as she writes

She creates her world as she writes, following the thread, her lifeline unfolding, knitting it into the garment with loving attention as it emerges, keeping the tension not too tight, not too loose, which takes repeated micro-adjustments, is never perfect, yet if she’s close enough, the many loops, all being one thread, balance out in the end, give if there’s a bit too much pull in one, take up the slack if another gets a little too loose, and she hopes the results will be shapely and beautiful, hopes they will fit Someone, Someday, but in the meantime she often forgets to worry about that, because the thread, which sometimes feels like she’s extruding it from her own body like a good shit or even an orgasm, is itself colorful, its texture like homespun, now fine, now lumpy, and always interesting, especially when unearthing it involves excursions through other minds, other pathways, convoluted ancient watercourses, or sorting through boneyards of history, futuristic gardens or Dionysian revelries, even when grieving the wounds that are uncovered along the way, the searching, the unearthing, the spinning, the extruding, the sorting, the grieving, the knitting, the process itself, the proverbial journey, is fun.

With thanks to: Holly Shere/Taya Ma for “She creates her world as she speaks” and for coaching and permission to use “She creates her world as she writes” as my writing mantra/liturgy; to William Stafford for the thread poem “The Way It Is;” to Alice Mattison for The Kite and the String: How to Write with Spontaneity and Control — and Live to Tell the Tale; to Miriam Hall for loaning me Mattison’s book and coaching on keeping my writing process “not too loose, not too tight”; to Beth F. for teaching me to crochet and Tom I. and my grandmothers and their friends for knitting lessons; to John Donovan whose book I’ll Get There. It Better be Worth the Trip I have never read; and to Pierre Bourdieu for the longest sentences I’ve ever managed to make sense of.