I realized today I’d been fighting ‘what is.’ It’s total silliness, and I do it sometimes. I’ve been resisting so many things. I realized I’m ready to stop fighting ‘what is.’

My favorite type of shampoo, that I’ve been using for almost 20 years, changed their formulation recently. I don’t like the new formulation. In fact, I think it’s nasty. I think the company did a really stupid thing in stopping production of this fabulous shampoo. I wrote a consumer comment on the company’s website that was so unsupportive of the product swap, the company actually refused to publish it. I realized this morning when I was in the shower washing my hair, that my opinion, and my displeasure, of their marketing decision makes no difference to them, and only hurts me. I’d gotten wrapped around the axle about something that a) isn’t mine to manage, and b) doesn’t really matter in the big scheme of things.

I’ve been taking this newly revised online class (Visioning) because I wanted to see how the organization had revised it. I’ve taught the class using the old curriculum for a bunch of years, and found it okay, but not stellar, so I was excited to see how it had been modified. The facilitator has a teaching style that is exceedingly different from mine. Exceedingly different. I found myself getting really upset with him and his incessant need to hold court and pontificate in class. To me, there are better, more effective, ways to transmit this teaching. Once again, I was agitated. It made no difference in the scheme of things, and I only hurt myself.

The Queen Creek quilting group that I joined, ostensibly to make charity quilts for Dine’ cancer patients, isn’t actually interested in making charity quilts for that group. I finished my first quilt top and brought it to the meeting to give to someone who would do the long-arm stitching that I don’t enjoy doing. When the woman who agreed to complete it acted like she was handling something with cooties, I noticed, but I didn’t understand. At their Christmas party, they gave away little gift bags that including the supplies needed to finish the quilts. Sometimes, I’m really dense. They offered patterns for quilt blocks to us for us to make individual blocks for veterans’ charity quilts. I agreed to make one, and offered to send it to someone so they could incorporate it in a quilt top they were making. No takers. The next month, I did it again with a new block-of-the-month. No takers. Finally, someone wrote that they were encouraging me to make, and finish, a quilt to give away to a veteran on my own, and to be sure to take a picture (with permission) and share it with them. They are only interested in making charity quilts to give to veterans. I’m not. Nothing against veterans. I have several in my family, and have several friends who are veterans, but that’s not where my quilting joy lies. I joined the Tucson Quilters’ Guild last month, and went to my first guild meeting about 10 days ago. There is a group there that joyfully finishes quilts. That’s where this one is headed after I get it pieced, and where it goes after that is none of my business.

By the time this blogpost gets published I will have already driven over to the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix to hear one of my favorite musicians, David Wilcox, in concert. He has a number of songs about not pushing against ‘what is.’ The song that sprang to my mind tonight as I wrote this blogpost was about spilling a paint can of blue enamel paint on the kitchen floor, and resisting the urge to clean it up, but instead featuring it, as though it had been done intentionally.

Here’s the song. https://youtu.be/S7mkdHQX-NE. If you don’t want to hear his pre-song story, the song starts at 3 minutes.

It’s something to think about. Rather than fighting the current condition or situation, what if I/we flipped it and saw it as something desirable or beneficial.