Have You Any Wool?

Why yes, actually. My back closet is stuffed with it, six large tubs worth, skeins and skeins of brightly colored wool, and cotton, and (gasp) acrylic. What of it? That hasn't kept me from longing to wash and dye and card and spin fleece into a yarn of my very own. Never mind that I'm just a beginning spinner, that my new drop spindle wobbles like a drunk when I flick it. There's just this irresistible appeal to the whole idea. I get out my little stick and my wool and feel an instant kinship with some distant ancestor, squatting by a smoky fire and rolling woolly mammoth hair down the length of an equally hairy thigh. I spin my little spindle and think of the Tartars, hunched over froth-mouthed horses, thundering across the steppes, their saddle pads matting into the world's first felt. How cool is that?

And why, after all, do we do anything unessential? Why does a blind man summit Mt. Everest? To make life interesting. To fill the days between now and death with something satisfying and personally worthwhile, irrespective of any tangible returns (or, in the case of the blind man, a view). Making something by hand is rarely expedient, or lucrative, or practical. But it sure is fun.

That's why I went fleece hunting last weekend, at my very first Fiber Fair. I bravely resisted all the gorgeous, tempting, handspun yarns, and concentrated only on the raw material. I ended up with something called Cormo, which is the name of a particularly fabulous breed of sheep, a breed whose fleece is so soft and squishy you'll want to press your whole body into it, facefirst. Well, after it's been shorn and washed, that is. Turns out sheep are only pure white and fluffy in children's rhymes and on appliqued sweaters. In real life, think barnyard. Who knew? But, even matted and dirty and aggressively stinky, the fleece felt soft enough to convince this novice spinner to purchase a large, stinking bagful.

Now comes the fun part; the transformation, through careful soaking and draining, of this greasy, feral mass into something wonderful and soft and fluffy, which my friends will covet, and perhaps receive in the form of a Christmas present. I won't post pictures of my worried frowns, the bubbling pots of soapy water, the cat busily kneading dirty wool into felt on the living room floor. But I may post a picture of the creations I make with it. I will not post a picture of the back closet.

Only Begin

"All beginnings are hard," writes Chaim Potok. Well, no shit. The blank page is fraught. It's filled with the specters of all the half-shaped ideas as yet only swirling around in my brain, all the cleverly worded comments meant to brilliantly showcase my wit. No pressure there, huh? No pressure, at least, if I give myself permission to simply stumble out onto the stage, my lines imperfectly memorized, to just get out there and begin.

The problem with perfectionism is that it keeps you from starting anything. There's this fear that you might god forbid fail, that you might not be stunningly perfect at a brand new skill on your very first attempt. (Ah, says the Zen master, but if you fail, then...what? It only matters if your ego is invested.) Well here's the thing, Grasshopper: ego is always invested. If you're me, at least. If you're trying something, like writing, that you consider yourself to be good at. If you've burdened yourself with expectation, imagining an audience rapt and attentive, certain of an ovation-worthy performance. The feeling is tiresome, really. But hard to shuck off.

I have to remind myself that it's okay to make mistakes. That you crawl before you walk. And that, oh yeah, no one likes a prodigy, anyway. With that in mind, here's my first blog post. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, but kept putting off, because I was just too afraid to begin.