At least for me.

Or maybe I’ve just noticed that a sense of competency inspires confidence which energizes another cycle through projects.

It began Sunday with being very popular (not something I’ve experienced often), having to leave one music practice early to get late to a call-back invitation.

At the theater I was one of a collection of ladies who “all have already been cast” (one whispered to me– catching me up).  I heard each one sing, solo, and was delighted by every voice.  It made me feel honored to be one of this group.

Later that evening I had a lively two-hour conversation on a variety of entertaining intellectual and spiritual topics.  I felt very clever– with the comfortable sort of self-delight I experience when a song I sing is pleasing to my ear.

Afterward it was much as though the burner had been thoroughly turned on under my pot o’ words.  So instead of crashing I revised a high-action chapter and gave it to Jay to read the next day.

He kept commenting on how “violent” it was.

“What’s the big deal?” I asked, secretly pleased I could surprise him.  “It’s only snakes.”

“You don’t even watch these kinds of movies!” he said, then paused.  “I guess you did see Lord of the Rings…”

But then my Big Disappointment crashed down on Monday, and I felt all of me curling inward, like a dried out orange peel.  My mom was able to take the kids for a while after nap and I dove back into my novel (something I don’t think I’d have been able to do if I hadn’t been built up the day before) and punched out 1500 words, finishing a new section, editing an old one and beginning a second new section.

Then the next day I was again blessed by delightful, encouraging conversation.

The pregnant woman I spoke of last post actually stopped me so she could get paper to take notes on my random baby advice.  Talk about feeling honored…

Then after getting the kids in bed I returned to the quilts, and the story from last night didn’t have room to include my surprise and delight that I was able to simply put them together by feel (this stage has previously required more measuring and pinning).

The quilts had been lying fallow for some time, because they had progressed beyond the “logical sequential” roots that had prompted me to pick up the project in the first place.  I didn’t have the mental energy to make the shift and wasn’t trying to dig it up.  But talking and writing successfully– feeling competent in these areas– seem to have emboldened me to return to something else challenging.

And here we are: almost done.

~ ~ ~

Maybe this is why the gordian knot has always appealed to me, both the quilt and the story; I feel an affinity to the convoluted but working logic, and the way one thing leads interminably to the next.

And I’m so thankful for the ways God chooses to encourage me.

In my mind thse things are very connected.