According to Arthur Wheelock, in Jan Vermeer’s painting, “Girl Interrupted at Her Music,” Vermeer, employing a medium that is still, uses the device of the “momentary interruption” to suggest movement:

For the past 450 years since Vermeer completed this painting, our young heroine has been in an odd moment of stasis looking toward the viewer, but unable to either move forward toward what has captured her gaze or return to what is at hand right in front of her.

Today, I found myself much like the young woman depicted in the painting — distracted by something other than what was in front of me. Unlike the young woman in the painting, I was impatient to get back to what for me is the business at hand — my crochet.

I have mentioned before, the project known as the “Big Rug.” I had publicly committed myself to making one square a day, and now find myself five days behind the one-square-a-day schedule I had set out. I had hoped to get all of the promised squares made today, but a previously scheduled appointment took me out of the house for most of the afternoon, and once I had made the commitment to being out of the house, there were a couple of other errands that I thought I might as well get done while I was already out.

So one hour stretched into two and before I knew it, most of the afternoon was gone, and I had managed to finish exactly one square. I pushed back the dinner hour and kept at my crochet and completed a second square along with a sizable fraction of a third:

I would have liked to have done more, but this day is very nearly done, and I will have to be satisfied with what I did accomplish.