Drafting and Detours

I finished reading the posts in a Ravelry group concerning how to spin evenly a little while ago. Most of it dealt with how to draft your fibers to make a smooth thread. Some of it dealt with making neural pathways within ourselves to handle these new tasks. This started a whole new stream of thought for me.

I have become very aware of my own network of neural pathways over the last 15 years while dealing with the effects of Parkinson's. I believe that many times I have set up detours on my neural pathways in order to accomplish tasks that have become more difficult due to the rigors of the disease.

Finding detours or new routes has always been part of my life, even before the Parkinson's. I remember the first Christmas after we got married when we got stuck in a blizzard on the way back to Nebraska. Some of the roads had 8 foot drifts blocking them. We ended up following snowplows on some back roads to bypass the snow drifts. When our children were small, we always enjoyed roaming the countryside in the station wagon, finding new roads to get where we wanted to go. I still enjoy roaming around in my vehicle, when the gas prices are down, of course.

Now I have a new network of roads to discover. But this network is all in my head. I've discovered new routes to familiar locations as well as paths to new places.

Life is always an adventure, both on the physical roads and landscapes as well as the mental ones.