Macro and Micro

I’m listening to a podcast right now that’s talking about your macro goals and micro goals…there’s the big picture and there’s my picture. I am aiming for a better world, one that focuses on being more inclusive and awesome and empathetic, embracing success for all and environmental health for our future, best we can, and there’s a lot of people who don’t agree with me, but I need to keep aiming for that. Maybe I can’t change the minds of the people around me, but if I keep aiming for that big goal with my smaller goals, with my art, with teaching, with whatever I have, then hopefully people will come with me, will see whatever I put out there, and like-minded people will join me. And over time, those messages will still be out there, doing their thing. I’ve been so buried in my head with how to change minds that probably won’t change, might not change because of me…so just make the work and speak the message, and hopefully it will make a difference. Somewhere. At some point.

I don’t know how this plays out with my micro goal of what the fuck is the next quilt? But I’ll figure it out.

I’m tired today. The rain was loud last night. It kept me awake. I don’t do well with noisy nights. Also, I did a lot of non-school stuff this weekend, which I needed to do, need to keep doing, but it meant I was doing some crazy stressful catch-up stuff yesterday afternoon and evening, that stuff where I feel like I can’t take a deep breath because there’s so much of it, and then I have to stop so I can rethink how to breathe. This year is so full of that crap (by this year, I mean everything since March 13th, y’all, when they sent us home and told us not to come back). I know I’m not the only person dealing with anxiety out there. I keep thinking it looks like there’s a light, an end to this crazy, but vaccine shortages don’t help and then there’s no vaccine for kids, so what does that look like for my being back in a classroom? I just don’t know.

Anyway, so today I teach…in 20 minutes or so, I’ll sit down at the OTHER desk (separate work and personal life, well sort of, because they both happen in both places, but best you can) and try to remember what I’m supposed to be doing for school today. Saturday night, I spent some time after my class doing a training on Violent Critical Incidents (aka shooter-in-school training). I find the trainings really stressful and anxiety-causing, especially videos of kids jumping attackers; that stuff fucking terrifies me. So after that, I did some of the free-motion machine stitching on my Acropolis piece…

There’s still a bunch of hand stitching that needs to happen.

And then the man and I decided to continue this mystery box thing where we’re trying to solve a fake murder (Fake seemed OK…more that I could DO something instead of just watching). This is the second of six boxes. We were able to successfully eliminate the first suspect a few weeks back, and then the second one on Saturday night, after decoding this…

Apparently decoding shit is something we’re good at. Although we figured the code out eventually, once we’d already done all this, pretty much.

I didn’t get to quilting until last night, due to art meetings and school prep and all that crazy stuff, but I was sure I wouldn’t get much done…

But there’s a lot less stuff in the sky, so I managed to finish all the outlining…

I briefly thought, oh yeah! I’m done! But forgot about the stuff around it, the borders. So I’ll do those tonight, trim it up, and see if I have anything that will work as a binding. And then figure out what I’m working on next.

Yeah. That. Back to micro vs macro goals. Can I change the world? Probably not. But I’m gonna try. In the way I know how.

I did have to laugh as I left the studio last night. There are 5…FIVE…in-progress projects that I have worked on in the last week in here.

1 is my Craft Napa plastics project with Natalya Khorover…just needs more hand stitching and an edge finish.

2 is my applique stories woman, who needs to be hand-stitched down.

3 is the current quilt.

4 is the Acropolis piece, which needs more hand stitching and some sort of finish technique.

5 is the cross stitch I finished, which is hooped and just needs a backing, so it can be mailed off.

No wonder I feel psychotic and flailing sometimes. Too many things to focus on, and this doesn’t even touch on house stuff (24 bags of gravel in the river bed so far…need at least 12 more) or school stuff (panic attack, breathe breathe breathe). So you can see that my own art, my personal stuff, I just need to focus on it. It calms me, focuses me, helps with all the other shit. And part of this year has been not having as much mental space and time for it, and that is not helping. So find me that time. Micro goal. Find me the time.

Also, maybe be more chill. Like Kitten.

Except with a book. Or a sketchbook. Yeah.