That’s what this year was supposed to be about, for me and in some ways it was, but not in the way I’d intended. I was meant to continue my weaving education. I was meant to start teaching. I was meant to either work out how to fix my back or how to be retired.

Instead, Covid scuttled my teaching plans and the 8-shaft certificate course was put off until next year – and now it may be put off until mid 2021 if we don’t get more students signing up. My back is worse and I’m even more at a loss as to how to exist sans work or a clear objective.

To be honest, I’m a bit depressed.

I’m sure it’s just temporary. I’m only a bit depressed, and I always get a little down at this time of year. Most of the prospects that usually buoy me – end of year gatherings and things to look forward to in the next year – aren’t happening or might still be cancelled, but I’ll just have to find or organise replacements.

What should I consider doing? Hmm, maybe I should also consider what I shouldn’t be doing.

My back is worse, which may be natural degeneration or not being able to go to pilates classes. I’m doing exercises at home, but they’re clearly not as effective. I need to find a replacement, and I’m considering the one-on-one pilates sessions at my local physio.

I feel like I didn’t ‘people’ very well this year. That may not be true – or maybe it just seems that way because so many interactions were online – but the feeling makes me want to avoid non-friends and Zoom for a while. So if I come up with a challenge or project, it should be one I do on my own.

However, support from friends has been good this year, especially in lockdown, and now restrictions are mostly over I know hanging with them, in small groups, will improve my mood greatly.

The next thing is hard to put in words. I need to temper my obsessive nature. To let go of these notions of being useful or helpful, or making a mark, or saving weaving knowledge or learning for the sake of learning. Of having a Plan. Of being Creative or an Artist or anything, really.

I need to sit still and let things be. I’ve spent so many years with my mind in made up places that to navigate reality 24/7 is strange and taxing. I tend to bury myself in obsessions as a form of looking away, and that isn’t good for my mental health or body. And this year has been unusually emotionally exhausting.

Not that I don’t want to be creative or stop learning. But I must to try to have more control of the former and accept I have little control in the latter. To cruise rather than constantly speed and crash. To trust that the current will take me around obstacles, and learn to swim across rather than against it.

And avoid dangerous waters in the first place.

The pandemic and sprained thumb scuttled my plans for the year, but they also gave me time to think. And doubt. And lose momentum. And lose enthusiasm. And find clarity. And be honest with myself.

By the time it occurred to me that ongoing de Quervains might make repairing looms and doing the loom stocktake at the Guild impossible, I wasn’t as bothered as I thought I would be. As far as I know, only two or three people are aware and appreciative of the work I’ve been doing for the Guild, and I’ve never been bothered by that. But when, early in the year, the role became offical… or not… things got kinda weird.

Was it me? Perhaps the vibe was my imagination and things would have sorted themselves out given the chance. Perhaps my instinct was right and the lockdown was a blessing. I guess I’ll never know. My thumb sprain made it all a moot point anyway. I’m chalking it up as a learning experience – trying something a little out of my comfort zone and confirming that it wasn’t for me.

But that got me wondering about teaching. It, too, is out of my comfort zone. Yet I’ve done it before and enjoyed it, and had great feedback, so I think it’s worth doing again. If I’m giving away time and energy, I need to be sure it’s both wanted, and nobody is going to sign up for a class they don’t want to do!

I’m trying to keep that in mind as I consider the future, and if I still intend to make teaching a regular thing. I’m reminding myself that there’s no hurry. I still have a lot to learn, and I’m having plenty of fun doing that. There’s no deadline. I have plenty of time to work this out.

That’s what I have. Otherwise known as ‘de Quervain’s tenosynovitis’. Back at the beginning of April I felt something in my left wrist go ‘twang’ when trying to lift the end of a redwood sleeper. It really hurt… then it didn’t. After a few weeks my thumb and wrist began to hurt a little and feel stiff, then I began to notice that an hour of reading on my iPhone made them increasingly sore. Remembering the sleeper incident, and with lockdown eased, I decided to see my physio.

The weeks later things were no better. If anything, they seemed to get worse in the last fortnight, and I began to drop things. So yesterday I had a scan and was relieved to find I hadn’t torn a ligament, it was the sheath around the ligament that was inflamed.

Next week I’ll be seeing a hand therapist, who’ll set out a treatment plan. Most likely it’ll involve rest, maybe a splint, and perhaps a cortisone injection.

Fortunately, we only have two samplers left to do for the certificate course, and both will be done on the same warp. I’ve already wound mine, and am hoping to get it onto the loom while I still have two working, albeit one painful, hands. Because I’m fairly confident that I can weave one-handed, but can’t imagine threading heddles would be easy.

What else I can do mono-handed will remain to be seen.

Instagram just reminded me that it is a year since Kay died. I’ve never been good at remembering dates, but I knew it was some time in May. I recall having one of the worse bad back days ever, spending the morning semi-conscious in bed waiting for the pain killers to kick in, slowly composing an email to my agent saying I wasn’t sure I’d be able to continue writing as a career, then when I finally managed to get up and download my emails the news arrived.

I recall being seized, afterwards, by the conviction that maybe it was time to head toward being a teacher of weaving instead of a student.

So I signed up for a year long 4-shaft weaving course intending to power on through the 8-shaft one next and get ‘qualified’, such as it is. I got more involved in the guild. I spent months preparing for a rigid heddle workshop for summer school that I hoped I could repeat again throughout this year. I started looking for university textile courses.

And the Covid19 happened.

If I was the sort of person who believed such things, I’d say the universe was steering me away from that grand plan. But then, if I was the sort of person who believed such things, I’d have said Kay’s death and my back issues steered me toward it. Which all confirms to me that the idea that the universe is pushing me anywhere is bullshit. After all, if the universe wanted me to teach weaving it would have ensured Kay hadn’t died so I’d have the chance to absorb all the knowledge she was so enthusiastically and generously sharing.

So what do I want me to do?

Learn – doing the 4-shaft course has reminded me how much fun it is to simply LEARN. It’s been a long time since I felt that.

Teach – I enjoyed the workshop. I enjoy teaching friends. I caught some of Kay’s concern that knowledge was being lost and I want to help preserve it.

Do – I still want to make things. My back issued mean I can’t do it as much as I’d like, and learning and teaching were supposed to fill those gaps.

Adaption and flexibility is how people are surviving these times. So maybe I need to look for different ways to do the above. Go back to teaching myself once the 4 and 8 shaft courses are done. Find ways to teach in person safely, or online. Varying the kinds of making I’m doing to gain more overall output.

When I read through Kay’s blog a year ago, I admired how she had adapted to change. That makes me feel like maybe I can as well. Maybe that’s a lesson she can still teach me, a year since her passing. You just have to find a way.

I have a bad habit of trying to predict the future. Bad, because it can make me anxious and depressed despite the fact that, when it comes to the present and past, I’m more of a glass half full kind of person. I suppose that’s because the past and present can’t change, but the future can so there’s potential for disaster.

There have been a lot of posts on Facebook and Instagram predicting wonderful effects from Covid19 and isolation lockdowns, but I am skeptical. The post-Covid consequences could be bad as well as good. So here are some predictions:

Some people will value their relationships more, some relationships will end.

Some people will continue avoiding hugging and kissing, some will resent it if those close to them don’t.

There’ll be a doubling down on the activities that were restricted, good and bad, once lockdown ends. Gambling, drinking, parties, shopping, eating out, etc. will be indulged in as if to make up for lost time.

Op shops and landfill will be overwhelmed as a result of people cleaning out their shed, wardrobe, whatever, while in iso. Feeling virtuous, those people will go out and buy more stuff.

Helping the economy will be used as an excuse for a whole lot of decisions at both the personal and political levels. Some of those decisions will be bad.

Covid won’t be a big leveller in society, and in fact will only make things worse in places afflicted by poverty and inequality. But it may unite some who did not receive support during the lockdown, like casual workers.

The excess of oil will be used to make more crappy polyester clothes and plastic stuff. The incentive to develop technology to turn plastic back into oil for power will dry up.

It won’t take very long for air and water to become polluted again. People will wonder how the opportunity to fix these things was lost, not realising that they only happened because people were forced to do nothing, not that they were forced to do something. Doing nothing doesn’t lead to lasting change.

Stupid people will continue being stupid. Some dangerously so.

But more people will continue to be kind, having experienced the benefits. Community spirit will have taken root in new places, and grown in others.

Some people will discover that growing your own food is harder than they realised, but some will find they have a new passion. With health benefits.

Ditto for cooking.

There’ll be a boom in fad diets to deal with iso kilos. Maybe even a new “Iso Diet” being flogged by some celebrity or influencer.

People will realise that being fit and cooking healthy meals takes up lot of time. Time that many don’t have. Some will continue exercising and eating well, some won’t and have more sympathy for others who don’t have the time.

Most people will return to working in offices. Many of those people will have realised that working from home doesn’t work for them. Some will realise that it does, and alter their career path to suit.

Ditto for kids and schools.

Video conferencing and online learning will experience a dive in popularity once it’s no longer the only link between people, but will have a significant boost overall because people have realised it’s not as hard as it seemed and has significant benefits – in particular being cheaper and faster than travelling in person.

A billionty plague diaries will have been written, but only a tiny percentage will be even vaguely interesting to read as we all experienced this in an unextraordinary way compared to everyone else – but that won’t matter really, because the main benefit was to the writer.

There will be virus spikes and mini shutdowns and hopefully it’ll evolve into just another flu strain that will ‘only’ kill thousands each year. We’ll look back and recount what we were doing when during the Covid19 shutdown, and sigh at a new generation that doesn’t appreciate how how lucky they are to have old folk around telling their stories yet again.

I was supposed to be going overseas in a few months, on a work trip. It’s all cancelled now thanks to Covid19, which is disappointing but also a relief. Fortunately I should be able to move our flights to get us to and from the same event next year. If not that, then maybe I’ll actually get a holiday out of it. Eventually.

In other news… Recently I agreed to take over the loom caretaker role at the guild. I was doing most of the job already – mending looms and helping with the weaving tools stocktake – so the additional responsibilities are to initiate both, be the point of contact and keep records.

Every time I’ve helped out with the stocktake lots of problems were discussed and solutions thought of but, even with four or five people helping out over two to three hours, we barely got the main tasks done. That’s because so much of what we do at the stocktake is not stocktaking, like loom fixing and assembly, and putting together tool kit bags for each loom.

Because I was going overseas shortly after the stocktake I decided to tackle as much of that work as possible beforehand, but came up against a few road blocks. Now that the trip is cancelled I can take my time. There are looms available for the next class, and plenty spare. And I just heard that interest group meetings are cancelled, so I wonder if classes will be too.

Paul and I are fortunate in that my income doesn’t rely on me leaving the house. The overseas appearance cancellation will affect my income, but not in a big way. I feel for people with jobs that don’t have sick leave, and small businesses that can’t afford to stop for a few weeks.

The other way I feel fortunate is this: as a creative person who likes to read, the prospect of being stuck at home doesn’t feel like a trial, but an opportunity. There’s craft and gardening and some DIY around the house. And tasks I never seem to get around to, like spring cleaning. And a few creative pursuits, like temari balls and welding, that I’ve fancied trying for a while and we have all the tools and materials for. However, I will have to be careful to not trigger my back issues by not being active enough.

What I’m most worried about is my elderly parents catching the virus. They are frail and in the demographic in most danger from it. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse that they still live at home, and aren’t in a nursing home.

All we can do is sit tight, wait and see, and hope for the best.