We’ve all heard that saying, when you fall off, you have to get right back up on that horse. I’ve had horses. I’ve fallen off. I’ve had to get back up on and it is not easy. I think the phrase stays in our lexicon because if we think of life as the horse, we all fall off from time to time and getting back with what we want to do is difficult. I know I’m talking a lot lately about this kind of topic but it is all around me.

For me, this week the horse has been my long arm. I haven’t quilted anything in MONTHS. It could be almost a year but I’m afraid to look closely at the calendar. I was afraid it wouldn’t even turn on, let alone sew the way I need. I joined a FB group for owners of my particular software, hoping that I would get some inspiration and some direction from there too, but at the end of the day, it comes down to me putting a quilt on the machine and starting.

I made so many mistakes. Rookie mistakes. Measured my back the wrong way and made it too wide to fit the machine. Once I corrected the width, I didn’t have enough fabric for the length. Thank heavens for a giant stash, go in there, find another piece and insert it into the back. Ok back done. Load it on the machine. Oh look I forgot to cut off the selvedges. Ok I can do that as I load the back, just stop at each seam and cut them off. Each step of the way, I’m nervous and I’m worried but I keep going. I know that if I don’t do this quilt, I’m going to atrophy into someone who is so afraid of the machine that I won’t ever sew again. So I push forward.

Since it has been so long since I’ve used the machine I give it a thorough cleaning and oiling and change the needle. Thanks to the user group there was a great video and I did just what it said to do. Got things cleaned up and got my quilt loaded and with HUGE amounts of trepidation, started to sew my first pass. It went better than I could have imagined. Everything worked. So I turned everything off and walked away. This morning I got up early and sewed two more passes. Again, things worked like they are supposed to. I still have two more passes before the quilt is done (it’s 98×98) but I’m getting back into the swing of things. But I’m on that horse again.

I am writing this post so that I can look back later on and remind myself that I can get back up on that horse. When life throws me a curve and I get away from doing the things I want, I can get back to it. I cannot let the fear of failure keep me from doing the things I love. I cannot let that fear overwhelm me to the point of atrophy. It may be slow and there will be mistakes, but each time, I just need to dust myself off, have a good talk with myself and get right back up on that horse.

We are heading into our grand two weeks of fall here in Texas, and it’s got me thinking about color more and more. Ok I joke a bit, fall is longer than two weeks, it’s just interspersed with more days of summer so it’s not really a coherent season, but the trees and grasses do change color. This is my favorite time of year, and these colors have always spoken to me at a deeper level, I think because to my eye they signify the end of summer and the cool crisp days of fall and early winter.

Lately, however, I have been noticing a shift in my perception of color. I notice more color. All around me. All kinds of colors. I am drawn to more palettes than I used to be. As I’m sewing more and more again, after having been ill, I am finding that I am surrounding myself with a cacophony of color. I am working on two quilts in particular, one in Americana colors (think tea dyed red, white and blue) and the other is a rainbow Kaffe Fasset. I think that’s pretty much getting to the end points on either side of the spectrum. They both make me gleefully happy for totally different reasons.

The Americana one is my wheel house. Traditional colors. Homey. Inviting. Homespun, you might even say. I’m going to back it with a brushed flannel so it will be one giant hug of a quilt when I look at it. Those colors are what say warmth and inviting to my eye. (Everyone is different, that’s just to my eye).

The Kaffe quilt is new for me. I’ve been doing more work with brights lately, and let me tell you this thing is B-R-I-G-H-T! Loud. Shouting with exuberant joy. It will still be a hug but this is more the hug I get from my chocolate Lab, that is all bouncy and ends with a lick on the face. Looking at it makes me smile. I’m fairly sure when it is done, it will be viewable from space.

I have always been fascinated by people who knew, when you asked, exactly what their favorite color is. I found that often my answer was YES. YES to color. I don’t have a favorite exactly. It depends on the day, the mood, the situation, the time of year, so many factors go into what makes a favorite color for me that it is always changing, yet the one constant is YES to color. Lots of it.

How many times have we all said those words: I can’t. I don’t know about you but I do it all the time. I use those words constantly. About a lot of things. I am starting to realize the many facets of I can’t and what it is doing to my life.

First of all, there’s the I can’t when what I mean is I won’t. There’s a difference. Won’t is a choice. I’m making a choice. It’s what is right for me at that time. Nobody else needs to agree with my reason, or get my reason, or heck even know my reason, but the bottom line is I won’t, not I can’t. I need to start making this distinction so that I am reinforcing that I have choices in my life and I am making those choices.

Second is a very subtle thing, and to get there, I’m going to have to digress for a moment.

Do you know about self-talk? We all do it. We all have a voice in our head that talks to us all the time. This voice talks all the time and usually the favorite topics are negative things. We are not good enough. We are not loved. We do not look right. This voice drones on and on and on and it convinces our poor minds of horrific untruths. I have been on a journey to find out that the voice in my head is MY VOICE. I own it. I control it. I can tell it what to say. I can chose to change what that voice tells me. I am working very hard this year on changing what my self talk strategy is. This is not telling myself I’m going to be a supermodel, but talking myself through situations with purpose rather than letting the voice take over. Slowly, I am seeing a shift in how my mind works. It is very slow but I am seeing a shift.

Ok now to I can’t. I spent the most glorious weekend at the O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat. I’m learning how to play a new musical instrument, at my age. HAHA. But adult learning is difficult. As adults, we have gotten very used to picking up things quickly. We rarely pick up something that is too far out of our comfort zone and for that reason, we gain a basic mastery rapidly. Anything that doesn’t fit this model is HARD. The attrition rate amongst adult learners is huge. Fear of failure, the length of time to see any measurable results and finding the time to put in the necessary effort to learn anything new, be it language or music or anything is HARD. But I want to do this so I embarked on a journey last year. And it was oh so hard last year. I literally cried from frustration the whole weekend. It was so HARD and I kept saying I can’t do that.

One of the big things is in the Irish Music Tradition, music is passed on aurally, you learn by ear. I am a classically trained musician who works from a score. I can’t learn by ear. I told myself that all weekend last year. I kept telling myself that last year but I did attend a workshop on the subject where I was told I could learn. So I worked on it for a year.

Fast forward to this weekend. At the retreat. I learned two new tunes by ear. TWO. BY EAR. I CAN. This is huge. I’m still not very good at it, it took all weekend and my teacher is a saint of a young man but I DID IT. He also wanted me to tap my foot while I was playing. I told him if I had to move my feet and my hands at the same time, I would fall out of my chair. We all laughed and I said I can’t.

I got home last night and was playing my new tunes. I tried tapping my foot. It was the predicted train wreck. The cat got poked in the process when I lost my balance. Then something crossed my mind. A year ago, I had firmly said I CAN’T learn music by ear, but I had just spent the weekend doing that. I played a bit more, I apologized to the cat, and as I got ready for bed I told the voice in my head to start saying something different.

I’m no longer going to say I can’t. I’m going to say I can’t do that now, but I’m learning. Just wait until next year