Controlling What You Can

Controlling What You Can

Today’s morning reading excerpt:

“While you don’t control external events, you retain the ability to decide how you respond to those events. You control what every external event means to you personally.”

The Daily Stoic

When we returned from Africa, I had a livestream scheduled for the next day and a Zoom meeting that couldn’t be rescheduled shortly after that.  As my computer had crashed and then been wiped out while in Africa, I really, really needed to get it working again or get a new computer, which is no small undertaking, especially if you’re someone like me who is basically computer illiterate and the very idea of migrating information leaves me in a cold sweat.  So I went to the nearest Apple store only to be told that basically I should hold on to the computer I had and try to migrate from my time machine. Only my time machine hadn’t backed up since last April.  WHAT????  I know, I know.  Evidently time machines need to be periodically checked to be sure they’ve backed up and do not always do so automatically.  News to me.  

So I went home and backed it up and then had endless problems resulting in tons of phone calls with various tech people, as well as realizing how much information I had lost, and then in the midst of all of this I was overcome with a combination panic attack, grief (my mother had just died) and despair; I went into our bathroom and sobbed.  To say I “cried” wouldn’t do it justice. It was more a cross between a howl and uncontrollable sobbing.

“While you don’t control external events, you retain the ability to decide how you respond to those events. You control what every external event means to you personally.”

And that was the thing. I was taking all of this personally. The computer, my mother, jet lag, grief, panic… All of it felt like an assault on me.  But it wasn’t personal. It was life. So I’m trying hard to remember that. It’s easy to remember when things are going along as I expect them to or when things happen that are unexpected, but are welcome events.  It’s much more challenging to remember when things happen that I don’t like or want.

And yet, here I am writing this post on my new laptop, which has taken some adjustments and came with it’s own set of challenges, typing away!

I’m teaching my last workshop, Improvisational Stitching, of the year and am making new Youtube stitching videos and am getting back to creating and incorporating my travels into my latest piece. I can feel my energy returning little by little.

As long as I don’t take things personally, I’ve got this.

Oh, and look!!! Remember I said I so regretted not purchasing some Kuba bark cloth while in Africa, but that I remembered there was a guy who sells African fabrics on the street?  Well over the weekend, I found him and here are the pieces I got from him.  This first was badly damaged, but I was able to repair it and even figured out and copied the stitch originally used to stitch the seams together.

Bark Cloth From The Democratic Republic of Congo

And look at this one!!  I just love the colors, all natural dyes, made in The DRC.

Kuba Cloth

And finally this one, which is by far the most typical, from what I’ve seen.

Hand Stitched Kuba Cloth made from raffia, hand dyed and sewn from the Democratic Republic of Congo

And here is my improvisational stitching piece where I’ve begun incorporating some of the things I saw and loved while in Africa using Pat Pauly hand dyed linen.

African Inspired

Getting Back to Work

Getting Back to Work

I just finished editing the final video of our Africa trip. If you’re interested in following along I created a playlist: African Adventures and you can subscribe to get email notifications whenever a new video is posted. The last video of that trip will post on Saturday.

A couple of fun things are in the works. First I’m interviewing my friend Pat Pauly this Wednesday and should have that interview posted on my Youtube Channel by Thursday.  And speaking of Pat, she hand dyed the most exquisite pieces of linen and has them up on her site.  You can go and purchase by clicking ‘here‘.  Pat’s linen is my favorite linen to use because each piece is utterly unique as she stencils and hand paints each one and also because she uses an excellent quality 100% linen.  I love the hand of it and how easy it is to stitch through.  A word of warning though, last time Pat put a number of these on her site she sold out in less than 24 hours, so if you want one, you better hurry!

I was so inspired by my trip to Africa.  It wasn’t just the animals, but the crafts, the baskets, the textiles, the masks, sculpture, art, all of it was just thrilling to see.  As a result I’ve been incorporating some of these elements in my improvisational stitching  piece that I started a while ago.

Improvisational Piece inspired by African motifs

Obviously I have a LOT more to do on this piece, but I’m liking where this is going. I may even be able to work in a livestream in the next few days if my migraines will cooperate!  And if you haven’t already done so, my Improvisational Stitching Workshop is coming up and there are still some spaces left.  This is the workshop where we discuss design, design elements, free form hand stitching, improvisational stitching, color, techniques, and I will also be talking about how to incorporate things that inspire you into a piece.  We will use either a plain linen background or pieced, and will discuss the different ways to piece and appliqué onto the background before we begin hand stitching. This workshop runs on Saturday and is 5 consecutive Saturdays in a row, giving each person plenty of time to work on their piece before we meet again.  I highly recommend it for anyone interested in branching out and doing your own thing.

in other news, I’m doing my best to take it easy, get used to this new malaise that seems to be part of my life now and not get too upset that my energy level is so much less than what I’m used to.

“This too shall pass” they say and so I remind myself of this all the time.

The Day to Day Trajectory of a Tourist on Safari

The Day to Day Trajectory of a Tourist on Safari

First day seeing an animal (any animal):

Me: What is that?  It looks like a boar.  Runs to find someone who can accurately identify said boar.  Told it’s a warthog.  

Second time seeing boar-like creature:

Me: Oh look! It’s a warthog. Confidently lists several features of the warthog; it’s preferred vegetation, which animals prey upon it, etc.

First day seeing a Bushback:

Me:  oh look!!!  It’s a bushback!  This is SO exciting. Spends next 20 minutes filming bushback while exclaiming over ever single detail of their unusual markings.

Male Bushback

Second time seeing a Bushback:

Me: Looks around for other animals, sees there are none, begrudgingly films bushback for a few seconds before turning the camera to a large bird which has landed on a tree branch nearby.

Third time seeing a bushback: 

Me: doesn’t bother turning around,  Oh look! A whole family of warthogs.  Aren’t they funny?

Fourth time seeing a bushback:

Me: No reaction.

When on safari each new sighting is met with feverish anticipation and curiosity.  Then, after a few more sightings, inevitably one is on to the next thing.  For me it began with pretty much anything that moved, followed by awe at the enormity and beauty, and a desire to see whatever it was up close.  Then, over the course of a few days, I noticed that I wasn’t even bothering to film the bushbacks and their beautiful markings. In an effort to combat “the jaded tourist”, I tried hard to pay attention to and marvel at the markings of the impala, antelope and others.

Zebra

Still the thrill of seeing what are referred to as the big 5 couldn’t be shrugged off.  The big five: Rhino, Elephant, African Buffalo, Lion and Leopard are the most sought after sightings, but in the beginning, anything was exciting, even the bushbacks (which I still love for their exquisite markings).  But it’s easy to ignore yet another baboon or vervet monkey or Ibis or Spoon billed stork or the amazingly colorful Lilac Breasted Roller. In fairness, I never did tire of seeing those monkeys and birds, however I admit I did begin to view the impala and bushback, so plentiful and in such massive numbers, as the “deer” of Africa.

If you are interested in travel and specifically in traveling in Africa, I have been releasing a new video every day on my YouTube playlist: An African Adventure.

Today’s video covers a river safari we took in Zambia where we sighted countless hippos.  I was not frightened by any of the animals we saw except for those hippos.  They are enormous, fast and fierce and when you’re in a smallish boat, they can be terrifying!