The Power of Play

So if I were writing this in a newsgroup or message board I'd have to start it with "OT"--or, Off Topic. It's not really about quilting. Sorry. But it's about puppies. And who can resist a puppy?

A few days ago, we brought a new addition into our menagerie--an 8-week-old Golden Retriever puppy named Sam. He's about as fuzzy and cute as a puppy can get. Spencer, our almost-four-year-old of indeterminate ancestry, isn't sure this was such a good idea. She spent the better part of the first 48 hours completely avoiding him and giving us baleful looks. She was particularly offended when I brought him up into my home office yesterday--she has definitely viewed that as her special space with Mom. No way I can avoid it, though--I have to have him within site to be on puppy patrol when no one else is home. So Spencer and Sam are engaged in a very careful territory dance in the office, trying to figure out which corner of the room each of them will be claiming for their own. She's never nipped at him, but she did growl and bare her teeth at him a couple of times when he didn't quite figure out that "enough was enough".

But outside? Outside is a different matter. Yesterday, for the first time, the two dogs actually played together. My husband got them started, wrestling with both of them together until they finally just cut out the middle-man and went off on their own. Now they pretty regularly play together when they're both outside. Sam can't quite keep up with Spencer yet--she's got a lot of energy and he's still just a sleepy little baby boy. But they have fun in short little chunks of time.

Inside? Spencer's still trying to figure out just why she has to share her people with the encroacher. But she's slowly warming up to him. She doesn't run quite so far from him when he tries to lick her chin, and she doesn't give us quite so heart-breaking a look whenever he comes near. They were even sleeping within a few inches of each other earlier this evening, although she had her back to him. Baby steps. Baby steps.

All of this has made me think about the power of play. I've often used that premise when I've been working with volunteer teams--in the same manner as the proverb states, "the family that plays together, stays together," the teams that play together tend to work better together. Seeing it in action with the Canine Kingdom in my home, however, really drives home the point. It is through play that Spencer and Sam are slowly becoming friends. It is through play that we can be closer to our family, our friends, our co-workers. Come to think of it, it's through play we become closer to ourselves--isn't that what quilting is all about, after all? Aren't we just playing with colors, patterns, techniques in an effort to allow our creative selves full reign?

Ah, I was able to bring it back to quilting in the long run. I guess I'm never that far from the topic, am I?

When You Can See It Coming...

What is it about us as human beings that makes us sometimes completely unable to stop ourselves from doing something we just know is going to end badly?

I was working on some "homework" from a quilt class last night and I could tell, as I was sewing the last strips on each block, that I was going to end up with whonky blocks. There were plenty of bias edges going on and I knew the strip I was attaching to the center of the block was a little too long, and that while I could certainly stretch those bias edges a little bit to make it fit, there would be a point of no return. Yet I continued to stretch and sew, and hoped for the best. After all, I'd cut and sewn everything exactly to the instructions, hadn't I? Maybe the teacher knew something I didn't and it would all work out in the end...ahem. Blocks finished, and seeing edges wave back at me, I spray starched the heck out of them, steam pressed them, and put the heaviest books on my shelves on top of them on the ironing board and left them overnight.

They're nice and flat today, but there's a clear bow in the outside edges. I either do some reverse sewing, or consign myself to grief when I try to attach all the finished blocks together at the end of the class next spring. What could've been maybe a ten or 15 minute fix yesterday before it went so far awry is now going to probably take me at least 45 minutes to an hour, if I don't end up having to recut some strips and start further back in the process.

I could see it coming. But I didn't stop myself.

Similarly, when my son woke up this morning, I gave him all of about 5 minutes before I mentioned a speeding ticket he'd gotten a couple of days ago. I wasn't yelling at him, simply mentioning to him that the only job he was going to have from me today was to fill out the information on the ticket and get it ready to stick in the mail. All in a very reasonable voice. Even so, before I even opened my mouth, I thought, "He's always cranky in the morning. Maybe I should wait an hour or so before bringing this up." But something in me (admittedly, the part still a little ticked at him for getting the ticket in the first place) just didn't want to stop myself. Yes, there was a subtext to me not stopping myself on that one that's entirely different from the subtext in the quilting incident. But both have the same basic problem--why can't I stop myself when I know something is probably going to end badly?

Fortunately, I just got a couple of eye-rolls and a bit of a snitty voice from my son. It could've been worse. And my quilt blocks can be saved--it's only fabric and a little time, after all. But it made me think of all the times we human beings make decisions we know are unhealthy, or we know will be dangerous, or we know will probably just make situations worse...and we don't stop ourselves. Although we may get some immediate benefit from our poor choices (sure, I was glad that my son was at least momentarily as annoyed about the ticket as I was, even if for different reasons), we know in the long run we'll probably regret having made whatever the decision was and may even have really dug ourselves a hole that it'll be very difficult to get out of.

And so another life lesson from quilting. Hopefully next time I'll stop myself before I sew a piece on that I just know is going to cause me grief later, and next time I'll stop myself before I say or do something I just know is going to end badly. Meanwhile, I have to go find my seam ripper.