handstories

Moon gathering

    "Momentum of Moons"  Deb's threads run through this group of moons.  I couldn't find a collective noun for moons.  Perhaps a "jupiter of moons"?  (Jupiter has the most, 79!)

    Lake Washington just before dusk, about a mile down and around the hill from home. 

    One good thing about this pandemic is how it's forcing folks to get creative.  A friend and I have come up with several new date ideas to replace our usual restaurant dates.  Last evening, we met at the lake (above) with our camping chairs, coats, gloves, hats, and blankets (along with a bit of wine in our travel mugs for extra warmth).  We done this a few times, watching the moonrise and talking until we're shivering or need a bathroom. 

    We've taken our lunches (and blankets) to various lakeside spots around the city, and to a disserted college campus.  And there was a lovely afternoon taking the ferry.  People who drive on are being asked to stay in their cars, so, as walk-ons, we had the seating area almost to ourselves.  After a beautiful hour long ride across the Puget Sound, we found a bench on the other side, and enjoyed our lunches with a new water view.  It's been great to spend our time together outside, and much cheaper!   We've agreed that we should keep meeting up in these ways even after things go back to normal.

    Tomorrow K and I are going to drive to Portland for the day to celebrate his sister's birthday with her.  There will be soup and cake on her porch.  It will be nice to see her and different views.  K will drive so I'll be able to spend hours knitting on the deep purple socks that are on my needles.

    All of these things would have seemed so small a year ago, not even worth mentioning.  Now they are highlights and full of possible fascinations.

    "Dancing With the Moon"  Both sides of the printed cloth on the bottom are showing, because I couldn't decide.  Doesn't Tina's pink just make this moon glow?

Tools for Light

    The table today...  One of Jude's moons, with some of Deb's indigo silk, a rainbow of threads from Tina, works in progress, and all of my scissors.  They are each good at different things.  The black forged pair are able to rip through cloth with a tug, creating rough edges.  Long straight sharp cutting is done by the big heavy shears.  Only a blue speckled ring show of the small embroidery scissors, probably the most used because of their size, comfort and ability to cleanly cut small shapes.  Finally, the snips that are poking out on the right that are good for quick thread cutting and travel.  Good tools make me really happy.

    The dreams have calmed down some, still busy, but without much anxiety.

    Wasn't this morning great?  To not have that holding breath feeling that has especially hung over the last weeks.  To see and hear hope and joy- on faces, in words, songs, and the amazing beautiful poet and poem...

"...For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it.

    If only we're brave enough to be it."

-from "The Hill We Climb" by Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate

Ballets, & thankfully, no crashes

    There was extra time with a friend this weekend- so much work to feel safe, but such a gift.

    The animal dreams continue.  A rhino that needed help escaping, thankfully not a herd, stubbornness or crash of rhinos.   

    In waking life, driving by the countryside, out in the fields alongside the freeway, there were many bevies, whiteness's, drifts, lamentations, or ballets of swans.  The groups varied from a few to fifty or more.  I have never seen so many at once.  So very lovely.

    They may be done.

    Twinkle and I had a good long snuggle this morning.  I read in bed while she snored and drooled.

Trying to get a grasp on things...

   

    And then there was the dream of coming home from blueberry picking to find a pile of octopuses (yes, it's octopuses) on the front room floor.  They were beautiful, the colors of sea stars- purple, orange, rust, gray.... dozens of them intertwined and slowly wiggling in and out of each other.  Thinking they needed to be in a safer spot, I kept trying to pick up armfuls of them, with them sliding and dripping out of my grasp, creating a trail of them as they slithered under furniture and into secret crevices.  

    Later in the day, I was not surprised when the glass I blindly reached for in the cupboard turned out to be the octopus one.

    (FYI- you can refer to them as a tangle, knot, sucker, armful, or a grasp of of octopuses.  Although, the collective noun is rarely needed, as they are usually loners.)

    Speaking of grasping.... There was a sudden decision to grasp and chop off the end of my ponytail today.  It's been a year since it was last cut.  It's been making me nuts, especially at night.  Turning over it kept getting caught under my shoulders, or would wrap around my neck or face.

    Six inches later, and a follow up trimming by K. (because it turns out that reaching behind your head with scissors does not a straight line make), things feel much lighter.

    These little rose branches are traveling all over the house with me and are lasting well.  K. brought them from the grocery store on one of the dark days, just before things turned around.  The painting in the background was a gift to myself a few years ago.  "She Kept Herself Safe" by Amanda Blake.  I consider her a good friend and a reminder here at my making table.

    The frayed edge in this moon makes me think of fringe, which makes me imagine it swaying... a dancing moon.  It's good to be thinking about light again.

Glittering lights & rats

    There was a wild windstorm night before last.  Rain and twigs pelting the windows.  Just outside the window I sleep under, the tall cedar's  branches whipped around creating a frantic loud dance of shadows across the walls.  Falling asleep took a while, so more of the fairy tale was read...including the part where she was locked in a closet with a rat trying to nest in her hair.

    There was a dream of having to contain two live rats in a skillet, being ordered to cook them for dinner.  I couldn't decide which was worse, having to cook them, or knowing I would have to eat them.

    A friend and I went for a walk downtown, the first time I've spent time since March.  This is Pike Place Market, usually it's shoulder to shoulder crowded.  Now it's mostly empty stalls and shops, with only a few wanderers.

    The twinkle lights all over helped to cheer things.

    Although, not long after this photo, a rat scampered by.

    There was also a stop at the Pine Box Bar, a converted funeral home.

    Seating is outside in the driveway where the hearses used to roll through (including one that held Bruce Lee).  The tables are made from dismantled display coffins.  The lights were lovely, but I'm not sure I'll be going back, just a smidge too creepy for me.

 

Moon medicine

    Filling out a partial ThreadCrumbs moon.  A moon mend.  Once again turning to the gift of threads from Tina for a just right aqua blue.

    There was a dream of being gifted crystals, and another of only having moments to decide what was needed as I left my house forever.

    The ideas of moon- roundness, filling, holding close, silvery, buttery, cool and glowing... fills, mends.

    The tear in K's coat was stitched up and laundry is going.  Small things, as Deb and Liz say.  Manageable.  This moon didn't get very far.  I was distracted by a book that's been read before.  She saves herself, and the others.  A fairy tale.  Another kind of mending for me.

Moon momentum

    Just realizing that my thermos needs to go into the favorite things book.

    Maybe, if I keep going, flow will find me again, or I will find my way back to it...

Yesterday & today, inside & out

    Moon by Jude.

Being home

    This happened after a little reading about the Hundertwasserhaus.  It's weird and I want to keep going with it.  Wherever that might be.  No idea yet.  It's about home- a place to be in, and the home that is within.  I suppose much of what I make is.

    There has been a lot of self questioning in the last weeks... What I make and why?  Wondering if there's a next to step into?  And what it might be?

    Can comfortable become uncomfortable?  (The "do not repeat" painting actually has nothing at all to do with what I'm talking about...probably.)

    In the meantime, there are moon cabin squares slowly being made.  Another place to live...inside and out.

 

pink skies and silver rain

    Out our window, a week ago at sunset.

    At the same time, across town, K. saw a double rainbow.

    It was a very nice Christmas day.  One of our (my) traditions, is that I go into the living room first, and take a photo of Blue and Moon as they come into the room and see the tree with the filled stockings and gifts below.  Not to be undone by distance, with Blue zooming on the computer, Moon carried Blue on screen in, and I got my photo.  For the next hour, he "sat" next to the tree and we opened gifts, made jokes, and took a group selfie with one of us holding the computer facing the camera.  Technology was the very best gift this year.

    These are the Wise Guys, my favorite childhood ornaments (except for the beautiful glittery glass balls that my brother has).  If you look closely, there is a single silvery strand draped above and over the top right guy.  I took it off of Mom's tree one year.  She called it "rain" and our childhood trees were dripping with it.

    You see what I mean.  My brother and me, 1967. 

    K. was quite concerned when he first saw my family's tree style.  Lucky for him, this single strand of tinsel is enough for me.

    Mom doesn't do a tree anymore, and passed the angel topper on to me.  I remember shopping for it with Mom and Aunt J.  Mom pointed it out on the top shelf, Aunt J., being taller, reached for it and I held it in front of me as I sat in the shopping cart, asking if I thought it was pretty?  I did.  Mom doesn't believe I remember this, because I was only two, but I do.

    This is Christmas Night, after the photo above.  I'm four.  I remember what led to this, too. 

    I had brought my new doll, dollhouse and their boxes into my bedroom.  Crawling into bed with the new doll and the old one (so that she wouldn't feel replaced), I looked at the dollhouse on the floor...  (Here's where I'm going to tell you one of the strange things about me... I have always personified things.  I don't know what this means or says about me, but there it is.)  So, on that night, looking at the dollhouse on the floor, I worried that I was hurting its feelings by not bringing it to bed with me, too.  So, I got up and brought it into the bed, and then returned for the boxes, because how sad for them to be empty and alone on the floor...