The wisdom of disappointment
Excitement, curiosity, tiredness, and disappointment showed up. It was disappointment that was most telling because it was so uncomfortable, like confronting a loss within myself. But in time, slowly, I came to realize that disappointment allowed me to pause and reflect – and to remind me to be true to myself as I am now, not what I thought I was, or how I once was.
Excitement and curiosity
I love so much of what I’m doing these days – working on my art, writing about my creative process, and sharing it and being supported by you, my Patreon supporters. You allow me that, and I am very grateful.
I love that initial excitement and curiosity about exploring something new. It fills me up fast. Excitement fuels the motivation to jump in. Curiosity sustains the flame to keep going. And after a while there is a shift, too. I settle into a deeper exploration, I figure things out, and that usually ends with finishing whatever it is that I’ve been creating. But not always.
What if I lose interest in what I’m working on and I no longer want to keep going? Even if I’ve invested so much, held the creative idea for so long, even if I’ve appreciated all the learning that curiosity and deeper exploration gave, and even it I like it, but maybe don't love it anymore, can I just walk away from it? It’s like that sometimes, isn’t it. It’s very disappointing.
See, I had this great idea to hand stitch designs on the edges of handwoven scarves of natural handspun cotton from Tai Lue weavers. I had visited the Ban Lue Handicrafts & Homestay in Nayang Nua in Laos in February 2020, and wanted to hand-dye a handful of scarves. So I took a couple of classes with Mae Sang, the master weaver and hand-dyer there, and she guided me to dye the scarves using indigo, jackfruit wood, and red taro.
Below are her family's indigo dye vats. The original fermented indigo starter is 200 years old, and generations upon generations have added new batches of indigo to it, keeping it alive. Mae Sang is the current indigo dye master and keeper.
Typically the handspun cotton thread is dyed first, then woven. But I had asked her to do it the other way – to dye natural woven scarves even though the threads hadn't been dyed. It's much harder to get the indigo to evenly saturate a woven scarf that way, but Mae Sang was able to do it.
I watched and took photos as she dunked one scarf into one vat, then another, then another, darkening the scarves to my liking. Once a vat has been used once, its potency is exhausted and it needs time and replenishment to recover. This is why she goes from one vat to the next.
And here are the four indigo-dyed scarves, wrung out and awaiting next to air dry out in the sun.
I made some early sketches in my travel journal of hand stitched designs on the edges of scarves, with the idea to launch it in the The Siho Collection later in the year.
It took me until the late autumn to pick up the project again. I was excited to start hand stitching a design that involved a series of columns. It’s a simple design, one that I’ve done before and felt comfortable to do. And so I began, choosing a dark indigo cotton handspun thread, also from Laos.
At first I really enjoyed it and curiosity keep me going. I posted a sneak peak on IG and wrote: “Getting close up to the feel and energy of natural hand-dyed, handspun, and handwoven cotton indigo is incredible - deeply calming and grounding these days.”
My technique got better. The front and back sides were quite tidy. Hand stitching was a calming practice leading up to a tense election. And I got to listen to a new audiobook.
Impatience and tiredness
And yet, I was astounded at how slow the stitching was. Hours and days and more days passed and I still hadn’t finished.
The slowness turned to impatience. Excitement had long passed and I realized curiosity was now gone, too. Tiredness creeped while doing the same small repetitive stitch. Knowing I had a lot more of the sameness in order to finish exhausted me. Maybe I made a mistake, not realizing that the stitch pattern I chose would take this long and prove to be too much for me to sustain.
I want to make beautiful things that excite and delight me, and hopefully others, too, but this wasn’t happening. I noticed that the row of columns wasn’t straight, that the indigo color on one edge of the scarf was slightly lighter than the indigo color on the other side. This was a scarf that I was making for someone to buy and wear. I kept noticing what was off and feeling my exhaustion. I was so close to finishing... but wanted to give up.
Disappointment
Disappointment appeared. I had to look up the word. “The feeling of sadness or displeasure caused by the non-fulfillment of one’s hopes or expectations.” (dictionary.com) I had hoped it would look great, but it didn’t. I had hoped it would go faster, but it didn’t. I had hoped that I could enjoy the process, but after a while, I didn’t.
I was disappointed because I thought it was such a great idea and my experience with Mae Sang made it even more meaningful. But what if it wasn't?
I was disappointed in myself because I had done this kind of hand stitching before, but why couldn’t I do it now? A year and a half ago I had spent the summer hand stitching simple line patterns on a series of Phu Tai Indigo Ikat Knotbag Wristlets (below, modeled by Sush) in the launch of the Siho Collection.
I had patience, focus, and discipline then. Had I lost all that?
No, I tried to reassure myself, and as Sush tried to explain. Maybe my mood was reflecting the times and reflecting me now. In this pandemic where worlds have gotten so small and inward, and outwardly challenging and chaotic, my hand stitches were aching to be about that instead. They needed to let go of control and certainty and be less structured. They needed to be freeform and intuitive and now.
I captured it here in a hand-scribbled note:
It was disappointment that was most telling because it was so uncomfortable, like confronting a loss within myself. But in time, slowly, I came to realize that disappointment allowed me to pause and reflect – and to remind me to be true to myself as I am now, not what I thought I was, or how I once was.
So I began again, with a new indigo-dyed scarf from Mae Sang, and a different pattern. The hand stitching was more freeform and intuitive in its placement and direction. It went faster, too. I appreciated the other side with it being not perfect, because I'm not perfect and there’s always another side to things anyway.
And I really liked it. Excitement and curiosity started to come around again, too.
As for the first scarf? We had a talk and we’re going to finish.
“I know I disappointed you.” he said. “But let’s make it right again. You held me for days before, stitch by slow stitch, and I just need a little more now to be whole. I want to be finished with love and care so I can come alive and find my next person to keep warm, to adorn, and to wrap myself around. We need each other to complete what we started.”
“You won’t be disappointed,” he assured me.
“The wisdom of disappointment” was originally published as an exclusive post to my Patreon supporters in January 2021. Now it’s public and available to you, too!
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