed off resentful person I was, to someone new who's not quite so scared and is more forgiving and embracing than letting the slings and arrows of the past cling to my memory. I've been learning how to set boundaries for myself and others. Wow.
As the conversation started to wind up, she mentioned a diaryland entry she wrote a while back in which she likened her heart to a bookstore with each of her freinds having a shelf. She said that at night, she'd go through some of the shelves and take down a book or two and leaf through them, sometimes changing the books on the shelf, sometimes leaving it as it was. She said she'd have to go through my shelf and make some changes for the better. She suggested that when I went to sleep that night, I spend a little time thinking about the kind of shop I would describe my heart to be. One of the last things I said was "a yarn shop". She laughed softly and said that was more than a little fitting for me.
I did think about it that night, and it fits. My heart is an old wooden weaving shop. The windows are dirty (the kind of dirty from about 30 years of not caring what's on the outside) and there's dust everywhere there isn't some yarn. The floors are a hard wood, maple and a little creaky here and there. The door is wooden, with a little bell on the back that rings when it's opened, if you've ever been in an old small store, you know what I'm talking about.
In the middle of my store is a loom. Around the loom are various projects of many different types all in states of almost completion... but as you look around the room... you see them... skeins and balls and cones. You can't help but walk around and touch them. Some are soft, some are a bit itchy and others are just plain strange. You can't help but look at some of the choices and wonder how anyone would do anything with something so weird. But you notice that half of the cone is gone.
You put that cone down and then it hits you.... in the midst of the dust and dim light.. you see it. Color. It's everywhere. There are cones of color and texture on the shelves lining the room, and as you walk around the room you find more alcoves with color. Nothing is really grouped the way you'd think. It's all about feel and color. It's as if someone has walked through, found something they want to hold onto and carried it with them until they found something else they wanted more. They sat down the one they were carrying and picked up the new one. It's like that all over the store. You walk over to the counter where this old metal register is and you see a bookcase with a glass front. "What's so special about those" you ask... I smile and tell you that all of those cones tell a story about each person that is a part of my life and one day I plan to take them all and weave them together to make my life's work. "Wouldn't it be better, to just sell them, you can't possibly use them all". "Nope. I can't bring myself to do it. To sell any of them would be saying goodbye to a friend that's had an effect on my life and I just can't do that. I'll gladly open the cabinet to those I know and let you look and feel what's in there, but that's as far as I go.
That's how my friends are to me. All of them are different, some have different textures and all of them are colorful in their own ways. All of what they are make them special to me, and they're all woven together to make a special fabric.
To my friend.. thank you so very much for making my day and my week. It was so good to hear from you and I'm glad we have found a new connection.
Yesterday, I read an article about a woman who decided she wanted to learn how to weave. She was 40 at the time... she bought a sheep and spent years shearing the sheep and processing the wool, then she spent another 10 years learning how to spin the wool into yarn. She then set about to find a loom. When she couldn't find one, (a store-bought one wouldn't "do")she made her own...it took her another 10 years to get it "just right". She carved her own shuttles and then set about actually learning how to weave. At long last, she took her fabric off the loom, wet finished it and then put it on the loom. She went to bed and died in her sleep that night... she was 70.
Please don't forget to answer my survey... it's research for a small business idea... all comments appreciated, no reasonable offer refused!!! It won't take five minutes, I PROMISE!
