It’s been awhile since I sat and did nothing simply because I could, and not just to defy the universe in a badly thought-out temper tantrum. Sitting and doing nothing is really unnatural, though, and so I find that on days where I propose to “go no where and do nothing” that the silent world begins to scream at me to get moving. I start to want to clean, to cook, to create.

Last week I went to my grandmother’s house and she helped me start on a skirt. Just a simple gathered skirt, in a really nice and drape-y fabric. I took it home to put the last touhces on it – the elastic for the waistband. Here it sits still, on the floor of my house, waiting for a sewing machine to appear so that  I can work some magic on it. I’ve been really feeling like sewing lately, so you would think that, today, when I have nothing else to do, I would jump on this project and finish it in seconds, right?

Well, guess who is missing the stitch-plate for her sewing machine.

In a typical moment of wasted foresight it was removed to “keep it safe” from the general chaos of moving. I can remember it quite clearly. The machine sitting on the floor of the family room, waiting beside a half-dozen other boxes to be taken to my bedroom. Everytime we moved it closer to the stairs the little metal plate under the needle would slide out. It’s going to fall and get lost in the shuffle eventually, I thought. And so I slid it out and placed it in the box closest to the machine. This was in July, when I was still moving in, and now, two or three re-packings into the un-packing process, I have no idea which box it’s in. I thought I put it in one of the tea boxes (“Treadewinds: real BREWED tea” ー curtesy of the grocery store), and so I’ve duly emptied those all out, but alas. No stitch-plate was uncovered. I’ve gone through most of the boxes that lie like unknown soldiers on the floor of my garret room, trying to shift through their layers for a thin business-card sized peice of metal without disturbing any of the other contents, but this hasn’t turned up anything.

“Looks like I can’t sew today.” I say to The World with a shrug.

“You’re right,” says The World in reply, “You’ve got a much bigger project to work on first.”