On Chronic Illness and WEAVING Practice

Living with fluctuating mental and physical states, shaped by my chronic illness, means that my internal experiences can shift in ways that feel abrupt, disorienting, or fragmented. There are periods when my mind changes shape and my body becomes slow, heavy, or pained in ways that isolate me from the world and from myself.

These fluctuations alter the texture of lived time. Hours can thicken, dissolve, scatter, or collapse inward. Sensation becomes too loud or strangely muted. The self can feel coherent, then distant, then oddly multiplied. Weaving meets me inside these shifting states without demanding that they change.

The simplicity of my work is intentional. It allows me to remain in creative practice despite the barriers that these internal shifts impose. Each piece is designed in a moment of clarity, giving it a structure that later becomes a stable horizon, something I can orient toward when coherence falters. 

The slow accumulation of thread helps me inhabit lived time more gently. When my mind is heavy or my body is fatigued, the repetitive motion gathers my scattered attention and gives me a way to stay present without force. Each circular movement of the bobbin becomes a small affirmation of my existence in that moment. As the thread expands across the frame, it forms a surface of accumulated presence, one that brings me closer to a grounded self, even when pain or disorientation pull me away from it.

When my internal sense of self feels dispersed or unstable, weaving offers coherence and return. Through touch, rhythm, and the quiet unfolding of form, it draws me back to my body and into a rhythm of time that feels inhabitable. The simple movement of wrapping the thread becomes a way of re-discovering myself, a continuity I can feel even when my internal experience fractures or dissolves.

What emerges on the frame is not a record of illness, but a record of my lived experience; the feeling of coherence being slowly and quietly rebuilt.