The Friction of Fiber
Sometimes the resistance we feel isn't asking us to stop. Sometimes it's asking us to loosen our grip.
There is a delicate balance that happens when I spin.
My hands hold the fiber, but they can't hold it too tightly. To create yarn, I have to allow the fibers to move. They slide against one another as I draft, each catching slightly against the next while the twist travels toward my fingers. Hold too tightly and the fiber won't draft. Let go completely and the strand can pull apart.
“Somewhere between holding on and letting go, yarn happens”
Somewhere between holding on and letting go, yarn happens.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
I've been thinking about friction lately and the role it plays in holding things together. We tend to think of friction as something undesirable, something to eliminate so everything can move more easily. But fiber tells a slightly different story. A certain amount of friction creates cohesion. Individual fibers catch against one another, and with twist they become something stronger than they were separately.
Perhaps friction can create strength in us too, although I've become wary of the idea that difficulty automatically makes us stronger. Sometimes difficult things are simply difficult. Sometimes they hurt. The strength, I think, comes from what we learn in the resistance and how we understand the forces pulling at us.
There is the age old rhythm of pulling away and returning. We move away from people, places, passions, and even versions of ourselves. Sometimes we return. Sometimes we don't. When we do find our way back, we rarely return unchanged. We've learned something in the space between leaving and coming home.
But lately, I've been noticing a different kind of friction. The friction of staying somewhere comfortable while another part of me wonders what might happen if I moved beyond it.
“This past year has asked me, again and again, to move beyond the safety of daydreams and into the light of reality.”
I've been slowly toying with the idea of teaching a beginner spinning class. Even writing that sentence brings up the question I've been quietly asking myself: Am I good enough to teach someone else how to spin?
I can happily sit at my wheel and spin. I can explain drafting and twist. I can troubleshoot when my own yarn isn't behaving the way I expect. Teaching someone else is different. Suddenly another person is trusting me to help their hands understand something that took time for my own hands to learn.
It would be much easier to leave the idea safely tucked away as a daydream.
Daydreams don't require much from us. We can turn them around in our minds, polish the edges, and imagine all the possibilities without ever discovering what might go wrong. There is comfort there. There is protection.
Reality has friction.
“There is friction that protects us, reminding us to slow down, pay attention, and consider whether we’re ready. And there is friction that comes simply because we’re moving beyond what is familiar.”
This past year has asked me, again and again, to move beyond the safety of daydreams and into the light of reality. The Forager's Fleece itself began as an idea. Then came the uncomfortable act of putting my work into the world, selling it to people I didn't know, applying to fiber festivals, standing behind a booth, and allowing something that once existed primarily in my imagination to become real.
Each step has brought its own resistance.
There is a part of me that wants to protect what I've created by keeping it within the boundaries I already understand. There is another part that wants to see what it could become. I don't want The Forager's Fleece to simply be a fly by night shop. I want to build something with roots, something that has the chance to grow. I don't know exactly what that looks like yet. Perhaps teaching is part of it. Perhaps there are possibilities I haven't even imagined.
That uncertainty creates its own kind of friction.
Maybe that's why I keep returning to the fiber in my hands.
When I draft, I don't know exactly how every inch will behave. I feel the resistance through my fingers and respond to it. Sometimes I need to hold a little more firmly. Sometimes I need to loosen my grip and allow the fibers room to move. I'm not trying to eliminate the friction between them. I'm learning how to work with it.
Perhaps growth asks something similar of us.
There is friction that protects us, reminding us to slow down, pay attention, and consider whether we're ready. And there is friction that comes simply because we're moving beyond what is familiar. I'm not always sure I know the difference between the two. Maybe learning to recognize it is part of the work.
For now, I'm trying to listen.
To my instincts. To my gut. To the quiet pull toward something more and the resistance that rises to meet it.
I don't know exactly where The Forager's Fleece is going. For once, I don't think I need to.
I can feel the fiber in my hands.
I can feel where it catches and where it wants to move.
And maybe, for now, I can trust myself enough to loosen my grip and keep drafting forward.