I didn’t write yesterday, and I don’t want to write today. The emotions and thoughts that swirl around in my head are probably best kept to myself. Everything is complicated and tangled up together, and if I find a way through and come out the other side, I daren’t look over my shoulder because I know it will drag me back in again.
I like that metaphor, and here’s another one. When you have a tangled ball of yarn (which happens to me a lot), in order to untangle it you have to start with an end. Ends aren’t always easy to find, but you can make one, by choosing a thread at random and cutting it. You now have two ends, and you pick one – maybe the one that has a longer ‘tail’ – and tug gently on it. You should then see a movement of one of the threads in the tangle, so you put your thumb and finger through the gap nearest to the movement, take hold of the thread that just moved, and pull it through the gap – if you’ve got the right thread, the cut end will follow, and now the tail is a little longer, so you repeat the process and watch for the next movement. The tail gets longer, and eventually you have to start rolling it into a ball, or else it might create another tangle. But then you have to pass the whole ball through the tangled loops – you can’t just pull on it from inside the tangle any more, because the ball will just unroll. At that point, I hold the ball in my hand and slide my hand through the loops, so that they’re effectively wrapped around my wrist. In this way, I can gradually free up more of the tail – or rather, of the ever-growing ball.
Sometimes, in the middle of the tangle, you come across a knot in one of the threads. You might be able to pull it open with your finger nails, or slide a needle under one of the loops and gently pull it looser, and in that case, once you’ve made one of the knot-loops big enough to pass the ball through, you can get rid of it. If it’s in a single thread, it’s easier just to leave it there, but if it’s two (or even more) knotted together, it’s got to be dealt with. However what’s even worse is when two threads have rubbed against each other long enough to effectively become stuck together, but not actually knotted in the sense of being wrapped around each other. These can be a nightmare to prise apart. If you can work out which ends belong to which thread, sometimes it’s possible to grasp both ends of one thread in one hand, and of the other in the other hand, and tug them apart, but then they’ll both be left with a fluffy bobble attached. And of course, they might snap – or you can cut it.