Spinning and Irises

The yellow flag irises in the garden have flowered. Every year they spill their scent into the garden, embroidering themselves onto my summertime memories since I was a child. They've only just opened, and the scent isn't as heady as it will be in a few days, so I best enjoy them sitting close, spinning on my cocobolo russian.

No Focus

I've have no clarity of mind at all today, no ability to focus on anything for more than the most fleeting moment. I haven't stopped feeling tired all week. Can't even concentrate enough to write a decent blog entry.

Purina One Campaign & Spinning Goodies

Today I started Pyro on her Purina One trial. I applied for this a couple of months ago and last week her pack arrived with three weeks worth of food. To be honest I wasn't sure if Pyro would take to it at all since she can be a bit fussy in what she likes. Thinking to give it the best chances I held off her breakfast till lunchtime. I needn't have worried, it was gone within a couple of hours. She came begging to me for dinner too, which is a bit unusual as well. I think the real test of this will be if she maintains her ethusiasm, since all three weeks are the same flavour!

I have some vouchers for money off it that came with the campaign pack too, so if any of the cat-people out there are interested, drop me a line.

In other news I got not one, but two amazing spinning parcels today! The first was from Enid Ashcroft bearing two tibetans. A african blackwood and black walnut standard tibetan and a cocobolo and african blackwood pocket tibetan! The second is very cute, in the manner of tiny things, but still completely functional.

The other parcel was my Spindle Candy Spinning Club prize from last month, all the way from Corgihill Farm in the States! It's even more beautiful in person! Included was a wee surprise, a sample twist of another fibre and some american candies!

I am waiting on getting some photos from Saturday and then I will write up about the PF Conference. But it was very fun, and very tiring!

Sodds Law

My plans for this evening involved watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones, an inventory check, and posting up coyly teasing photographs of stock for the Saturday Conference bunch on facebook. What actually happened was sorting out last minute stallholder changes and taking care of a violently ill kitty. Poor Pyro is left not knowing which way is up and I am left with a rather long to-do list for tomorrow and a rather denuded nest bed.

Third day on Sertraline. Finding it difficult to sleep well, resulting in general tiredness. No idea if there's a connection though.

Haven't spun at all today. Very strange.

The Sea of Coping

I am a very big fan of analogies and metaphors. They allow the competent user to explain in easily understood terminology experiances for which there is no true description. Since there are a lot of things in my life that defy description (:-D) my facility to apply metaphors is employed frequently. Today the metaphor regards depression.

A perfectly healthy person stands in the shallows of the Sea of Coping. Some might be further out than others, but you stand there and the tide moves in an out and the waters lap up and down, sometimes barely foaming over your feet, other times a swell might sweep up to your chest. In really hard times a wave might knock you on your ass and leave you sputtering in its retreat, struggling so that you're standing again when the next wave comes.

A person with depression has been caught by a wave and lost their footing. They can't find the bottom to stand, and the water in their eyes prevents them from seeing the shore. They have to tread water or drown. You want to swim to safety, but if you strike out in the wrong direction you know you'll exhaust yourself and just move to a place of greater danger. You find yourself unable to move, desperately treading water.

Into this metaphor I introduce the Therapist. A good Therapist is like a lifeguard. They see you struggling, apply any emergency first aid, and calm you down, before helping you back to the beech and wrapping you in a towel. The key in making best use of them is being able to calm down and stop struggling when help reaches you.

Antidepressants are like driftwood. Some are small and barely of any use. Others big enough to climb on like a raft. The hope is that it'll give you a chance to catch your breath, ease your cramps, and blink the water out of your eyes so you can find your own way back to the shore. But there's no guarantee, no safety line, no helper to watch over you and give you encouragement. And if you still can't see the shore, you still don't know which way to swim.

I really didn't want to resort to antidepressants. Honestly, I'm afraid of them. They are handed out so freely by doctors, most of whom don't bother to address the underlying issues that have you sputtering in the waves. When you take them, the chemicals are in control of your moods, not you. There is no way to tell if what you're feeling is because of the pill you swallowed or because you're genuinely happy or sad. What kind of life can you lead if you don't even know your own heart?

But I've been treading water for so long. I've tried and waited and hoped for a therepist, a lifeguard to lead me back to shore, but I'm tired, and I'm scared. I'm more scared of drowning than I am of the meds. So yesterday I gave my consent and I grabbed hold of the driftwood.

Lets hope soon I see the shore.

Sometimes I feel quite certain that the only anchors for my sanity are Pyro and my spinning. I think most of my friends, being exceptionally intelligent individuals themselves, will appreciate the value of an activity that allows you to completely suspend your thinking. Spinning allows me to live in the moment, totally focusing on just the spinning, but also gives me the freedom to add in additional stimuli if I want to keep my brain engaged.

My Spindle Club goal this month was to complete some works-in-progress to clear my spindles prior to the upcoming Tour de Fleece starting at the end of June. I had three Spindle Club targets, and one week into May I find myself sadly distracted from working on them. I find myself using as an excuse that I will be taking one or more of the projects with me to the Scottish Pagan Federation Conference on Saturday and thus can afford to slack off a bit now. I dislike that sort of lacksidasical attitude in myself. So I decided to take weekly photos to document my progress, more as a guilt-trigger than anything else.

My three targets are a silk hankie project pack from Colorimetry, being spun on Iroko 色子. Beaujolais from Wooliebullie on etsy, being spun on Darcy and the walnut russian. And some natural grey massam being spun on the latest, a blackwood and spalted beech midi turk. All featured spindles are from Enid Ashcroft.

At the PF Conference on Saturday I'm planning on taking along my current stock of jewellery, along with the handspun skeins I've completed over the last six months. At least, that's the plan. I still have no idea how I'm going to price the handspun. The problem with such offerings is that charging according to time spent would cause the price to be astronomical. Charging according to the cost of the fibre would be far too little. If you price per metre, then what factor do you use to differentiate between lace and aran? I've been thinking about it for quite some time and still don't have much of an answer. I may well end up putting an "offers" label on the basket!

Today I made the mistake of getting into a discussion about the crafts myself and a fellow Raveller pursue. I started listing my pursuits and... lets just say it took a while. :-)

In other news, the April 2012 Prize for the Spindle Candy Self Imposed Spinning Club was 10oz of Corgi Hill Farm 50/50 bfl/silk in the limited edition colourway Spring Fling. The glowing jewel-like colours tempted the participating spinners every time we opened a new thread-page, shining at the top of our screens. But the Spinning Gods (and the RNG) smiled on myself and now this luscious prize will be winging its way to my doorstep.

Thankfully my spinning schedule is full for the next couple of months, so I have the leisure to carefully consider how best to show this beauty off. I'm so chuffed!