~o:> Ah, to be clever and crafty!

I guess it’s because of the photobooks that my days disappear so quickly.  My Cammon dropped by the other morning to borrow G’s iPod.  I noticed the green truck at our curb, sandwiched into a line of string players’ vehicles (there for a studio session) and parked smack in front of the mail box (which is why I noticed it, actually – WHO IS THAT DANG . . . oh).  He came out of the house as I reached the porch, and I was washed with quiet content, just seeing him there.  My married son, casually dropping by for a moment—as though we still live in the same house, only the house has gotten  much bigger now, and all the hallways have turned into streets.

There is a fundamental shift in me that comes as the first night chill breaks the heat of August.  Something changes in my head, or in my body—or is it actually in my soul—the way a woman is a slightly different self when she becomes pregnant.  The same self, but reframed. I’m beating this to death with words; it’s really hard to pin down.  But maybe you know how this feels.

I stood on a friend’s doorstep one September day. The nights had finally gone to that pre-curser sharpness, and I was bouncing as I waited for her to open her door.  “Doesn’t this time of year . . .,” I began at the sight of her, just as inarticulate then as I am now, “ . . . don’t you just suddenly have to make things?”

She looked at me like I was an idiot.  “No,” she said—like duh.  Why is probably why the friendship eventually faded away.  And why I often wonder if I’m actually the only one who goes through this.

Frankly, I think it has to do with a biological imperative: summer is for tending the fields and gardens; autumn is for harvest.  The cold is coming, and the den has to be lined and warm before it’s too late.  Like nesting, except not.  My hands just suddenly want to pick things up and weave them together.  The urge is almost overwhelming: let’s go shopping for tools and materials and – I know! – let’s start making pies!  This is the gatherer in me, I suspect, battening down the hatches (do gatherers sail?) and stirring to prepare every good thing.

Note that this thing never expresses itself for me in useful ways; I am not driven to can fruit or salt meat.

To eat apple cake and peach cobbler, yes.  Which usually means I have to make these things first, but does not indicate an actual drive to cook.  I am also not that interested in winterizing shrubs or lugging the lawn furniture up into the garage loft. What I want to do is just – make something.

Note the number of reading glasses.  Multiply by seven.  Yes, they are all over the house.

I think I’m also driven this way because I am, after all, a child of God who is The Creator. But that doesn’t explain the autumn component of it all; when He started in on shaping the planet, there were no sun, atmosphere or orbits to measure seasons by.

I used to try to satisfy my craftish hunger by sallying forth to find myself a copy of Better Homes’ Holiday issue.  Now I sip at Etsy and things like Linda’s “Creative Friday”.  I am prepared to work in all kinds of media: clay, glass, wire, fabric, wool, yarn—and if I actually end up actually turning out anything, you can be pretty certain it will be some kind of small creature with eyes.

But that’s big, that “if” part.

My cave of a craft room.  There are things here I’ve made and many I haven’t.

What I want is focus.  If I were good at one thing instead of suffering from my egalitarian ambitions, maybe I’d finally feel some satisfaction.  But I pick up one set of tools, and even as I’m holding them in my hands, I’m start thinking that this other set of tools look more exciting.  Whatever I do start doing, it won’t be the right thing. No matter how many things I start.  Like a kid in a candy shop – a kid with one lousy dime and mile of display case in front of her.

Same cluttered room.  It’s incredible how much actually does not come out of it.

This is why I’ve called myself a Jackess of all trades.  Even quilting, which I did with single-minded devotion for almost a decade, didn’t stick.  Perhaps because I ran out of wall space, and am not the selfless sort of person who is willing to give something like a quilt away. I’ve spent the last several months knitting horse after tiny horse—trying to change my ways, tweaking my pattern, working the craft into my fingers so I can understand the shapes and stresses of the work.  I’d like to be able to whip out wonderful little characters at will, like Linda and Julie and Barbara and Lauri and Carol do.

Yeah.  We’ll see.

Yeah, this is the same bunch of half finished horses from above.  But the light is nice, ja?

All of this is why my specialty runs to Christmas ornaments.  Because they’re small; even the ones that take me hours and days to do can be finished in under a week.  And you can make them out of all kinds of things with any number of different tools—a guard against the short attention span.

Every year, my tree is gloriously overloaded.  And every year I swear I’m never ever going to make another stinking ornament.  Which is a stinking lie.  Because I can’t help myself.  And I can’t just make one ornament—I have to make a couple of prototypes.  And when I settle on a design, I have to make one for each of the kids.  And one for Rachel.  And one for the party.  And—

I guess I’m asking: does anybody else have this affliction?  Antsy hands?  Restless mind?  An infestation of tiny creatures that spring suddenly into the space between your two hands?

I’ve written about my annual Party here and here.  I’m just wondering, since a lot of you guys are too far away to come, and the list is limited by floor space – would it be fun to do one of those blog exchanges?  Should I try to do that?  Would anybody be interested in exchanging ornaments?  I expect great and craftly effort out of anybody who ventures, understand – something special – not necessarily something with eyes, but certainly with soul?

Watcha think?