I awoke this morning with a very sore back, but got up, breakfasted, read for an hour and was out of the house by eight. I had no wish to go back to the workshop, nor to make anything; all I wanted to do was read. There is so much that I want to read and very little that I want to make. I feel a little guilty about that, but I’m quite sure that it is what I feel, so I’m going with it. It came to be during Meeting yesterday that a key to this struggle lies in simplicity: I build such elaborate ideas of what I want to make to have around me, and forget the foundation that all these things rest upon, namely that they are but incidentals designed only to make life more pleasant or comfortable. The part of making that engages me most – the process, the doing of it – has nothing whatsoever to do with the made. The image of a hand-formed mudbrick wall replaces that of the finely-crafted, acurate polished wooden panelling, and my penchant for well-bound books and wooden furniture recedes when I have a book to read and a table to sit at. I feel sure that I will return to making, perhaps in a few days.
The book and a table are precisely what I have now: “The Quakers and Quietism” by Pamela M. Oliver (1972, thesis for an MA in History), and the deserted Menzies basement. Lovely.
I am begining to feel a little guilty for not being in the workshop. I know that I don’t want to be, which is nice. I am also a bit hungary due to not having had a very large breakfast. I am very much enjoying this book and learning a lot about 17th Century Friends.
“Henceforth I shall not try to change people’s minds but inform them of my stand only. I shall forgive all, for everything. I shall not err from the Truth as I see it.”
Do I really think I’m going to sit here all week reading this?! As if!