handstories

Light through the trees

    "Standing in Starlight"

    The longer it takes me to get back here, the longer it seems to take me.

    "She Stood"

    I've been making tree after tree, with an occasional moon thrown in.  It's been a few months since I made a boat.  Thinking about how I so identified with the boat- the floating, journeying, precarious safety of it.  And now, I feel more like a tree.  A good feeling.  (Not that my inner boat doesn't come out for a jaunt now and then.)

    Last week on Instagram, I wrote, "These stitched things- trees, moons, boats, marks, these stories…they are most often messages to me. They have become symbols of where I've been, am, and wish to be. A way of taking note of and steps towards myself. I'm so grateful to have found this path with thanks to Jude’s generous light and for all of you who journey along with me here."

    All of that is even more true in this space.  Instagram is a big city, with some neighborhoods, acquaintances, and a few friends, and I appreciate parts of it.  This place is much more of a home.  No need to get dressed up, find my manners, or try to channel my best self at all times.  An extra thank you for that.

    "I Wish..."

    Moon was here for a few days over Thanksgiving.  Blue called from Chile.  He's trying to figure out how to stay for another year.  I hoped along with him, said all of the right things, and meant them.  Fortunately for me, unfortunately for him, Moon was standing nearby when I hung up and burst into tears.  "Hug your mother!"  He obliged.

    We had a nice few days with him.  We played cribbage, talked, ate a lot, and even happily watched water boil together.

    A photo from my brother, the day after Thanksgiving, his birthday, with the text, "Hunting or better known as wandering in the woods."  Birthdays are best spent mostly alone in my family.

    "Night Lights"

    I'm taking December off from shop work.  K is having the other hip replaced in a couple of weeks.  Not the best timing, but we're saving thousands by doing it before the new year.  Besides tending him, and rearranging the front room to fit his recovery bed and a Christmas tree, ... I'm going to try to rest my head, clean some things up and out, read, finish that quilt meant for last Christmas, shake some things loose and/or into place.  I hope to be here more, too.

    Peace and love to you all.

Coming around to

    A while ago, a dearest friend said that she wanted to make a quilt.

    Things have been very busy, so I sighed inside.

    This friend is very good at starting projects that I end up finishing for her... the knitted scarf for her dad, the baby blanket for a friend's daughter, a hooked pillow for an old boyfriend, the list goes on.

    "I don't have time to make a quilt right now," I said, discouraging her plans.

    But for her birthday a couple of months ago, I filled a box with squares of fabric, stitching template, soap sliver for marking, needle, thread, and a note agreeing to our next project.  

    A few weeks later, she and her man invited us to their sailboat christening.  I was happily surprised to see she'd been stitching pairs together and putting them to use already.

    (A silly aside, the bottle of bubbles we brought.  Relabeled with a photo of Moon.)

 

    Last weekend we spent a couple of lovely hours stitching together.  I shared stories of some of the cloths, we discussed favorites, reminiscing projects with students when we taught together, etc.  And the straight running stitched lines were so satisfying to make.  She commented on my two finished seams for each of hers.  I reminded her that I do practice with a needle now and then.

    I'm looking forward to the quilting to come, and very glad that I came around.

Arcs

    Recent stitching- a series in rainbows.  (Inspired by and created with the dyeing talents of Deb and Tina.)

 

 

    New ideas- abstracted rainbows, black thread.  These pieces felt like drawing more than usual.

    On Instagram, someone asked if I would ever be able to go back to my usual palette after working with in such vivid colors?  I really enjoyed playing with these brights, being braver with bold, and there was already a piece in dark blues going by the time I saw the comment.  I am going to do more with these ideas.  They feel like an expansion rather than a shift.

    I don't have a lot of words for here or in regular life.  Things are ok, swell mostly.  Life felt really good for weeks, and then there was a head-first dive into a downward spiral last week.  Sometimes I do myself in.  It's an old habit, but at least I recognize it now.  This is progress.  Onward...

Time Traveling

    We've been gone...again.  A road trip down memory lane visiting many of the significant spots from the early years, mostly on the Oregon Coast, in honor of our anniversary.

    The first stop was for the first kiss (April 1980).  Where K. first told me he was falling...

    "Maybe it's because we're on uneven ground?" I said, because I was hoping for that kiss, but struggling to keep my balance on the rocky riverside.

    "I meant in love."  He said.  He kissed me anyway.

    (Note that we did not stop under the old bridge, where I first told K. that I loved him (New Year's Eve 1979).

    "That's great!" he said.  "I'm in love, too!  With L."  I kept loving him anyway.)

    Our first apartment in Corvallis, OR (1983-84).  We had the upper right half.  1920's, two bedrooms, furnished, built in booth table, a sunroom, three-foot deep bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, more cupboards and closets than we could fill... for $210 a month (we talked them down from $225).

    We stopped in Ashland, OR for a couple of nights and plays.  I had spent time there in high school for Thespian conferences, and a couple of visits with a good friend who lived there in the early 80's.  Both shows that we saw were in the outdoor Elizabethan theater.  Perfect weather, with the sky and stage filled with stars, pearls, diamonds, and glitter (it's all about the costumes and scenery for me!).

    The Redwoods.  (Not an Us memory, but we were so close.)

    Bigger than imaginable.

    I wish I could give you a real sense of how far and grandly they reach into the sky.

    The tidepools on Agate Beach in Newport, OR.  A forty-five-minute drive from Corvallis (in 1983-84).  We made the trek often.  Once, a girlfriend and I went late at night and skinny dipped here.  (This is also where my ashes will go.)

    The buildings down there, between the ocean and the lake, are the camp where my siblings and I went for many years.  We loved it there.  I learned to swim in that lake, and, at twelve, was baptized in that bit of the ocean.  Mom thought I should wait and do back home at the church we kids went to (just the kids, our parents had zero interest).  I cried and begged, it had to be in the ocean (where I believed God lived).  She gave in.

    Oceanside, OR.  Where we spent most of our honeymoon (1983).  

    The beach is scattered with jasper and agates.

    We stayed in this family friend's cabin.  It was a lovely relaxing week.  Wandering the beach and K. cooking while I read Ramona the Pest and Winnie the Pooh aloud to him.  When both books were finished, I resorted to the Harlequin romance that I found in the cabin.  I don't remember the title, but the main characters were Brock and Suzanne.  We still laugh at the memory of how "Brock bruised her with his kisses..."

    Rockaway, OR where we were outdoor school counselors together (October 1979).

    The camp beach, where we first held hands (in spite of my being in a relationship with J.)

    And, finally, Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach.  Childhood vacations, one night of our honeymoon, and where we would take our dear nephew for getaways (1988-1995-ish).

    It was a wonderful week with so many memories.  So grateful for all of it.

    There was only a little bit of stitching (the winding coastline roads require looking up!).  It was interesting to notice that what I did stitch had to do with home. 

    It was so good to go and to come home, and to realize how much we are home for each other.

Forty-plus

    “There is Light in the Waves”

    Our story started in July 1979.  Sixteen. A first conversation on someone's deck stairs.  Talking and talking... I'm sure I've told it over and over here... Writing in my diary that night, "I'm never getting married, but if I do, it will be to someone like K.F."  (I was dating someone else at the time!)

    Spring 1982.  Freshman year of college.  In front of the blue house I grew up in.  Please admire my Gunny Sax dress!  Purchased for high school graduation.  I begged Mom to split the $80 cost with me.  (Do not admire the gardenia corsage- it made my nose run all evening.)  I loved that dress and wore it over and over.  K's wearing his old high school singing tux.  Both are in the closet upstairs.

    Wedding 1983.  I'm sorry that Mom's beautiful smocking work on my dress doesn't show up very well.  She worked hard on the making of it.  It was worn a few times, too.  To an anniversary dinner at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan and one Halloween as Emily Dickinson.  It's upstairs too, in her old cedar chest.

   2023  So many stories... 

All is good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Been away... 

    Relaxing.  Hardly any stitching.

    Lots of wave watching.

    Came home to a beautiful package of cloths and threads from Deb and dove in.

    I'm not sure what's going on here on Typepad, not sure what I should do going forward, and I'm too relaxed to deal with it just yet.

Tire, Tail, and Tooth

    "Moon Sang Her Story into the Blue"

    Last week I discovered that I can still change a tire.  I was quite pleased to know that I can still consider myself tough enough.

    Wanting, wishing, pretending to be a mermaid in a six-foot across, three-foot-deep wading pool.  Trying to get siblings, friends, neighbor kids to move as fast as possible around the edge to get a current going... and then being able to float in the swirl, feet held together, imagining.

 

    The beginning of yesterday's crown replacement.  It was no fairy tale. 

    When the Novocain kicked in, I started to shake.  Knitting couldn't happen.  Put in earbuds to listen to a book for distraction.  Grinding, drilling, scraping, suctioning, all of it too loud.  My eyes were leaking from behind the sunglasses.  The dentist worried (I know there are a LOT of words about my dental anxiety in my chart).  I assured her that it was just dry eyes from allergies, and it was. 

    And then the Novocain wore off in one spot.  It was readministered, and again, and again, and again, I couldn't count how many times, it happened over and over.  By the second hour, I was crawling out of my skin.  Tapping fingers in random rhythms trying to focus on something else, white knuckling when I could, imagining stitching (needle in, out, thread pulling through, repeat... ), reciting the states in alphabetical order, and then I heard her talking about the temporary crown that she was putting in.

    "TEMPORARY?!  I have to come back?!"

    More leaking eyes off and on over the next hour.  I told her it was the dry air, so as to move things along, but it wasn't.

    Afterwards, I learned that redheads often have a hard time with Novocain.  I was barely an auburn before the gray, but Dad was a childhood redhead, his sister life-long, my nephew, and others in the family reaching back to the O'Neill clan in Ireland.  Who knew?

    I came home and rested in the garnet moonlight of one of Jude's moons.

    Later there was lamenting to K about how awful it was, how I hate feeling weak.  He says to let it go, that teeth are my Achilles' heel.  It's true, but I still wanted to bite him.

Some stitching, paintings, a memory, and a long processing of letting go...

    "Moon Charms"

    We did not get to see the Super Moon, but I imagined it.

    "Humming of Home"

    The pink print of the house brough back memories of the "kids' cupboard" in my childhood home-where all of our board games, coloring books, crayons, and other odds and ends lived. Including a huge endless roll of wrapping paper with a print similar to this fabric. We were allowed to use the paper any way we liked, and I remember wrapping tp and paper towel tubes and small boxes with it to assemble into a pink and gold castle as a gift for an aunt. What a wonky thing it was!

    On Saturday, I finally agreed to get a new phone.  I've been using Blue's old one that he bought in 2016.  It could barely hold a charge, be charged, and photos in texts, downloads, podcasts, etc. had to be deleted regularly to make room for any new photos.  It was long past time, but I hate dealing with technology things.  K did the research of what to get and came with me to the phone store to translate at 3:00. 

    By 4:00, having fun with the young man who was helping us (who called me "zesty"), I had a new phone loaded with all of the things from the old one.

    But then... he couldn't erase the old one, which was being turned in for credit.  He started some process, saying that it might take an hour.  Feeling insecure about leaving all of my technology life behind with strangers, I took K. home and returned at 4:30.

    I sat there, punching in my passwords over and over.  Some secret code was needed.  At one point, Blue was on speaker phone from Chile.  Nothing could be figured out.  Around 7:00 I announced that I was no longer feeling zesty.  Around 7:30, it was decided that it was impossible and that I would keep both phones and lose the credit.  Fine.  But a manager was needed, and wouldn't be there until Monday, and I couldn't take the old phone with me until then.

    Feeling more insecure and paranoid (and exhausted and hungry), and after being reassured that everything was still on the new phone, I started deleting things off of the old phone before handing it over, starting with all of my texts...

    He then had another idea, began the process,... and accidently cleared the new phone.  The texts were gone.  Including some late night writing I had sent to myself to copy off another time, and a few from my dad during his last months, and, and, and...

    7:45   "They're gone?"

        "Yes, I'm sorry."

    Heavy sigh.  "This is a first world problem.  Letting it go."

        He looked relieved.

    "But I'm heartbroken.  Bye." 

        Poor guy.

    “Corliss” (meaning "carefree person") was stitched on Sunday as a way of brightening and lightening things up.  

 

    Yesterday, back at the store with K.  Explained it all to new guy.  Who started to try again.

    "If I am here for another hour or more, I WILL cry," I warned him.

    K added something not helpful.

    "I will bite YOU," I told him.

    The guy went and got the manager.  I explained again.  She said that it could be erased by the geek squad across town.  We drove, waited, and two hours later, I walked back into the phone store.  The manager and worker called across the room of customers, with a few other employees who had witnessed Saturday's fiasco looking on, "Did it work?"

    Speechless, I held out the phone, placing it into her two open hands.  "Hooray!" they cheered.

    "I hope the rest of your day goes well," she said.

    I opened my mouth, shut it, and just gave a whole arm wave as I went out the door.

    "Moon Joy"

    And really, everything is more than swell enough in the big picture of things.

On the Home Front

    More little houses with rainbow windows.  I think I've been craving more home time.

    There was a weekend alone.  Friday evening and all-day Saturday, I went through the boxes and baskets of cloth.  Weeding.  Knowing that cloth I didn't like ten, twenty, etc... years ago hasn't changed and isn't going to, and that no matter how pretty/good/etc. a piece of fabric is, if it's too thick for my kind of hand stitching, it's probably no going to get used, and that I do not have enough of a lifetime left to stitch ALL of the Things. 

    Of course, there were exceptions.

    In the end, there were half as many containers, and no idea of how best to keep it.  So now those baskets sit here on the floor.  I keep hoping they'll tell me what to do next.  Maybe they just need time to consider possibilities?  Or maybe it will all just be a hill in the middle of the studio room?  To be continued... hopefully.

    Old pieces were uncovered.  This one had an ugly house built on it.  It took an hour to pick it out, and then a tree was planted.  There was such a flow in putting it back together, it felt like painting.

    Again, eyes closed... I was happily surprised that the eyes landed in the right spots and under the eyebrows, but the neckline is another story.

    And, back to this for today.  Mid-sky building.  

    (Pool Report:  There was an embarrassing back-flop into the pool one day, and there was a completely empty lane to myself late Monday afternoon.  I sure hope there's a routine to doing this sometime soon.)

Quiet thoughts

    The latest block for the s l o w l y going moon cabin blanket.  

    Not much to report.  I now know that Monday morning in the pool is rush hour.  You will get swam over if you're not careful.  Went back to the water aerobics class yesterday.  Kept a smile on my face most of the time. 

    (Remembering back to when to those first couple of years at a very small college.  Everyone knew everyone and their business.  If you didn't want to be asked what was wrong, you tried to look pleasant.  My roommate and I would leave our dorm room saying, "It's plastic smile time!")

    It seemed like an indigo fail, but became so peaceful.  Now seeing one branch that wasn't filled in.  Maybe it adds to the quietness.

    Something about working pink charms.

    "Pieces of Our Stories" 

    Enjoyed myself very much while getting carried away with continuing and connecting patterns and colors.

    View at Folio yesterday with a friend.  There were sunflowers down in the garden. Great to see her, chatting to and from, and working in companiable silence side by side.

    After the hushed hours in Folio, the market seemed extra lively and wild.  We left with dahlias.  A bit of a challenge on the crowded light rail. 

    What was started there.

    Quiet at home today, not leaving, no smiles required.