I’ve been reading the writing of Amy Irvine lately. She lives in Utah and her experience of the four-corners region where she now lives and where I grew up is familiar on a deep level.

Perhaps my enjoyment of this writing and the memory it brings up is simple. Irvine’s writing about the shifting sands of Utah, particularly of places that I have hiked and camped, and in Desert Cabal, her imagined discussion with Edward Abbey and her thoughts on environmentalism, all place me back in my own memories of sand in my shoes. I haven’t left my house except for walks in the neighborhood in what seems like forever. My summer thru-hike has become mostly a dream, and I’m asking myself what it is I want my life to look like inside our new coronavirus reality and then in the future. Because I don’t think we as humans will get to the other side of this quite the same as we were before. And I’m not sure that is entirely a bad thing.

Being forced to observe the birds in my back yard closely instead of pretending I’m observing them while pushing through a 12-mile hike means that I have to slow down and see the magic that is right outside my very own office window. That seems like a good thing.

The world sure feels different.

I feel different. I am lucky that I have a job that I can continue to do and that gives some focus to my days, because I definitely feel distracted. I am generally able to focus on a project fairly consistently, but the last few weeks, I have struggled with sticking with pretty much anything.

I’m guessing some of you know what I’m talking about. So I’m just going to say it again, it is okay to be rudderless for a bit. I’ve been struggling particularly with what to weave in my daily Change the Shed broadcasts.*

This should not be hard for me. I have been teaching tapestry for almost a decade now, I have a personal artistic practice, and I have scores of ideas of what to weave. But still, nothing seems to have quite the interest that it did a few months ago. So maybe I’ll weave about that. Or maybe I’ll just weave back and forth with some handspun. The color changes are fun and it takes away the stress of making any decisions.