Uncharted territory

Don't be fooled. This is a picture of what I am not knitting, and what I am not reading. I am not knitting my sweater that I started nearly two months ago. You can see that it is no where near finished or even no where near my size. It is about 2 sizes too big and the armholes are two different sizes. I am thinking about frogging the whole thing and starting over, some day.

And the book I am not reading is Lucy Maude Montgomery's Selected Journals Volume I (1889- 1910). If you enjoyed any part of the Anne of Green Gables' series, the author's journals are an insightful and delightful look into her own life, providing an exemplary blueprint for the beloved character known as Anne. But I am not reading it right now or the other book Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, which I was moderately enjoying and anticipating would get better, if I was still reading.

So what am I doing then, if I am not doing two of my favorite things?

eating this

watching this

anticipating this

listening to this

feeling this:



And wanting more of this:

I think it is in these instances when we should be careful in trying to define ourselves by what we "do". I am a knitter that is not knitting, a reader that is not reading, a blogger who is not blogging very much. I am not photographing, barely journaling or writing.

It feels a bit unstable when all the things that surrounded and described me before are no longer marking my daily me-ness. Moving has certainly changed circumstances, but I think my point is that it can be dangerous getting too comfortable in thinking we know who we are. Breaking the walls of familiarity means there is freedom in not being bound by definition. Like water I can carve new corners, and know that I am as free as any wide-eyed gypsy looking for a new tune to dance to. The sparks of possibility fly like fireworks, expanding the sky and shattering what I thought was normal. Normal, suddenly, has no definition at all.

There will come a day when these bones won't keep up with the thoughts and dreams that scatter around this head. So I encourage myself, and anyone else who's game, to resist normal, resist definition, resist thinking that today is just like any other day, and that you are exactly who you think you are....There will always be uncharted territories to seek and discover within, and all around us.

From one of my all time favorite movies:

Rip out that page!!!!

xoxo