handstories

enough

    And suddenly it's autumn weather, even a light misting rain this morning.  So happy to put socks on.

    It's been a kind of a topsy-turvy week, often not even knowing what day of the week it is.  The Blue Angels are practicing over and rattling the neighborhood right now, so this must be Thursday.  Yesterday, while draping cloth to dry, I looked up to see who was chattering in the tree, only to have a shower of squirrel pee land on my head and face.  Last night Blue told of his plans to be in the Macy Parade at Thanksgiving, and to spend January in Prague.  I'm not even sure which way is up right now?!

    Continuing to wrestle with the indigo vat, trying to force something out of it, putting the cloths back into it each day and overnight, poking it with a stick now and then, deeper down in the dying blue.  It's wet in the photo above, dripping the last round of effort, in the mist.  Expecting that it will be much lighter once washed, but calling it a done deal...blue enough.

 

    This cloth keeps landing in my lap.  Many of the squares are stitched with some kind of circle.  A symbol of wholeness and centering for me.  Loving how they hold and contain space, and give a sense of infinity at the same time.  I've been trying to meditate this week, just a little bit each day.  I'm terrible at it, and don't know if it's doing a thing for me.  Within ten minutes jumbled thoughts zip in and out, and all over the place... hanging a painting, spiders, tape, tuna fish sandwiches, scary dolls, phthalo turquoise, and deepest desires.  It is restful, and the fleeting moments of focus usually come back to the idea of wholeness...what it might mean, feel like...whole enough.

gaps

    Yesterday, I completely messed up the indigo vat.  There are still some cloths in the bottom of the bucket, also some down in the washer, needing a second rinse.  Disappointed and discouraged, I've decided to ignore it all today.  Wandering around this morning, wondering what to do instead (besides housework that I'm also ignoring), the missing cloth was found!  

    Someday I'll figure out how to take good photos of it, maybe.  It's so big, and all of those woven white muslin strips with single thread stitchings, they just fade away in photos.  There was one square stitched each day for a year, an August to August (2011-12).  Most were just expressions of a mood, others reflected something from the day. 

    I have no idea about most of them, gone, like memories.

    Today I'll continue working on stitching the backing on.  There is no plan or order here, just vertical or horizontal lines, not even straight ones.  There are places where they cross, miss each other, or just stop mid-stream.  Maybe the thread ran out, distractions came along, or who knows?

    I think I'll look for the small empty lost places today, and try to fill them.

time traveling

    It was a hard week at school.  Lots of small moments that added up to a feeling of losing my grip on things.  Some at home, too.  I was glad to have London to talk about here (I imagine you are, too!).  Feeling drained, and looking for something to stitch, I pulled out "Hypatia," the daily squares of 2013.  I think it's been over a year since I last worked on it.

    I began basting a backing to it.  Lots of white thread.  Lots and lots.

    Traveling through these squares again is strange.  There is almost no memory of what was going on for most of them.  Were these blue dots happy or sad?  Was it raining?  Maybe I was daydreaming?

    Bursting with happy rosy feelings?  Or a ball of vulnerability?

    Maybe there was a long list of things to do this day?

    I'm guessing the Mood Meter was tipping into the frustration or drear on this one.

    I do remember this one.  It was a very good day.

    The backside so far.  I'm thinking of these basting stitches as timelines . . . traveling through, blurring, and holding all of these gone away days together.

rest

    There were a couple of hours, with tea, the rain, the window wide open, and stitching on this old friend.

    Sidewalk finds . . .

can't see the tree for the forest

    A forest of cloth and stitches that is.  I do not know how to take a good photo of this cloth.  There is a tree growing up that right-hand border, with its blue branch reaching across the top corner of squares. It's all so pale from a distance, and with the gray weather, it's hard to capture it.  

    But there is a tree, my blue moon tree (moons yet to come).  Just close your eyes and see it.

    "How can you see something that isn't there?" yawned the Humbug,...

    "Sometimes it's much simpler than seeing things that are," he said.  "For instance, if something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed.  That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones."

    From The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

sinking back in

    It has been a while since "Hypatia" (the daily squares cloth), has received any attention.  I had forgotten how incredibly soft and easy it is to stitch through . . . and how very happy this cloth makes me.

    (Sorry for the dim photos.  It has been gray day after gray day here.)

beyond repair

    When I went back to school, the apple tree had fallen.  The big ancient apple tree, left from the days when this valley was an orchard, the tree in the center of the playground, the tree we all made applesauce from every fall, the tree that is in the memory of my first day at the school- watching children in the tire swing, remembering how I had loved a tire swing as a child.  I stood there and cried.

        I shook my head at the "official" reasons that were given- knowing that it was a sign.  

    "Its roots on one side had been damaged by new construction.  It had grown top heavy."

    On second thought . . . it is exactly what has happened.

    I need to focus on making my own trees.

 

unfocused

    Growing . . . inside-out, outside-in, bottom-up, round-and-round, sideways,        willy-nilly .  . .

 

the blue within

    This makes me so happy.

    It was one of those moments of knowing what to do.

    Without pondering, I pinned it in and took it outside to look at it.  

    There was a flicker of wondering . . . Is it too dark?  Does it make sense in the whole?

    But I know it will balance it out somehow.

    Even if it becomes the focus- the center, that is ok, because maybe it is.

    In this moment of knowing,  the name "Hypatia" came.

    Tomorrow I will take it to the the big blue ocean. 

     I have been longing for it.  

within the dim

    Today darkness arrived.   I pulled out the "daily squares" cloth (I wish I knew it's real name, but she hasn't whispered it to me yet).  A while ago, I saw a tree in it, but I can't quite see it today... either in my mind or the dim light.  The pale blue and brown are not allowing me to focus.  

    There is a faint outline of roots and trunk coming into shape.

    Today I’m wishing for some dark blue, a deeper contrast.  So that I can see clearly.  Because today I am not.  Proved by the fact that I just realized that I’ve been wearing my sweater inside out all day.