Where the Story Begins

Some nights, I'm restless. I can't read. I can't watch a movie. I can't decide whether I should drink a glass of wine, or hot chocolate, or water. I can't sleep.

Tonight, with Jim on a business trip and the kids in bed on time (shocker there), my hands were suddenly empty and my legs wouldn't relax. Most people would go for a run, but I couldn't do that. I wasn't feeling it. (Plus I couldn't leave the house.)

I sat here for an hour before my brain got in touch with the rest of my body:



And so, I spent some time online and realized I'd forgotten about my blog and found myself wanting to create.

But I didn't write. No, that's hard. I thought about what I wanted to focus on in my book. I remembered what it felt like when the lining of my heart gave out five and half years ago after I realized who the love of my life was. And that I had just sent him away, claiming I didn't love him.

That desperate, chilling realization has got to be one of those moments that unites a reader with a person in a book. It's the moment your soul bleeds into the page and you suddenly are that person you've been reading about. And the character's future is your own. It's the last scene in Persuasion. The railway station scene in the movie version of North and South. Any scene in any story in which your heart beats faster and your mouth turns dry.

So I played some Turkish music and laid out some wool. And I made this*:


It's not dark. It's not even passionate. What it is, though, is soft and fluid. Like clouds. Like my face when he came back. Full of light.


* Nuno-felted scarf of alpaca, mohair, and merino on silk. It's still dripping wet. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some better pictures of it and other things I've been making lately.