The Long Stitch, No. 14

The last couple weeks I kept picking the skirt up and putting it down.

Not dramatically. I'd settle onto the chaise in the afternoon, Alta arranging herself against my leg the way she does, and I'd do the small things. Tidy a thread. Turn the canvas over and admire the back, which is a thing needlepointers do and do not explain to anyone. Then I'd set it down and go be useful somewhere else in the house.

I told myself it was the end of summer. Three boys, the shipping, the list.

I had the hours.

The background behind the oranges was dark blue. Every time I sat down with it something went slightly wrong in my chest and I would find a reason to work somewhere else on the panel — a stray tail, an edge, the parts already finished. I knew. I just hadn't said it out loud, and as long as I hadn't said it I didn't have to do anything about it.

Monday I said it. The dark blue was wrong. And then I took it out. All of it.

Ripping out is not the funeral people imagine. It is quiet and a little satisfying and it goes much faster than putting it in. There is a sound to it that I like.

Then light blue, in basketweave, and the panel came up like a window opening.

I have not moved this fast since the leaves. I sat down Tuesday intending to do an hour and looked up somewhere past cocktail hour with a field of blue behind the oranges that had not existed that morning. Wednesday the same.

I wasn't stalled because the work was hard. The background is the least difficult thing on this panel. I was stalled because I hadn't decided.