Letting go

Once fiber is cooked, I get super stressed, knowing that there's only so much time before it turns. This escalates in the summer, though the only reason I do summer cooks is for classes (and this year, for naginata tests). We do not have a pulp fridge (or at least a fridge roomy enough for several buckets—I miss this from Chicago, Saugatuck, Boston, and other days in facilities with big sturdy fridges), so every day that has gone by for the past few weeks has wound me up tighter and tighter.

In an ideal world, I'd make paper every day to use up the pulp straightaway, and process fresh stuff for this weekend's workshop. This morning, I had a revelation: I live in the real world! We'll just use stinky pulp—with a wash of OxiClean or a touch of bleach—AND my students get to play with my dye tests. So! The first hanji class got the extra bonus of flower dyes. This second hanji class will get the fiber reactive dyes. And I will let go of the worry. This frees up my entire week, so I can recover from yesterday's dental work (THE WORST) and finally work on my own studio and admin tasks, Korea prep, and coming back to yoga. Last night was my first class since the winter, and it's good to be back.