All Wound Up in Rope
I have a new favorite hobby. Though, really, it's not really anything "new", so much as "newly actualized."
I spent another evening tonight being willingly bound up in rope (cotton this time, last time was hemp), that included tying around my ponytail and pulling my elbows back behind me. It was an interesting tie (I don't have the pictures handy at the moment) that managed to bind my arms without straining my shoulders like the previous one did. Not that I minded before... But I noticed that my right shoulder is a LOT tighter than the left, and that's probably something I need to work on a good bit if I wish to spend any lengthy amount of time that way.
It's an interesting place, to be able to feel out all of the wiggle room available but not actually be able to go anywhere, and then relax into your restrictions. I'm not sure how to explain it, like being wrapped up securely in a bottle, or blanket, but without feeling claustrophobic. Sort of tingly. I was only sad when I had to come out, because my hands were beginning to go numb.
It's a little hypnotic, the process of tying.. It's easy to forget to pay attention to things like tingling/numbing while relaxing against the feel of the binds. It feels like I have two modes of awareness while in rope, either a trance-like, relaxed state of just sort of being and happy, or a wide-eyed giggly and capable of being embarrassed state, and I shift between them relatively easily... so they may actually just be two faces of the same place.
And really, I'd be tied up before, with varying degrees of skill... Dilan once made very adaptive use of some 550 cord, a few years ago actually which we teased about forever-afterwards.. It was really not the best of materials, being so thin and bound so tightly that it was rather painful.. Still, it was enough to have me smitten even then. We played a number of times with tying up, and though I know lack of experience may very well have done some damage to my shoulders, they're still some of my favorite memories.
The rope left some very lovely patterns on my wrists and arms, which I was sad to see fade in not even a couple of hours. I love the patterns well-wound rope can make, tiny twists can almost look lace-like. I think we got at least one picture of my arm before it faded, but it might not be a very good one.
One other drawback I have found, is that if I schedule such activities later in the evening, I often come home still "wound up" and hyper, not wanting to settle down to sleep in a timely fashion. (As you can see from my being up past 1:30 typing this entry. Shit.) I mean... I really am pretty giddy and hyped at the moment, and about the LAST thing I want to do is go to sleep...! I'm so high on what I've been up to and how much more I want to do, that it's hard to think about the fact that I need to be up early enough tomorrow to get showered and ready for work, before class.
I'm not sure that there's really a whole lot I can do about the timing of everything, given my schedule.. but perhaps Sunday nights are really not appropriate... I just put a load of laundry in, I need to catch a few hours before I have to be up for class.