Fixing What We Hadn't Fixed Before....

Before I pursued freelance illustration and writing, I wove baskets. Loved it. Days would fly by with me in my studio, wrapping a piece of reed around another, forming a beautiful basket. I quickly learned an important lesson-  a tiny imperfection in the first few rows could be a gigantic frustration at the end, every row the gap spreading farther and farther to the point there was no other choice but to rip the weaver out, until I could fix what I hadn't fixed before.

Now, trying my hand at writing a full length novel, I have thought back to my weaving days, because now I guess I am weaving a story and the same lesson holds true, an imperfection in the story structure in the beginning, can lead to great frustration later on. Sometimes days have been spent to "fixing" a problem that I have finally notice, and more times than not, it is something I have not laid the ground work for chapters back. Or truthfully, often the other solution the plot point is just not needed and the delete key is the answer.

Makes me think of life, and how much of our frustrations are the result of not so much something now, but possible something we didn't take care of when we should have, or forgotten to do the things we should way back when, but now it is "big enough" for us to feel it.

Once again, I just feel frustrated and once again it is because I have put aside things in my life that "feed my well", making art and cooking for the ones I love. My kitchen had become a hurried place to grab nourishment. This weekend, our fruit trees were ready to pick, and I made a pear pie to take to a church potluck. I spent the morning, in the kitchen, thinking of the lessons my grandmother and mother had taught me and probably made the best pastry dough I have ever made, sliced pears while talking to my family and held a warm pie in the back seat, while the full car of my family drove to church and enjoyed fellowship and good food.

I am beginning to think there is great power in the "rituals" of life, the things we have been doing for a thousand years, the talking around the hearth, the sharing a meal, the strolls with a fellow traveler, the rendezvous of lovers, the moments of awe, the things that feed our souls and when we don't get them, our "gap" grows wider and wider and we don't know why....until we remember to look back and fix what we hadn't fixed before.