No time for my hands.

I was just reading Sandy’s blog and I felt a great kinship with her frustrations.

I get huge urges to make things and see an end result. It started with the arrows then the leather armour and now the bows. I really wanted to take some me time over xmas this year and start learning how to carve wood which is something I have always wanted to do, but I don’t think free time will be available now.

I sometimes feel very silly about these urges to make and learn new things. In today’s world it seems strange to some people and perhaps even to me to have an interest in new but outdated skills.

Day to day life pulls me down into a sea of washing, ironing, feeding children and all the other family stuff, and when I get irritable and Rebecca says “What’s up with you”  it is a little difficult and embarrassing to say, I haven’t had the chance to start learning how to flint knap yet, or I want to try putting some footers on some arrows.

So I find that I end up handling a piece of flint for 2 minutes wondering how it will chip away, but not getting beyond that point of imagining, or in a ten minute space I screw a piece of wood to the work bench in the hope that just by it’s presence in the right place I can start to draw a pattern to carve later. But it always ends up that I look at the screwed down wood for weeks  as I walk past with another load of washing and another bag of rubbish for the bin.

The problem with what I want to do is that it will take many hours of concentrated effort, and like Sandy’s writing it doesn’t want half an hour here and there. The wood or stone that I want to carve, shape or give purpose to demands that while I change it I give it the worship that it is due, and I imagine Sandy’s blank page demands the same of her.

 

And so for now I can’t examine the wood to search out the secret patterns it holds, and I have to leave the flint in the back yard, coming to no harm in the winter weather as it waits for my attention, it has already waited a million years I suppose.  And again, like Sandy, if I did get a day off someone would probably have other plans for me anyway.

Comments

[Rebecca]

Very simply, I would love the opportunity to read the Sunday paper on a Sunday, just for one hour.

[Jason]

I feel the same way about making music - I can't believe that I used to devote hours and hours to composing and recording. First my excuse was a demanding teaching career, then children, now running two businesses and being on boards for a couple of charities and being in a band and just being too tired or brain frazzled when I eventually do have a spare afternoon or evening. I can't believe the things I used to achieve - but he focus now is on achieving other people's objectives rather than my own - I have to prioritise the stuff that pays the bills, sadly. I've become a responsible grown up, and I want to play again.

[Jason]

I feel the same way about making music - I can't believe that I used to devote hours and hours to composing and recording. First my excuse was a demanding teaching career, then children, now running two businesses and being on boards for a couple of charities and being in a band and just being too tired or brain frazzled when I eventually do have a spare afternoon or evening. I can't believe the things I used to achieve - but the focus now is on achieving other people's objectives rather than my own - I have to prioritise the stuff that pays the bills, sadly. I've become a responsible grown up, and I want to play again.

[Trepid Explorer]

Shhhhh. I just started knitting!