Stuff Won't Stick

Forgetfulness is a form of freedom. ― Kahlil Gibran

You know when you get to the top of the stairs and suddenly forget why the heck you were going upstairs? Or when you walk into a room and wonder what the heck you are doing in there? That's what my brain is doing this week. I know people use the word "literally" a lot these days, but I mean it when I say I literally put a piece of bread in the toaster to make myself some toast before I sat down at the computer to write this blog post, and then literally forgot about it in the next moment and opened a box of cookies instead. When the toast popped up, my mouth was literally wide open around a cookie and it was like I was snapped out of a dream. And then I laughed... rather sheepishly. Oh, dear. Stuff just isn't sticking in my brain so well at the moment.

I think part of the problem is that I've let a few of my habits slide over the past few weeks. I decided I'd better get back into the habit of roasting some veggies on the weekend to have ready for my lunches and dinners so that I can make sure I'm eating enough plants in my diet. It is a satisfying thing to get back into my routine again:

It has also been raining a lot recently, so I haven't been outside as much as I'd like to be. We finally got a really dry, sunny day yesterday, so we took the opportunity to get outside and bask for a while. That did wonders for my brain:

I still have to really push myself to do the things I'd dearly love to put off. I kept walking past the pieces of my loom sitting on the floor all week and feeling bad that I hadn't touched them since I oiled them. Today, I finally sat down to assemble it. As it is with most things I put off, it was much easier and went much more quickly than I imagined. I'm going to wait until I have a few days off in a row to start working with it so that I don't have to keep starting and stopping with it. I think I'd better mark a date on the calendar, though... the way this brain is working, I need some way to remind myself of the commitment, or else this guy is gonna gather dust till next year:

Meanwhile, I have been plugging away at this project and have been finding that it is knitting up much more quickly than I thought it would. I finished the second front piece yesterday and it is currently sitting on the blocking boards waiting for me to take it off and join it to the back. I say it has been going quickly, but it would be incorrect to say that it has been an easy project. Much like my brain is at the moment, the plans for this project just refuse to stick:

The original idea was to use this yarn for a Fair Isle cardigan, complete with a design I'd graphed out onto paper, a steeking plan, the whole nine yards. I knitted two inches of it and hated it. I ripped it out and reimagined it as a pullover using this stripey stepped pattern, but as I worked on it and calculated my yardage, I realized that wasn't going to work out. So I rearranged it in my brain as a short-sleeved shawl collar cardigan complete with a belt to wrap around me. "Yes," I said to myself. "That will work."

So last night, I started to join the first front piece to the back by trying to do a three-needle bind-off at the shoulder. I got to the end, looked at the stitches, and realized I'd messed it up and made it too tight. So, I picked it all out and tried again and then realized that I'd put it on the wrong side - I'd planned for it to go on the left side of the cardigan, not the right. That wasn't so much of a problem, because I realized that it worked better there... the stripes will be more visible this way... except that the bind-off still wasn't right. I took it with me to a video chat with my friend today, where she watched me say only partial sentences as I tried to graft the pieces together with a Kitchener stitch. It took me two attempts and a lot of scowling, but it finally went on properly:

But now, seeing how these pieces drape and hang, I just don't think the fabric is suited to the shawl collar cardi idea. I think it wants to be a kimono... long and drapey with short drop sleeves...

Or maybe it wants to be a firefighter or a doctor or a sea captain. Who knows what this thing wants to be. Ask me in a week. Who knows what will happen by then?

In the meantime, I'm going to try hard this week to give myself a break and clear my brain and allow myself to do whatever it is I need to do to feel more like myself again. Like this sweater project, I think I'm forcing myself into things that aren't really working for me at the moment - trying to be my usual, productive, perfectionist self. And the brain is rebelling. It's overloaded and is deleting stuff in a desperate attempt to preserve itself from exploding, hence the toast/cookie fiasco earlier. It's a sign that I think I need to cut myself more slack these days. Now is not the time to expect me to be "normal." 

I'm gonna go chill out with Mr. Seymour now... just as soon as I can find my tea cup. I left it here somewhere...

Have a good week!