The Mandala Project is now half way completed. Woot!
So much has happened since I started this journey. The personal grief has been joined by the national and global grief of the COVID-19 pandemic. The uncertainty of moving forward through this time on a personal level has met the challenges locally and nationally of social distancing and sheltering in place as we strive to "flatten the curve" of the virus. Some days are almost too much - teeth chattering without a fever - as stress piles onto stress.Then I pick up this project and give my poor heartbreak a rest as I focus focus on the stitches, the counting, the tension of the yarn. The rhythmic hook in yarn over hook in pull through again and again over thousands and ten thousands of times becalms, becomes a heartbeat, soothing, creating, sustaining, calming.
Each round is eight repeats, and that first one, and the second, are the hardest. Sussing out the pattern, the construction, putting in and pulling out, counting, helps me understand the patterns of this life time, yet removes me from the same as I place myself into the work at hand. I think of this, the work at hand, and I begin to understand that this is the calming thing. I KNOW what is coming, what to do, how to do it. Even if it lasts just an hour or two a day, this I know in this unknowing time.