Tuesday, March 22, 2011

One Flower at a Time

Needlework is slow business.

I have been working on a cross-stitch headband for a few weeks now and today I was sick of it.  I forgot my books in our black car, which my son borrowed, so I picked up the needlework to keep myself busy during a dance lesson.  Sitting on the floor in a church hallway, listening to Irish music as Maia hopped, jigged and reeled, I looked at the needlework and cussed a bit, quietly to myself.  Ho hummmmm, tiny stitches, tiny gains.

As I brought the needle in and out, my busy mind started to smooth out and I softly heard my mind's voice finding some parallels between this project and life.  If you continue to work on a project, according to the plan, the result is pretty much guaranteed, barring any bizarre unforeseen event.


It just takes a vision of what it is supposed to look like, the raw materials, the pattern/plan and the belief that it will at some point be finished.  The one thing that isn't easy to judge is just how long it will take to get to the result.  The process may go quickly, depending on your motivation to finish, or it may go slowly because of other distractions, illness, or lack of raw material.  The trick seems to me, to be finding the balance between all these factors and never losing sight of the goal, even if it is gained just one small flower at a time.

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