handstories

Ok for now

    Some things have been started...

...and put aside.  No painting.  No writing.

    Tired on the inside, not sleeping well, nightmares, so tired on the outside too.  Too much thinking, not enough doing.

    Taxes were looming.  Every year feels like reinventing the wheel.  Last time I took notes, but the form has changed, and I was lost as usual.  The helpline person held my virtual hand and did an ok job of not sounding exasperated with me.  Perhaps because she could hear my anxiety and tears brinking.  At least that's done and dusted.  I did take screen shots and notes to refer to next time.  Fingers crossed that nothing changes. 

    "Where the Light Might Go"

    Some things got finished. 

    Including a pair of socks for my sister-in-law.  She's a narrow size six, they go fast.  A purple pair are on the needles now.

    They were delivered during a weekend in Oregon visiting family.  One afternoon, Mom and I went for a drive around the area.  My aunt wasn't home, but a bit of her passion was visible in the front window.  I love how she loves him...

    We also went looking for the house we lived in when I was three to five years old.  I've tried finding it on my own over the years but couldn't.  When we lived there, it was countryside- gravel road, ditches, woods, blackberry bushes, and only a few homes.  Now the fields are filled with houses, shops, office buildings. Nothing looks familiar. 

    It was getting late, almost dusk, and then the road began the curving up around the hill.  There was a body memory of riding in the car on the way home... There was my best friend's house, and her big yard where we ran after her Dachshund.  Around the corner, some of the woods were still standing, and after one more turn, there was the house and its memories.

    The rock wall that Dad built was still there. My brother and I had watched him lift and maneuver the big stones, and "helped" him mix the cement in the wheelbarrow.  I remember thinking how strong he was.   Mom's garden was gone.  Flashbacks of mud pies, learning to ride a bike, "Gumby" on Saturday mornings, Midnight the cat, Lincoln Logs and Matchbox cars, and eating the cake that I had won playing musical chairs at the kindergarten carnival.

    I got out of the car to get a better look.  The rain and night beginning to fall.  Standing there, getting wet, staring at that house, recalling other memories, that won't be erased by time or therapy, it was the topper to a week that had felt like a synchronicity of gloom. 

    Yesterday I wallowed in it all.  Today I thought, "That's enough for now," and stitched a red tree named "Carmine," shaking loose the downheartedness for now.  An attempt at "rising above" as a friend suggested.

    Time to start swimming again.

Time gone by

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    The last couple of weeks have been about waiting and wishing and wanting.  Spells were stitched.  Chocolate was eaten.  Washed down with wine.  There was a day when I shouted, "I am feeling ANXIOUS!" a few times.  I was not alone, but was definitely the loudest.

    Results are in, finally.  All is well.  And our friends received encouraging news, too.

Speaking of things...

    I thought that I had put this one in the last post...

    Speaking of Twinkle... stage two of kidney disease.  So now we watch and wait.  She often wants to be in my lap while I'm at my worktable.  It's not always convenient or easy to do any work, but doing what I can when I can, seems to be my motto these days.

 

    Speaking of the stitching table... I'm very much looking forward to the days when the sun gets up before me.  I can hardly see the trees on the hill outside my window in the dark mornings.

    Speaking of our hills...  To get to our house, you climb a steep hill, turn and we are in the middle of the next one.  Coming home from the vet with Twinkle on Wednesday afternoon, this is what was happening at the bottom of the first hill...

    When I saw it, I thought, "I should stop, but I've got Twinkle in the car and she will flip out if I stop and leave her in the car, and there's nowhere to pull over on this hill, and lots of other people will be coming by that can stop, and I'm so tired of taking care of things, and..." In the few seconds it took to drive by the car, see the clearly upset elderly woman in the driver's seat, and turn up our street, I thought, "You do what you can, when you can," and ran Twinkle inside, let her out of her carrier, apologized, and walked back down the hill.

    She had run out of gas going up the hill and rolled back onto the sidewalk.  A man had already stopped and was off getting some gas.  After he returned and we figured out how to get the gas out of the can, and yelling, "Stop!" as he poured it, because it was pouring out of the bottom of the car, because she must have punctured the gas tank rolling over the curb, I called 911.  Over an hour later, after talking to four firefighters, two police officers, her husband (a few times), listening to many stories from the sweet woman, I tucked her into the police car for a ride home and walked back up the hills.

    The husband brought by lovely flowers yesterday.  You can see that neither vacuuming or sweeping happened on Wednesday (or Thursday, or today).  Simple tasks just seem too hard to get to right now.

    Even the very simplest of jobs.

    Speaking of pencils...

    K gave me a set of anti-social butterfly ones for Christmas.  They crack me up.  They are so me.

    Speaking of me... pulling myself off of the couch to stitch this morning, thinking I would just make something out of the first scrap that I saw... suddenly I found myself digging through the blues, frantically chanting, "I need to make a boat, I need to make a boat, I need to make a boat..."

    And I did, because you do what you can, when you can.

Tending restlessness

    Things are ok-ish.  It was a mostly nice couple of the weeks with everyone home.  Didn't even open the computer for over a week, just an occasional phone peek at things.  It was interesting re-adjusting to four now adult-sized bodies in our house and the sharing of the one bathroom.  I will confess to being very ready to have the house to myself again after three weeks without a day alone.

    There wasn't much stitching, just the beginning of this sun on Solstice (scrap and techniques ala' Jude).

    Still spending time at our friends.  One evening she and I talked about the other side of all that is going on for them.  That along with the fear, tiredness, unknown, etc. there is beauty.  The gift of realizing of how much love there is surrounding and holding these days.

 

    The first stars and tree of 2023...for wonder, wishing, and a little wanting.

    In thinking about what I want to focus on in this new year, "tend" and "crystalizing" are thoughts I'm holding onto.

    Speaking of tending... Twinkle's not doing well.  These were at the vet's this morning.  They're keeping her for a few hours to run some tests.  The house is too empty without her.

    Maybe I’ll vacuum while Twinkle is gone. It terrifies her. The house looks like it’s been full of boys.

    And K. is having a test this afternoon that I'm mentioning, but don't want to talk or think about it just yet.  Just saying that I'm quite distracted and restless right now. 

Maybe I’ll sweep instead. The broom scares her too, but it might calm me.

  Looking out... and in.