handstories

another wander through the past

    I'm a bit out of sorts, again.  Blue comes home tomorrow for the summer.  Twenty years old, finishing his sophomore year of college today, and next week he will start what looks to be a great summer internship/job at the Port of Seattle.  While he's away I can imagine things are somewhat the same, but each time he returns it's clear that more and more he has his own life now.  How it's supposed to be, I know, but still...

    Indulging the melancholy, baby photos and his baby quilt were pulled out this morning.  

    This blanket was started in spring of 1997, and it was finished just before Blue began at the end of the summer.  There had been a late miscarriage earlier in the year, and the following months were were full of longing.  

   It's hard to make out, but the quilting represents a spider web/dream catcher.  The windows are filled with images of wishes- a blue bird, twilight forest, sailing boat...  Also there are symbols that reminded me of the strong women in my life- berries for Grandma's jam, favorite flowers of  friends...

    This cloth was from Janie.  It holds her, and a memory with my mom.  

    It was summertime, Mom was 28 and I was nine.  We were sitting underneath a big willow tree with my siblings (7, 4 and one).  She was looking up at the bent branches that reached nearly to the ground and surrounded us, telling us about a willow that she had loved when she was a child.  She was so peaceful and happy while remembering that tree.

    The back is made of sea and sky. 

    The whole thing was bound in starlight.  The starry cloth was a Christmas gift from K., who never doubted that Blue would come.  I named the quilt "Waiting, Wishing & Wanting".  It holds a lot.

glittering moons

    I love glitter.  This surprises folks.  (I suppose it might be due to the jeans, gray t-shirt, pony-tail and tennis shoes I wear most days.)  The sparkles of it just delights me... teeny-tiny glints of light.

    Yesterday I was quite giddy over some glitter paint the teacher had given the students.  She commented, "It's so weird how much you like it!"  One of the teachers I worked with last year wandered in as I was going on about it, and recounted the time when I had brought some in to add to the kids' posters.  (Funny, she didn't tell the story with fondness, but rather with exasperation...) 

    Back in the 90's, Janie and I shared a classroom and a love of all things glittery (among many other things).  We each had a container of body glitter for our shoulders, temples, etc.  "Everything's better with glitter!" we would say.  The teacher of the classroom across the way from us felt quite the opposite.  On days that we had the sparkly stuff in action she would come no further than the doorway to talk to us, so as not to track it back into her classroom.

    So, here I am trying to give the illusion of glitter with tiny colorful stitches to these moons.  You need to get really close to see them, but they're there, making me happy!

friends...feathered & otherwise

    This piece tugs at something in me.  During this unusually busy weekend I found myself clinging to the minutes that could be spent stitching on it.

    It was Seattle's first annual Bird Week, and the Audubon Society led bird walks all over the city yesterday.  The rain kept most people away, but a few of us tromped around the park looking, listening and learning all kinds of bird things.  Pine Siskin, Red Breasted Nuthatch, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Anna's Hummingbirds, Varied Thrush, American Robin, Dark-eyed Juncos, Crows, and a Mallard Duck family were all seen.  I spotted two Bushtits, (I didn't know they were Bushtits, but was told it was a very good sighting).  

    The mama Mallard had eleven babies she was trying to protect from the Blue Herons and Seagulls in the area.  Meeting a friend for a walk in the same park today, we were happy to see that all eleven had made it to another day.  

    There was lunch with Janie's daughter today, too.  She brought her wedding photos from last summer.  What a fairy tale day it looks to have been...out in the country, a field of poppies, handmade buntings and jars of wildflowers...so much joy.   She glowed and laughed sharing it all.  It was just like the celebrations her mom used to gather folks together for.  I'm sure Janie's spirit was floating through it all.

    Two dinners dates with other friends filled out the rest of the weekend.  It was all very good, but I am peopled out.  Tomorrow is a day off, and I plan to fill it with stitching, stillness and silence.

 

post trial soothing

    A delightful time was had by needle and me in the adding of some of Deb's cloth and thread to yesterday's piecing.  It cheered me right up, that along with remembering what happened after the jury story from yesterday...

    At the end of the third day of deliberations, I begged the bailiff for an extra half an hour, so we could vote one more time... and then, it was finally over.  (Other than one stressful moment, when the prosecuting attorney tracked me down a few days later by phone.  The defense had filed an appeal based on the fact that they suspected that I had been in the neighborhood of the crime scene during the course of the trial.  Thankfully, the judge threw it out saying, "We all got that feeling when she said she lived there."  Honestly.)

    Anyhow, it was done, and just in time to leave the next morning as planned with Janie and little L..  We were off on a road trip to Oregon to see the annual quilt show in Sisters.

    We drove to central Oregon, picking up Janie's sweet mom along the way.  The show was outdoors, hundreds of beautiful quilts hanging on buildings and railings all over the town.  We had such a good time- at the show and in all of those hours in the car.  Just three women and girl, singing, telling stories and enjoying the views... 

    "Look at the trees!" Janie exclaimed, over and over.  "Did you know there were so many shades of green?!  It soothes my eyes and soul!"   

grateful for now

    The first half of today was spent stitching and looking forward to a very special date this afternoon.

    About a month ago, I tried to sign K. and I up for a cooking class at the co-op (his Christmas gift), but the website wasn't working, so I called their office.  A woman answered, "This is L., can I help you?"  It was the daughter of Janie!  (A dear friend who died almost twenty years ago.  Click on the "Janie" category at the bottom of this post for more of her story.)  

    We talked for a long while and made plans to get together.

    It's been years since we last saw each other.  She's beautiful and lovely, graduated from college, traveled the world, and was married last summer.  We talked about who we are now, filling each other in on people each of us still know, and remembering stories of us, and of Janie.

    I wanted to share more about her mom with her, but found myself floundering and too overwhelmed for words, mostly only able to express feelings about how creative, wicked smart and passionate she was.  Things were never gray for her.  All of it mixed with some colorful crazy (which was part of her brilliance).  

    There was a lot of laughter and some tears.  We promised to keep in touch, and made plans for March.  I found myself staring at the glimpses of Janie in her, but really she is her own unique person- a wonderful confident thoughtful young woman.

    Janie would be so proud and in love with who her little girl has grown into, and I'm so happy to be getting to know her again.

how the body remembers

    I love this bird cloth.  There are bits of it here and there in the piles.  Bought a long time ago, back when I used to frequent fabric shops.  

    Janie, a long-gone friend, and I would roam the aisles together, with her toddler daughter in tow, who would reach for the bright cloths, saying "Dandelion!"  and "Apple!"  Her first words for the colors yellow and red.  

    Memories of Janie have been flowing the last couple of days.  This morning I remembered why, it's her daughter's birthday this week.  

    During this week the three of us would go blueberry picking, later there would be pie for little L.'s celebration.  One year it was unusually hot (just like it is now), and we decided to make orange-peach marmalade, too.  Arriving at their house with canning pot, jars, etc..., her husband thought we were crazy.  I laughed, "I think it's important that we do this on the hottest day of the year, to remember it!"  

    L. is in her late twenties now, the age I was when I met her, and then Janie.  Here they are stitching together, Janie is working on a quilt for L., there were orcas on it . . .

    Janie's been gone eighteen years now.  (If you're new here, there are more stories about her in the "Janie" category.)

    Gosh, I'm missing her today.

polar bears in the cold blue light

    Carla's class had us drawing polar bear shapes.  I chose this roaring mama.

    Which led to cloth (the background piece is another of Blandina's creations).

    Cut freehand from silk, she seems a distant relation to one of Jude's beasts that I love so much.  She fits perfectly into the cold weather we're having around here.

    We were back to school today, and while happy to see the children, thoughts of getting back to stitching her filled in the gaps of the day.  Thankfully, there are still some stars to stitch, because I'm a little in love.  

    And she reminds me of years ago, nine-months pregnant, working with first and second graders.  We were studying the Arctics and getting ready for a show.  One Friday I was teaching the kids the dance moves to "Go Greased Penguins" (sung to the tune of "Go Greased Lightning" from Grease), Janie wandered by and saw my Big belly bouncing around and shouted at me.  I told her I was going to dance that baby out! 

    Later that day a group of children and I rewrote "Goodnight, Irene."  Connie called me on Sunday night asking for the words to the song, just in case. . .  "He's never coming out!" I told her.  She was right, he came the next day, and I took baby Blue to the show a week later.  

    Janie and Connie are both gone now, but these memories keep me warm.

    "Arctics Goodnight" (sung to the tune of "Goodnight, Irene")

        Reindeer dream by the trees, snowy owls in their nests,

        Arctic foxes doze in their dens, and hares think burrows are best.

        Seals sleep next to the ocean, polar bears snooze in their caves,

        Walruses rest on the ice cold ice, and puffins dream on the waves.

           Arctics goodnight, Arctics goodnight

           Goodnight Arctics, Goodnight Arctics

           I’ll see you in my dreams…

tonight's plan for tomorrow

    A blue square was appliquéd over one of the spots, after taking off any "salvageable" scraps of the old one. They've been basted down and will be filled in with other scraps. 

    Today a student reluctantly and successfully let me teach him division, and then later, because he doesn't want anyone to get too close, set about to disrupt our group's science discussion and to piss me off, he was successful at both. Another student and I have connected. She's usually late, or absent, her life is chaotic, crowded, and full of need. The school has done everything it knows how to do, and then some, trying to help the children in this family, but they are being lost, one by one. It breaks my heart that things can't be fixed.

    Tomorrow I will try to build a moon and a sun-they were common themes in the units Janie and I taught- Raven bringing the light, the galaxy at Solstice time, fairies dancing by moonlight in the Spring . . . Janie loved the Sun, and me the moon.

    And tomorrow I will see if that boy will let me do division with him again, and tomorrow I will try not to yell, and tomorrow I will hold that girl's hand whenever possible, and tomorrow I will try not to feel hopeless.

mendings

    Jude put out an invitation to join her in a Mending Bee.  There's plenty here that could do with a stitch or two, but I keep thinking of this quilt.  It was made for and with Janie's class the year before I started teaching with her.  I remember watching them dye the fabrics from across the playground.  It lived in the classroom- her's, then our's, then her's again.  Used for warmth, hideouts, picnics, costumes, etc.  When she died I scooped it up and brought it home, for mending and keeping.   That was almost eighteen years ago.

    The twelve muslin squares are all in shreds.  

    Janie's story is very big, most of it good and brilliant, but her last year was complicated and hard, for her and for those around her, not because she was dying, because she wasn't.  It was a brain aneurysm that took her suddenly, actually a few of them, over a couple of weeks.  I've always wondered if she imploded from the craziness of those last pieces of time?  Something had to give.

    So, yesterday, I sat with some of the story, as much as I could bear.  Some things are not mendable.

    But this is.  I started a list of memories to mend it with- ravens, wolves, spiders, Harriet Tubman, Jake & Honeybunch, Baba Yaga, peach orange marmalade, the ranch trip, solstices, poems, beads, books, sashaying, loud laughing, singing, stars, stitching, and more- all the things I want to hold on to.

Art (London three)

    "Making Traces" by  G. Richter, Tate Modern

      The boys kept saying, "Enough art!"  I kept saying, "Just a little more…," dragging them along to the next room.

    "Proserpine" by D. G. Rossetti, Tate Britain

    I have long loved the blue of this dress.  I do have a thing for the Pre-Raphaelite paintings. 

    "The Lady of Shalott" by J. W. Waterhouse, Tate Britain

    The details in the blanket tell their own story.

    I tried to keep the boys entertained by making up captions for some of the art works . . .

   

    "Where did my clothes go?  I left them right here!"

    "Alleluia" by T.C. Gotch, Tate Britain

    This one made me smile, kind of Norman Rockwellish from 1886.

    "The Forest" by P. Webb, Victoria & Albert Museum  (sorry for the small photo-it was dimly lit, high and long)

    I was so happy to walk into the tapestry room and discover this piece.  Long ago, Janie and I admired it in a book.  I was in the middle of a needlepointing a pillow of the raven for her, when she died.  It's been sitting in a bag in the closet for the last 17 years.  Maybe I'll finish it, now that there are new memories to stitch into it. 

    Thimbles at the Victoria & Albert.

    One of the things I love about the museums is how beautiful the buildings are all on their own.  The photo above was in the cafe of the Victoria & Albert . . . quite the setting for my egg salad sandwich!

    The walls and ceilings-so rich with color and design.

    Victoria & Albert Museum

    Chihuly, wherever I go.

    "Sunflowers" by V. van Gogh, National Gallery

    More thoughts of Janie here.  Van Gogh's sunflowers were a favorite of hers.  She loved sunflowers, planted them every year-agreeing with his idea that they are a symbol of hope and friendship.

    I wish that she could have seen them up close.

    During this trip, I was struck with the realization of how many others travel along with you-in memories and associations.