The next best thing

I sometimes sit with a journal and dream and make lists and plans as if it were up to me what will happen. I do this knowing the old expression, "We make plans and God Laughs." I do this kind of journalling to clarify my own thoughts, to think about what I want next. I always do it with intention, and with the knowledge that I am not in control. Still I think it matters to me and helps me to think of what I want more of in my life. And also to take stock of what I have brought forward in the last year. It is a reset of sorts.

Years ago when I was asked to speak to a high school graduating class I suggested that even if they did not know what to do next that they do something. I encouraged them not to stay in the basement and play video games but to do something. And now at times I give myself this advice. Over the last thirty five years I have done many beautiful things with my business. I have created many beautiful courses, written ten books and hooked thousands of rugs. And so sometimes I am not sure what to do next. And I flounder for a bit until I remember what I told the students, "Just do something." And this always leads me back to the frame, or writing a Sunday letter. These two things are the tenets of my art. They are the things that bring everything else in my art and my work into being.

Today I read a quote by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado, "Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by Walking." And this quote took me back to the advice I gave the students and that I often give myself, to just do something. Often we look for guidance and advice from ourselves or others when really we just need to move forward in our lives by doing the next right thing. And there is no knowing for sure what that is exactly. We make a decision and we move towards it carrying hope in our cupped hands. We just walk as if we have a map, as if we know where we are going. We walk as if we have the answers, as if plans really were solid things that could be carried out perfectly. And we do this because it is the right thing to do. We do this because we do indeed make our own paths by walking.

I never could have told you I would be hooking rugs and teaching and running a studio. Each thing happened because I did one thing, then another, then another. And together those things made a year, made a decade, made a life. Sometimes it was a simple as sewing the binding on one rug and then starting another. Sometimes it was carrying a box of books up out of the basement. And this sounds like the beginning but it is not, sometimes that is still the next thing that matters. It is the little things that lead to the big things. 

And I have found this true within the rug itself as I hook it. I do not know how that rug will turn out. I just add one colour, one strip of wool after another and I wait and see what forms from this. And as I watch what forms I follow the instruction of that. One thing leads to another and I let it.

And this is simple advice, perhaps foolish some might say but it has always been true for me. One thing has lead to another because I let it. And where I was lead never felt up to me, but up to the spirit. And I tried to listen to that. I prayed and dreamed and hoped and thanked and I just did the next thing that I thought was best.