this project -- which has been around a long, long time now -- is the only thing on my knitting needles.
at all. i mean, anywhere. not a swatch, not a maybe-thing, not a-thing-that-is-there-but-might-get-ripped-out-anyway-so-it-doesn't-count. nothing else. just this.
it's funny how long it can take your actions to catch up with your mind. i have fantasized about having one thing on my needles. since before the printing press came, i have been warning, out loud, to others and to myself: knitting's gonna slow down! not gonna be churning it out much longer! then along came blackwork. but finally -- i see evidence that i was actually serious.
i have talked at length with friends before about my 'completion' fantasies. these relate not only to knitting, but to writing. with knitting and writing, it seems, it is the same for me: "done" is not always done. and i have this perseverative fantasy of there coming a day -- a late afternoon, it is, in my fantasy -- where the last step of the last thing is finally completed, on the four or five or however many things that have been in progress. and i dust off my hands and say, "okay! i am finished with these things! no things are happening! the end... of an era!"
and then there is white-tablecloth dining. well, that is how i see it. all the things are finished. you go out to dinner. you have the "aaaaahhhh" moment, because all the things are done. and then, you finish dinner, and go home, and get ready for what the next day will bring -- the starting of the new stuff.
i keep thinking it is going to be this way, whenever i finally get organized enough or disciplined enough. with stories. or knitting. (with printing, it does not seem to be an issue, since the KT is just one giant project in and of itself). everything else is like herding cats, as they say. and it is probably never really going to happen, and i don't think it's important that it does. i guess i just like the idea of it. all wrapped up.
when we drive around sometimes, or are walking around town, and i see people going into restaurants, i wonder, "what did they finish all of?"
in a complementary scenario, when i see people "finishing" things -- like winning a sports event or getting an oscar -- i think, "are they going to go get the dinner now?"
with stories, it definitely does not work. there is almost never any "done". it's written, so that's kinda done. then you send it out, which doesn't really merit a snack much less a celebratory meal. then it's accepted for publication -- that's cool, but it's not "done". then it comes out in print and by then it's already old to me. i guess written, and written the way i want it, is the most "done", but there are always steps beyond that, and i get other things started before i get those old steps wrapped up.
and knitting -- well, again -- i never expected this. this is the only thing on knitting needles anywhere in the house.
not for long, probably.