The Finishing

For 37 years, I have carried around two embroidery projects.  Begun, but never finished; reasonably well done, but incomplete.  Every move, every settling-in, they found a waiting place within my craft projects, on a shelf full of good intentions.  Patiently, they waited for the moment that I would say, “Enough is enough, time is now of full measure.”  This past week in just two nights, the final details of both were completed as the backdrop to an evening’s television entertainment.

Several such projects have taken up a finality this winter season.  Like cleaning out closets, by unburdening myself of “things waiting”—I have swept away several half-finished creations from my mind.  In the process, I have gained both a satisfaction, and a clearing of my plate for additional tasks I want to accomplish within my creative world.  It is as if I am purging the cobwebs wrapped around my desires to create, while lifting the restraints of indecision, and throwing off the cloak of insecurity that hold me back from being my complete self in the process.

Like a bird testing new feathers, I am leaping into my future with wings spread wide.  No fear greats this effort.  No self-imposed judgement of the result, nor a question of the destination to which these new motions can take me.  Just a musing of what is around the next corner.  I surmise this has evolved from the vast and deep satisfaction I currently find in life.  Thus, now is the time for things to find their full circle from conception to completion.

As for the two embroidery projects, one was intended for a very dear friend.  It says, “Friends are Flowers in the Garden of Life” and I will give it to her in April on her birthday with the story of its lengthy creation.  I will tell her of its five journeys across the country from Florida to Washington, on to Arizona, then back to Florida and finally here to Washington, before its completion.  It will make one last journey across the country to Florida, where it began when we were neighbors.  I will tell her that every time I ran across it in my crafts, I thought of her and the long, dear friendship we’ve shared. 

The other I will keep for myself as a reminder that all things have a finishing.  It will remind me that whatever I start, deserves to be completed, no matter how long it takes—because it is a part of me, and who I am.