As an aside, this analogy of a journey is quite apt, as Tom and I have been corresponding in comments on his blog Gwynt about the way the human mind tends to put things into terms of movement. There has been very little physical movement at all in my progress toward womanhood, and yet it is much easier to talk about change in terms of a journey.
There were stages along the way of my growing womanhood where it seemed there were mountains in my way. I could never manage to get across those obstacles! And yet, here I am, a woman sitting in her family room with her computer in her lap writing about it all. Oh, I'm still a work in progress. So much to learn and do, but being me is just normal now and no big deal.
Having accomplished a difficult task has left me with a changed attitude toward beginning some project that I know will take a long time. A case in point is the cross-stitch I started on earlier this week. Here is where it is so far:
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| Yes, that is my foot in the top right ... I wanted to give some sense of scale. |
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| updated progress - Saturday, April 13 |
If you zoom in, you can see the gridding of the Aida cloth. This is 18 count which means there are eighteen squares per inch (apologies to the metric world ... cross stitching is old school). The part that is completed is about 1 1/2 inches by 3 at this point. The finished product will be about 20 inches by 18 inches. It isn't a complete coverage - what you see is the beginning of the border which will frame a poem. You shall have to wait until it is completed to read the poem.
The total length of the border around is about 68 inches, so if I'm at the three-inch mark in a week, that means the border should take about twenty-three weeks... then there is the poem to stitch.
After about fifteen months doing cross-stitch, I have quite a collection of completed works, and that helps keep me from becoming discouraged; I know it gets done if you persist.
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| It's all about the journey - completed late last year |
Now that my new project is here on the blog, that means I shall have to keep at it! But there was no danger of me putting it away and forgetting about it.
I am a trans-woman.
A big project doesn't deter me.
I think the trick to journeying up the mountain is to focus on the next boulder, crevasse, even the next metre [:)] of pathway, and let the rest of the journey look after itself. Like the cross-stitch; it's very attractive! In days of yore I could make rugs which looked similar to your work. Arthritic thumbs would preclude any such activity now.
ReplyDeleteWas just talking to a musical friend about the arthritis in the hands. We both agree that we will keep playing, one note at a time [ ;) ], as long as possible.
DeleteNo a big project doesn't deter you which is awesome. For some things we have patience like no one else it seems :)
ReplyDelete