There’s a metaphorical itch I’ve been feeling that won’t go away despite repressing it through procrastination. My fingers are being summoned to do work that is intricate and meditative; work that involves thread and textile, needles and rings and time. I tell myself I don’t have the energy to organise these materials, particularly those related to time, inclination and thread. What is the source of this calling, even? I despised needlework as a child because it was framed as women’s work. Yet, now, when I see a recurring motif during my travels through Italy, I think, hmm, this would make for a great embroidery piece. It isn’t like I even know the stitches. I would have to tutor myself because I wasn’t an attentive student in my school days and frequently cheated by asking my mother to complete my needlework. Nowadays I put on a jacket, and I ‘see’ how it could be upcycled into a unique piece through imaginative threadwork.

I’ve put aside this physiological urge for months. After a day of work and mothering, when our toddler goes to bed, I usually have little energy to do anything beyond vegetating. Pregnancy diabetes ensures I spend a fair amount of time looking after my diet and feeding myself well—forced self-care—leaving me with only a sense of spent resources. Learning Italian has taken a backseat. I don’t feel like tricking myself into learning either (by registering for the B2 bilingual exams) because I am entering the third trimester and am committed to taking it easy. I want to start reading the Emily Wilson translation I recently bought of The Iliad, but I fear that reading two pages of a book in the evening would summon more sleep than I can bear, and my evening alone—time will be cut short.