Coiling: A Reflection on Handwork and Writing
By Teresa Janssen
One of my most helpful writing practices is not writing at all—rather, setting the pen (or keyboard) aside and doing handwork. Some writers knit, some carve wood, some paint, some throw pots. I coil pine-needle baskets.
First, I must leave my writer's desk and go outdoors. I head for a park or forest in search of long-needle pines, then gather a sack of dry brown needles from beneath the trees. Ponderosas are best, and since there are few near my home, I am always on the lookout to find them—yes, like keeping an ear out for a ‘just-right’ word, a good line, a story concept. Sometimes you find them where you least expect them. A neighbor’s yard. An empty lot.
I take the needles home, remove the debris, wash them and set them out to dry. I study the needles' conditions, their lengths and colors, and begin to imagine a basket design. I liken this to sorting ideas before writing—so many notes, fragments of ideas, bits and pieces, thoughts to sort out.
Then I gather my tools: needle, binding cord (sinew, waxed linen, or raffia), one-inch length of plastic straw to hold the needles in place, pliers to pull the cord through tight coils, perhaps some beads or cones for decoration, a small branch for a handle. I fit a dozen or so needles into the straw and begin wrapping. Like a first sentence, sometimes I am uncertain where it will take me.
When I have a solid core, I curl it inward to make a flat coil, like a snake encircling its own tail. From there, I wrap in concentric circles, attaching each new layer to the one before it, like following a first sentence with others, making decisions as I go. Do I continue horizontally or vertically? Wrap in a V-shape, straight stitch, or attempt the more complex wheat-stitch? Change the color of the binding? Attach some beads? But where do they fit best? I layer one coil after the other. As I progress, I pause to run my hands over it. Where am I going? What next?
Like writing, I make decisions as I go. Though I may have had a plan when I began, the pattern that emerges, as well as those bothersome parts that just don’t fit in, often have something to say. If I trust my intuition, open my mind to what is developing before my eyes and let go of preconceived notions as I craft, the creative muse or subconscious will have her way and what begins to shape is a construction that I may not have been capable of imagining with the raw tools still laid out before me. Art is inspiration, skill, and feeling combined.
I remember working on an essay in 2016 that explored my fascination with smell and its lack, called anosmia (long before the COVID pandemic.) I had researched perfumeries, sommeliers, the science of smell, and medical research surrounding its loss. As I wrote, I became increasingly aware that my carefully constructed outline and resultant writing were flat, but that there was another story trying to work its way in. When I followed that voice, I realized that what I really wanted to talk about was my fear of losing my sense of smell because of my anxiety about cancer, due to living my early days as a downwinder in Richland, WA. When I listened and allowed myself to change direction, the essay took on life. It was eventually published and a 2018 notable.
When my coiled basket is near complete, what has emerged is something completely new. A holder of things. A container of thoughts. I take another look. What needs to be reworked? What might I do to bring more grace or integrity to the structure? Where should I end? Sometimes I take my final stitches when I’ve run out of binding material, pine needles, or patience. Or perhaps I’ve achieved a symmetry that more layers will only diminish. Having come to an understanding of the nature of the piece, knowing when it is complete is often clear.
But creating a basket is more than a metaphor. Handwork feeds my writing in a different way. I go to this practice when I am stuck–either blocked or unsure where next to go. The repetitive motion of circling can be like following a mandala with the eye, walking a labyrinth.
As I stitch, I sift through thoughts to make sense of things. The work of the hands, slow and deliberate, meditative, tactile, helps me to order my thinking. It connects me to what I most want to convey in my writing—the human experience.
A much shorter version of this was published online on Feb. 20, 2024 in the blog, Dear Reader, with Suzanne Beecher.
Teresa H. Janssen’s essays and short fiction have appeared in anthologies and literary magazines, including Zyzzyva, Parabola, Chautauqua, Notre Dame Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review. She was a finalist for Bellingham Review’s Annie Dillard Prize and won the Norman Mailer/NCTE Award in nonfiction. Her debut coming-of-age novel, The Ways of Water, won the Western Heritage Wrangler Award for outstanding western novel of 2023, the Best Book Award, Will Rogers Medallion, and an IPPY Silver. She writes from her home in Port Townsend and can be found online at www.teresahjanssen.com.