Saturday, April 26

exhaustion

Recovering from Christopher's attack is strange. On the one hand I feel like it shouldn't be that hard for me: he's looking tons better, he's now able to take the subway alone to Manhattan (though not home). On the other hand, his eye is still bruised, he still sees double, and we're both nervous to go out at night. We are both feeling rather vulnerable.

Each day is very different. Some days I feel energized. I have things to do. I go to work. I get my hair cut. I go grocery shopping. I vacuum. Other days, I feel really sapped. Yesterday was like that. We had put a lot of energy into Christopher's reading (which went very well!) and totally crashed on Thursday night. When I got up to go to work on Friday I just felt unable to face the day, and I went back to bed for a few hours. (Luckily for me, my work is flexible and they have been very understanding. Not that I get paid when I don't show up, but at least I don't lose my job.) I spent the rest of the day at home, doing yoga and pulling our tax information together (yeah, we still haven't filed. It was just really low priority).

There is another thing that I've finally found solace in (and I knew I would, it just took a little time): my spinning.

I'm not a great spinner. And I mean that in many ways: I'm inexperienced and I don't produce a lot of yarn. Since getting my wheel in December, I've made one skein of (rather ugly) yarn. That's not a great average. Since then I've been very slowly working my way through the rest of my maroon merino multi 64s. Some of it was on a bobbin and I started filling a second one right after Christopher's attack. I didn't get far because it was just overwhelming, too much for me to deal with right then. Well, yesterday I sat down for about an hour and just spun and spun, and this morning I spun some more, and I'm now out of the maroon roving. I'm rather proud of myself, and I'm pretty excited about how much I liked spinning. It put me in a calmer place, and that's what I need right now. I hope to ply it this weekend, and I'm looking forward to trying a new fiber. I'm so charged by spinning at the moment that all I want to do right now is spin and spin.

If only that I didn't have other things to do, like our taxes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spinning has held associations though centuries, worldwide, of craft and creativity; changing something irreversibly; restful meditation; order and homemaking; taking something from its natural form to a state where it can be used in a refined form.

It does seem to have healing powers for the spirit. Mythical status; straw in to gold.
It's fortunate that you have it.

Emily

Alyssa said...

I know this in no way compares with the emotional severity of what has happened to you and your husband BUT I do find that when my partner is away for long periods and I start to feel sad or lonely or anything negative the repeatative motion of knitting and/or spinning help to center me and keep me from thinking too much about my current emotional state. I'm glad that spinning has been able to help you and this moment in your life. I probably can't even imagine how you're feeling right now but you've been so strong through all this (can you tell I lurk) and its nice to know that you are finding an outlet for all the emotion and finding a little happy place.