OH FRABJOUS DAY! CALLOOH! CALLAY!

It is absolutely gob-smackingly gorgeous outdoors today.  Cool, breezy, no humidity, lots of sun but also lots of clouds to make the sky even more lovely than usual.  Walking home from the studio and gawking at the newly fat-leaved trees swaying in the wind and the colorful spring flowers, I felt incredibly fortunate just to be alive.  Lewis Carroll's verse from "Jabberwocky" came to mind:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe..."

...along with one of my all-time favorite lines of poetry, which makes up the title of this post, from that same poem:  "Oh frabjous day!  Callooh!  Callay!" 

I mean, that just about sums up how I feel about today's weather.

Wikipedia has a wonderful page on this poem here, including some hilarious translations of the poem into Hebrew, Latin, Finish, Spanish, French, and numerous other languages.  I simply cannot imagine hearing this poem in anything other than English, but what do I know?

As I slowly recover from this overly-long head cold, it's such a great pleasure to get into the studio again and keep working on the rug.  Sometimes, comparison can be very motivating.  Here's what I did yesterday (on the left) and then what I got done today in about 4 hours of hooking (on the right):

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

And here's a closeup from yesterday.  I'm really liking how "Old Underwear" (the name for the color of the background) is looking; I think it sets off the other colors very well.  (below)

Working on this piece, often for hours at a time, reminds me of why I love the process of rug hooking.  The rhythmic pulling of loops...the same motion repeated endlessly...allows the mind to slow down.  It's tactile AND meditative, simultaneously.  A wonderful way to  calm the mind and make something useful while doing so. 

Today as I hooked I was listening to several talks from the website Sounds True, part of a month-long series of talks by various teachers on the topic of "Waking Up."  Sounds True is having a major business anniversary, so they are making all the talks free this month; after May, they will be charging for the recordings.  Today I listened to Ken Wilbur, Eckhart Tolle, and Joseph Goldstein, and thoroughly enjoyed myself as I pulled loop after loop and watched the rug grow.

Sometimes I just don't know how I got so lucky, to be able to have this, to be able to do this. 

"Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered."

--William Shakespeare