It was supposed to be a weekend of therapeutic relaxation. Piero and Luca left on Wednesday for a four-day ski trip and I was going to celebrate the completion of nine pieces (and five months of stitching) by watching movies, taking outrageously long bubble baths, seeing a friend or two and being as unproductive as humanly possible.
On Wednesday night, I poured myself a glass of tartly sweet raspberry Lambic...
...watched a PBS special called "The Buddha" narrated by Richard Gere...
...and crawled between crisp, lavender-scented sheets at 9:30pm. Absolute bliss.
My vacation was short-lived.
At 2:30am, I awoke with a start. A fully-formed poem had come to me in the middle of the night. At first I tried to ignore it, but the words became louder and more insistent. Was this some sort of sadistic joke my brain was playing on me? Why now? Each sampler takes me 60 to 75 hours to complete. My framer had given me an absolute final deadline of Monday to have all my pieces in. Four days away.
Over and over the words resounded in my head.
Finally, I got out of bed to write them down.
"On The Price of Beauty"
Fill me, plump me,
Smooth me out,
Inject me with
a girlish pout.
Keep me spotless
and unmarred,
Just put it on
my credit card.
By the time I had finished, I could envision the entire layout, motifs and all.
My decision had been made.
On Thursday, I sewed from 6am to midnight.
On Friday, I sewed from 9am to 9pm (minus 45 minutes for a supermarket run to purchase protein).
On Saturday, I sewed from 10am to 10pm (minus a fifteen minute break for the One Kings Lane sale.)
On Sunday I rose at 4:30 am, worked through sunup, took a brief mid-morning blogging break to report on the OKL sale, and plunged my needle into burlap for the very final stitch at 2:30pm. My back ached, my fingers ached and my retinas were threatening to go on strike.
But it was done.
By the time you read this, I'll be racing to the Valley to drop the final piece off at the framer's.
And then I'm going to watch a movie, take a bubble bath, see a friend or two and be as unproductive as humanly possible. Lying on the sofa and staring at the ceiling sounds pretty good too.
Back on Wednesday (maybe Thursday).