First Day Musings --- Under Tension

If you look carefully, you can see there are three

different patterns in the towels. I haven't cut them

apart yet, so they are difficult to photgraph.

Everyone was gone last night, so I sat down to the living room loom and finished weaving the towels. They are wonderful and I am very pleased with them. As I cut them off the loom, they sprang to life. Under tension, you see, things on the loom look very different. The texture is different --- tighter and more stretched out, less detail. And the shape even changes --- things "relax" when the tension is released, allowing the project to transform into the shape it is meant to be. These are fascinating things, really, because everything on a loom starts out square or rectangle. It is the nature of it. And, all things are "put on" the same -- with warps and then wefts. Yet, each project emerges differently. It makes me think of knitting where one uses only two stitches, a knit or purl, and yet the options seem numberless.

And, so it is with life.

We are all born with essentially the same things .. eyes, ears, hands, brain... desires, dreams, hopes... Yet, it is what we do with them, especially under tension, that determines what we become.

I reflected on this as I dropped off to sleep the other night. Then, I dreamt of the option of going back into my life and changing Just One Thing. Instantly, I was whisked back to when I was 28 in my little dear house in Florida. I loved that house. My life seemed perfect. It was just me and the Airman. I had a good job and was getting by. But, I made a decision that changed my path forever.

As I stood there in my back doorway, looking over the garden and all my fruit trees (I even had an avacado tree --- heaven!), I realized that there was no place to put my goats or chickens. This made me unhappy and I realized that I didn't want to change that moment or any other. Each had lead me to where I am Right Now. And, Right Now, I am satisfied. I woke up content and somewhat astonished by the realization.

Aren't there times we want to go back and change Just One Thing so our lives would be perfect (or so we want to believe)? Yet, if we did, we would not enjoy the many things we love now. It is rather like my weaving project. I had one warp on the loom, but had the option of making five different patterned towels based on just how I raised the harnesses. Each is unique, but each started with the same stuff. It was what I chose that made the difference.