I trust my hands

An ode to my hands whose superpower is to shape my thoughts in lines squiggly enough for me to understand them.

A new notebook is waiting and I trust my hands to fill every page of it.

"I think this could be me"; letters vibrating in front of me when I check my inbox on a July morning in 2023, driving my pulse to intervals it hasn’t visited for years. The afternoon before I had emailed a literary agent, hoping she would trust my idea enough to take me on as a client. I had read somewhere that she was looking for authors of crafting books. And, as it turned out, that author was me. And she was that agent, now my agent, my champion. I in Stockholm, she in New York City.

"I honestly can't think of how you could improve your proposal anymore", she had said. I must have read the sentence a hundred times. She trusted me as a writer through the proposal I had crafted so intensively for months, by poking my idea from every possible angle and then sent to her, wrapped in a virtual silk bow. Two months later, a publisher trusted me enough to offer me a book deal.

As I write this, I am one month from my manuscript deadline. Eons of time have passed since I got that reply from my agent, still it is only 13 months ago. Twenty chapters have flowed through my fingers, and yet so much more before that. The first documentation I have of my book dream is from a photo from another July morning, in 2019. I remember sitting by a creek, making a mind map of the outline of the book that had started to grow in my heart. The words in the photo are blurry, but the working title is there: Listen to the wool.

A first attempt at writing a book outline, back in 2019.

I had published documentary-style spinning videos on Youtube since 2015, but when I started blogging in 2018 it was a response to the itch in my hands and heart to write. Wobbly at first, but then with more confidence. I discovered the power and beauty of writing my way to answering my own questions about spinning, shaping the reflections with my hands. By writing for my readers, I also made things clearer to myself. From that place of understanding I could dive deeper. I have written over 400 blog posts since then.

During the past six months I have nourished my writing soul with courses and courage. I now trust my writing potential, I know what tools I can use to allow the words to flow. I trust myself to find inspiration in a mossy rock, a forgotten mitten on a park bench or a missing shirt button. I trust music, dancing and movement to unclench my writing process, outdoor writing to unleash my wild mind. I trust new words to bud beneath every word I write, that no word is written in vain, as long as I keep writing.

I have filled page after page of handwriting, because now I trust my hands to craft my mind in squiggly lines on the page, just as I trust those same hands to read the wool and create a yarn. I know now that my sensibility is always one step ahead of my sense.

I am writing this from a bench by the lake, the surface reflecting the late August sun. The smell of late summer apples, echoes of the water still rocking my body after an early morning dip, and the morning air filling my lungs are all part of the words written on the page. When I set the pen down and look at my hands, I am in awe of their superpower; to make sense of my sensations, onto the page.

I have a solo writing retreat booked in a cottage across the lake a couple of weeks from now, two weeks before my deadline. The apple smell will be muskier by then, the morning dips a little cooler. I have no idea what will happen from here. This is my maiden book voyage, and I don’t know how the sea fares. I have written in one way or another all my life, yet I know I am but a willow leaf on the surface of the writing sea, hoping to set sail and navigate through whirls, wind and waves. I trust my hands to guide me on my journey.

Listen to the wool will be published in the second half of 2025.