the purpose of no purpose

So you know how a couple of weeks ago when Beryl was in charge of writing The Gusset and she said Milkweed gathering season was over?

Well it turns out it’s not—or at least not quite.

Not that Beryl was wrong—she was just responding to a thing I’d said. And I wasn’t exactly wrong either, for the stems of all the local plants with whom I’d made friends had dried up. Indeed in the footnotes of that post¹ I even expressed a little relief since a finite supply left me free to focus on other ideas and materials, and however my life actually looks here in these pages, I’ve always been a big fan of the freedom of limitation.

Not that Milkweed cares. These bossy, dazzling, tyrannical, soothing plants have ideas of their own and time and again have insisted on being seen—particularly when I’m in the midst of doing something else.

This time I was deeply distracted talking to a friend and the stalks were far away— almost out of sight in the midst of other clumps of autumnal vegetation. But this neglected clump of half-rotten plants nonetheless sent a fiber/heart pheromone straight through it all and into my cluttered brain. Or so it seemed. For though I did my best to pretend they weren’t there (I’m soooo busy), in the end I could do nothing but greet the plants as appropriately as I knew how: admire their spectacular height, marvel at their unexpected presence, and with gratitude, carry home five of the fallen stalks: damp, dank and deliciously decomposing.²

And really they were amazing. Somewhere between the late summer stalks and the winter retted ones—and perhaps not unlike the deliberately retted late summer experiments of the talented Mackenzie Kelly-Frère³ —they were like nothing I’d tried before. Limitations? Bah.

While the other stands of my acquaintance had dried out completely over the past weeks, these plant stems still contained enough moisture for the cells to have frozen and broken down during our recent weeks of freeze/thaw weather, the pattern effectively quick-retting them without weakening the fibers. Not only was the the outer “skin” extra easy to pull away, but the strands of bast were beautifully long and strong.

At least that is my non-science explanation⁴ for the delightful ease with which the woody core, fibers and outer skin separated from one another.

And while I’m assuming, I’ll also hazard a guess that the fibers are greener than those gathered a month or two ago because the bits of broken down plant material were mushier than those I’ve worked with before and ‘smeared’ themselves on the white fibers— and maybe also that this color might go away when I’ve twisted them into cordage and boiled them.

Only time will clarify that however, and as I am in love with the current intermittent, strand-by-strand pace of working, it’ll probably be quite some time before I can report back—so don’t hold your breath.

For there is a thing Beryl did get exactly right in her post, which is that I am not in a hurry and have no goals for these fibers. They could become tapestries, yardage, light bowls, a garment—and darned fine ones at that; as humans have known for millennia and have experienced during those earlier explorations, Milkweed bast yarn is amazing stuff.

But right now, this fiber isn’t dashing toward becoming a “finished product.”

At least I don’t need them to.

Or put another way: as far as I know, these skeins and quills of cordage have no purpose or grand design in mind—no purpose, at any rate, beyond luring me onto the sun porch to be with the fiber, the light, my hands and maybe a book.⁵

And if they have a secret plan— well I hope I don’t know what it is for a long time.

For this lack of hovering product or project or exhibition suits me down to the ground. Like weaving a cartoon-less tapestry, following this (somewhat bossy) fiber and being free from the need to be faster or more efficient en route to some mythical end point is a gift indeed— a delicious respite from the insidious tentacles of “never enoughness” (so different from yummy curiosity), that pervades so much—too much—of life.

It’s not, I suppose, unlike thirty years of early morning walk/trots where the only plan is to get my carcass out the door, down the steps and up the street to take a few big old breaths.⁶

Or drawing comics day after day.

Or, indeed, sharing my life with an adorable hairy beast who keeps over-close track of my every foible and whose main goal is apparently for us to be together, indoors or out, noticing treasures wherever they let themselves be seen.

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1. In that post, Beryl was lamenting what she saw as my distractibility, and I was thinking about the fun of finding grey, winter retted milkweed in the spring

2. Speaking of limitation — even if the stand is huge, I generally don’t gather more than five or six stalks at any one time, if that. For not only is that about all my hands can handle without pain, but also I’m not interested in any kind of high volume/ mass consumption or over- harvesting of this fiber. Save that energy for long domesticated crops like flax which have been slowly bred for just that. Rather I believe that we’re in a dance of pleasure, milkweed and I—our methods, techniques and relationship based on restful strand-by-strand connection and intimacy

3. Mackenzie Kelly-Frère has been conducting fantastic experiments with fibers from several species of milkweed, and his processes include retting! He’s an amazing artist, educator and academic and has been super inspiring to me. I highly recommend checking out his website and other instagram pages.

4. Any botanists (amateur or professional), feel free to enlighten me about this —both the technical terms for the “skin” and the process of freezing/thawing on plant cells and fiber release.

5. The yarn in boiled skeins is from other years. The strands on quills are from this year; I’ll probably wait for skeining and boiling these till I have twisted all of my current (newly enlarged) supply.

6. When I was younger I was regularly asked about mileage, running goals, and what I was training for—and informed that I’d really like racing if only I would only get over myself and be “brave” enough to do it (after which they might rave about the joy of being in a crowd of runners). It’s not fear that has kept me from this 5K or that marathon however—but rather disinterest. My legs and lungs and I have other fish to fry. Even if I don’t know exactly what they are (and I don’t eat fish :-)