Life is short.

I've had far too many deaths of relatives and close friends, and far too many serious illnesses of relatives and close friends over the past year.

It seems to me that people are like walking eggshells, ready to crack and fall apart at any moment.

And yet: I see people sniping over things that shouldn't matter.

And I want to throw up my hands, and say "Okay, when you've all worked this out, and can act like adults, come find me. I'll be out in the woods in a cabin."

I've decided to give up on the "no unnecessary purchases" moratorium (Well, if you were paying attention, you know I've already bought quilt fabric). Because life is short and if I get hit by a semi on my way home, having that extra money in my account won't do me any good. So I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to buy stuff (within reason) if it makes me happy.

The other thing I'm going to allow myself to do is to start new projects when the mood strikes me. And not worry if a project goes a long time without being finished. It's not a race, it's not a deadline, and I'm not going to get paid more if I push myself to finish the boring part of a sweater when I really want to work on a lace shawl.

I knit some on the Missoni socks last night; I've finished the first brown and first dark green stripe and are now on the pinkish-purplish color. And I think this afternoon (I have YET ANOTHER evening committment tonight) I'm going to pull out the ball of Grasshopper Opal that Diann traded to me and start to see how the color patterning works up on that. And I might haul out my swift and my ball-winder and wind off a bunch of yarn. (And I agree, Diann - it's almost as much fun as starting a new project).

I also comforted myself last night in an old, and rather regressive way that I have. I keep certain books around - mostly what would be classified as "children's chapter books." The Moomintroll books, of course. The Pooh books (although I prefer Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner to Now We Are Six, where Christopher Robin has mostly left behind the Hundred Aker Wood). The Chronicles of Narnia. Wind in the Willows. And the one I selected last night, "The Hobbit." I've tried to read the Ring trilogy what, three times? And I always bog down. The battles get to me. I can't stand that much description of death and destruction, even if it is part of a symbolic fight of good against evil. But "The Hobbit" I love, and have read umpteen (eleventy-hundred?) times. It's to the point where I can quote the opening sentences to myself:

"In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms, and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." .

And the whole story comes back to me - the reluctant "burglar" who eventually gets caught up in the adventure, the spiders in the wood, Beorn, all of it. And the fact that at the end of the story, Bilbo Baggins gets to return home, and take up again (as best he can) his quiet former life.

And I find the book, the whole arc of the story, deeply comforting. I think it's because it's a story that begins and ends at home. And because it's about someone who, initially, is dragged into scary situations against his will, and winds up making it through and perhaps even enjoying it.

And still, the favorite parts of the story for me are the ones describing the hobbit's house, the quiet paneled hole in the Hill done up in green and yellow. And it soothes me and helps me sleep to try to imagine what it looked like (I've not seen the Lord of the Rings movies). Or try to imagine what Kanga's house looks like, or where the Moomintrolls lived.

I complained last night about adults that acted like children, and here I am doing a version of it myself.