“Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.” —James Madison

Greetings Dear Ones!

Tuesday, as I drive to the courthouse for my second jury pool, I see above me several V’s of geese rowing northward just below the clouds. I attempt to drive with one eye on the road and one eye on the sky, marveling, as always, at their synchrony, strength, and beauty. Any crew team would have much to envy. Something about seeing them in their flock-pods, knowing that they help each other—taking turns to draft off each other’s wake as the lead goose breaks the stiffest currents of air with her wings—never fails to move me to tears, then curiosity. What if they are not so noble and community spirited but instead, as the relevant cliché might suggest, Silly? What if they have been bickering all the way since North Carolina about how gassy golf-course grass makes them and how Betty-Sue should not have eaten a belly full of blue fescue from the ninth tee before taking the lead? And what is the point of mating journeys that average 2500 miles on a semi-annual basis? (Perhaps the fact that geese mate for life tells us all we need to know?) And what on earth will they eat when they land here? All we have is snow-encrusted mud and buckets of tree sap instead of putting greens. This strikes me as poor planning on the part of the geese.

I get to the courthouse, get through security (sans knitting) and realize too late that I have left my book in the car. Rats… I briefly consider “air knitting” to see if it is possibly as soothing as real knitting. It is not. If I were stuck on a desert island (pesky auto-correct has briefly considered how much more fun it would be to be stuck on a dessert island—and Autocorrect, it must be said, I most heartily agree! But then I already live in a land where trees drip sugar.) On my deserted island (sans whipped cream and cherries) I know I would knit the same sweater over and over again, ripping it out as often as necessary, in order to revel in the “progress” I was making. Kind of like a goose rotating through mating latitudes on an annual basis.

I am left with nothing more constructive to do than think of all the work waiting for me in my shop while I take time off to judge my fellow citizens (which I might have done anyway, without the formal, patriotic invitation or pay cut). First, I think of all the “little” projects that sweep in on a daily basis—the things to mend; the “emergencies” that someone needs for the weekend; all the little hemmings (and hawings) that invade the shop on a weekly basis. These are like small incendiary bombs I need to diffuse immediately. Specifically, I need to get a certain pile of filthy clothes out of there as soon as possible. I felt too sorry for their bedraggled owner to insist she take them right home again and wash them before I attempt to fix them. I didn’t want to appear “judgy” (who am I kidding here?) so I just gagged as politely as I could and put them all in a plastic bag the moment she left. They will get done first. (God help me if I have to iron any of them in order to fix them. It will smell like I am making soup—some kind of seafood bisque, where the “seafood” is dead horseshoe crabs…)

Next to go is that wretched laundry basket liner that some soul has persuaded me to make out of burlap. The burlap, which probably dates from the Carter administration, is so musty and dusty, I had an allergy attack the moment I cut into it. I had to vacuum all the machines, cutting table, and the floor before I could go any further with construction, as spores of burlap were swirling everywhere. Who needs proper snuff when all that is required to have an eye-watering/sniff-snorting/rip-sneezing/bosom-heaving fifteen-minute frolic is a little powdered burlap? I sneezed enough to awaken the aches in my cracked rib and forgo ab workouts for a week. (And by AB workouts, you know what I really mean is sitting up straight in bed without rolling over first…)Who in their right mind wants to store laundry in this thing??? (Hmmm… maybe this explains the state of the first gal’s laundry?)

Rather than continue to judge the poor choices of my dear customers, Prudence decides it’s time to switch to judging ME instead, which she far prefers to “air-knitting” or goose-musing. “How come you never get the BIG stuff done?” she wants to know. Where is that book you wanted to write? Where are the long-term commissions—the shawls, the shirts, the silk blouses, the custom guitar straps? Why are your cows still able to run up the driveway and snack on our neighbor’s cedar trees without the impediment of fencing? When are THESE going to get done, or in some cases, even started? Why does the Temporary become eternal through the relentless build up of ephemera?

As much as I hate to admit it, especially to a bitch like Prudence, I have become a victim of constant short-termism and no amount of tiny, daily “wins” can forestall the overriding sense of “failure.” I put excessive focus on the short-term results at the expense of my long-term interests, and yet the long-term vision is where my sense of Self resides, so the result of never achieving anything “Big” is an ever-present low-grade sense of distress and low satisfaction, with occasional bursts of anxiety. Future Nancy, in all her patient Grace and Glory, beckons lovingly to the little frazzled rat racing ever faster on her tiny wheel but no matter how I up the pace, I never seem to reach her.

Long-term projects require infrastructure—sometimes tools as simple as a pair of knitting needles and a skein of yarn—and Tenacity. (Optional infrastructure requirements for shawl production might include a snowy day, a wood stove, a good pod-cast, a small Jack Russell who is conveniently between feedings and potty outings and other things that he will remind you are Imperative...)

Hope and optimism are simply not enough to make a project successful. Affirmations don’t actually do a damn thing—they are like air knitting until you get the actual yarn in your hands.

“Commitments should be viewed as Sacred Ground,” mutters Prudence moodily. “If you have promised to do it, then you must. Feeling like Shite is the proper consequence of not doing what you said you would.”

“Most of us DO believe that we must finish what we start! At the beginning of a project, we make internal commitments that carry us through to completion,” I insist vehemently. “But what if we never even start because we are getting pecked to death by ducks decoyed as daily dramas? How do we, who accidentally sat on some of the necessary infrastructure, pull the sharp points out of our tender behinds and begin to align our resources to meet organizational objectives in the most efficient way possible?”

It occurs to me that the Geese to not make the 2,500 mile flight all in one go. They stop a couple times. To create an effective strategy to achieve long-term goals, they set several short term goals. Short term goals, within the context of a larger objective, improve our focus, provide clarity about our path and purpose, combat procrastination, and help us gather valuable feedback—such as how unhappy most people get when you poop in their swimming pools.

I wonder about other Creative types, like you, Dear Menders, and if our occasional inability to achieve larger, long-term project goals is a sneaky form of procrastination? But how could anyone who runs and works as hard as we do possibly be, simultaneously, procrastinating? Because procrastination has nothing to do with laziness. For me, perhaps it’s because I fervently believe in “Someday.” (cue the angelic organ chords here) The “Someday” syndrome is insidious. Bit by bit, I get snagged on little details and “Someday” slips like a log over the waterfall of regrets. How many times do I charge into my workspace announcing to no one in particular that “Today!! Today, I am here to get those custom shirts made!” only to catch a sniff of burlap or crotch-rot and realize that before I can row on, I must first patch the bottom of the boat.

There is a delightful proverb that says “Tomorrow is the busiest day of the week.” Yes. That is where most short term objectives derived from long-term projects go to die. Today is never Someday, and Someday is the day that it will all get done. This very week, rather than actually get any work done, at the suggestion of one of my most dynamic clients, I decide to join a fellowship of amazing female entrepreneurs and order a book on Time Management. Someday it will arrive and Someday I will read it and Someday I will get Organized. The irony of this wrinkle delights me no end. At least it’s all off my plate for now…

Deep down, I think I am guilty of “procrastinating” because I truly do not understand how Time works. I think somewhere there is a magic cache of it and I can have all I want of it, the way one can summon endless amounts of happiness without warning simply from inhaling a rose or the warm neck of a small farm animal. (Both smell as sweet!) There are no limits on things like creativity, love, beauty, and all the finest things that flow from our connection to All That Is. But such is not the case for Time. If we lost anything in the Garden, it was Time.

Seneca said “We are always complaining that our days are few and acting as though there is no end to them.” Yep. I’m shocked to find that Everything takes longer than I think, including jury duty. Someday aside, the truth is that my mental calendar only has two types of time—Now and Not Now. It’s either going to get done Now, or…. Well… you guessed it. Once I fill my daily jar with sand, there is no room for golf balls, even those without goose turds.

Nothing makes me think about Wasting Time like sitting in a courthouse waiting for something to happen. Or about ebbs and stages of grand Life cycles like migratory water fowl and sap buckets on Maple trees. Or the short-term effects of filling my gas tank with what used to be the grocery budget for the entire week. Do we have what it takes to make True Progress over the Long Haul? Can we stay committed to goals larger than a day’s work without succumbing to the anxious pettiness of mere Survival? Do we know how to prioritize our Future Selves over these exhausted wrecks we have become? How/why should we demand more from current selves when we are already so damn tired? How can I hope that my county, my country, my world community will continue to strive for What is Right over what is Easy or momentarily insistent when I cannot even accomplish this in my own wee shop?

I don’t know.

I just watch the news from Ukraine and see that Those who Get Things Done choose courage over comfort. They do not have the luxury of waiting. Their Someday starts NOW. Right now.

And Sew it Is.

Keep up your Good Work, my Loves! There is too much Mending to do alone and it is going to be a Long Haul!

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy