Two steps forward, three steps back

To put it mildly, it took me a while to get started. The blog, the TypePad setup, was a present for my birthday this January. Sometimes presents stay unused for a while (and not necessarily because they aren't appreciated) but this may be a record.

It's been like a pregnancy; I probably need nine months to be ready for big steps. For me it's a big step to show how I think and work. I'm turning my inside out.
Three steps forward and two steps back does after all bring you forward - if only slowly. It may sound laborious but in fact it's just the same as going one step forward.

Two steps forward and three steps back, however, is how inside becomes outside. Let me give you a picture:
Say, you are knitting an endless stocking but at knee hight you fold the stocking down. You continue knitting - but for every three centimeters that you knit you push the fold two centimeters up. Continue this, and sloooowly the stocking is turned inside out.*

The name of the blog is significant for how I work - in order to go forward, I also have to go backward. That's slow. Slow will be significant for the blog too.

My best friend/husband did the first post 'Starting up', with a photo from his camera, un-cropped  and spontaneous. Quick and efficient, to get me started. With a word like; "You just change this when you're ready."

Ready? As if!  Quick is not my way.

Actually, I thought I would start right away. Words often trigger my work, writing is part of my preparations and my drawers hold plenty of written stuff I could use. It just needed illustrations and some editing. Alas, a time consuming task! I had to search through file after file to find the right photos. Having found the photos, I wasn't always happy with how they looked - so I cropped and altered. While altering I found images filed in the wrong place - correction and new filing and so forth and so on.... This lead me to new ideas that needed recording and a bit of testing - and I got sidetracked as well as backtracked....

My American friend Lynne observes how innocently distractions commence when she is about to send me an email. Getting sidetracked is something that sneaks up on you. See how well she describes it:                                                                                 

"Dear Tittin

After seeing Colin off this morning, I was going to just clean up the kitchen a bit and then return your e-mail.  So, I,m putting some herbs away and decide they should have a label - I go out to the sunroom to my desk for a label, and see that the ferns are shedding all over the place and need a trim.  Of course, I take them to the deck and trim them - now I need to sweep the deck (the weather will soon be demanding we sit out there and enjoy it).  Oh, yes, and sweep out the sunroom of fern leaves....and all those cobwebs that have accumulated over the winter.  Whereupon I notice the lampshade I was in the process of refinishing 9 months ago, the pictures awaiting frames that I finally found 3 months ago, and on and on and on.  This is stupid, Lynne, go get your coffee and hit the computer.  Reheat my coffee for the third time, realize it is 10:30 and I have done "NOTHING" (as in, things on my long list)....including not labelling the herbs!  Very pathetic!  I know you understand of what I speak. "

The decision to act seems to be ruled by an external force. Spell or curse, I don't know - that depends.... You think you are already acting out something important - while in fact you are still barely preparing to do it. I'm easily fooled on this matter.

Preparing for so long has been useful in terms of sorting out my priorities. But the process also made it clear I had some copyright matters to sort out as well. This has certainly been time consuming. In the end it was becoming all too serious. I realized I wasn't sure how to start any more. So I decided to keep the 'Starting up' post and restart in my own words........ Slowly.

The snail pictures are photoshop tweaks based on a photo from the site Bigfoto, well organised site, not too extensive. Try it.

* OK, the 'stocking picture' seems to confuse rather than explain. But I'll stubbornly keep it, maybe someone gets it....?