I think that sometimes I see my life as a series of meals, and I have never learned to eat properly. My pacing is poor: one minute, I'm desperate and starving, gobbling experience as fast as I can, cramming myself full, too full, scared that someone will rip it away before I have had a chance to finish. I can almost see myself, hunched protectively over that portion, eating with my hands, barely able to catch my breath.
The next minute I'm feeling frail and tummyacheish, staring at a platefull and not knowing where or how to begin on it, overwhelmed by the textures and tastes and even by the utensils. How do I use my fork? Do I remember how?
I've been working for years on a pieced yoyo quilt. I don't have stamina, but I come back to it whenever I want it and without worry. Open the box, look at the bright circles and the thread and discs and feel good. It's in different stages of creation, from piles of uncut fabric to yoyos to a yard or two of finished quilt. And for some reason, that's okay with me. I can see what it is now, what it was and what it will be. It has accepted my pace without judgment. When I work on it, I accept my pace.
The quilt is separate from the rest of my life; that is, I don't take it in as general metaphor. It just seems to exist. The yoyo box is a place I go whenever I feel like it. Wholesome and tangible. Easy. Welcoming. No gobbling, no tummyache. No one will snatch it away, I'm certain, because who else wants a box of cotton fabric? And who would deny me the humble pleasure of it?
I haven't yet found the way to reconcile my life to itself, one part to another, pace to pace. I could say, mixed-metaphorically, that I vow to spend more time in peaceful piecework and less time in alternating glut and starvation.
I hope I will.
I will try.
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