Pleat Let Me Go

How do you feel? How does completing a project that took about a year and a half of talk and only 20 minutes of real work make you feel? Exactly. Different. The former usually involves a few factors, an ethereal matter. The latter weighs you down something fierce.

Let's get introspective: a moment of reflection on the strings attaching themselves to expectations gives breath to the hopes and woes weighing upon our perception. Pleats intimidate me. And so I sat on an upholstery project from January '20 to May '21. When it came down to it, I kept on pretending to patiently bide my time for a friend to offer up a staple gun. I talked about the project enough that I just hoped it would manifest. The sturdy fabric destined for the project sat folded in the corner of the closet, cut and tucked away. Both the fabric and I believed in the stories I told friends and foes about my daring quest to revive my beloved footstool-turned-patio-chair. Fabric and I both knew the potential of beauty and joy. We both understood the suffering and need to save the stool from the cheap, flaking faux leather material encasing her in decay. We were both betrothed. I had cut the fabric.

It amuses me how the joy of thrifty living can impede project fulfillment. Sometimes I feel limited by the framework through which my brain processes outer stimuli of our societal games. When gauging the weight of factors behind a craft project, there seems to be an imbalance in distribution of importance. In that, I am referring to the scarcity mindset that haunts our economic culture.

The weight of cost is attached like a shadow. It lurks nearby and shushes outlandishness. It cackles at bravado. It sneers at self-importance. And it tells me the pleats are out to get me. That my scissors and I will only do damage. Let's not waste money on a staple gun when the whole thing is beyond you, it whispers. Alas, this crafting heroine lacked belief in herself most of all.

After half-hearted attempts at direct requests to borrow a staple gun (none fruitful), I finally moved on and did not offer promises to the folded fabric that so longed to live it's destiny beyond the dusty closet corner. When I did purchase the stapling tool, the motivational drive arrived quite spontaneously. Spontaneous in that direct consciousness did not lead to the decision. Perhaps the synaptic foundation of promises from my tales took over at Harbor Freight Tools when I acquiesced a tool box and stapling mechanism...

In the end, I look back sitting on the completed project bombarded with the pricks of these targeted shut downs from the past. But if I look down, on the corner of this footstool-turned-patio-chair, I see the proof of abundance. A gorgeous pleat. No! Four gorgeous pleats! All the time spent in fear of them now replaced by a future of perseverance. And humility. Tools and tool boxes weigh heavier in importance than acquired skills. Knowing a task proves past success, a useful matter in a stagnant world. I choose to see the dynamism of life, and it tells of the need to forget the overbearing cries of inadequacy prior to action. Gut got me to finish the project, and that guidance within may scare me a little, but she delivers.

Not following through leaves echoes. Hollow echoes that battle the joy resonating from the craft itself. In the final moments of the saga to our betrothed, fabric and I wholeheartedly decided not to look up a single thing about the act of pleating. We believed in ourselves. And we sit together on that decision, faithfully appreciating the footstool-turned-patio-chair in her new glory as we await the future tales to tell of heroic crafting quests as friends lend ears. Foes no longer allowed.