handstories

holding it

    I don't know what I'm doing when I'm painting.   Talking about it is awkward and stumbling.  

    This one came after some hard days, and a nightmare that has stuck with me all week.  One with Dad's ghost yelling and cursing at me, taking me back to old sunken things.

    So, I painted.  With dark and heavy feelings, but when I took the pen to it, some light came in, and a sense of being at the sharp edge of the cusp of where sorrow and joy meet.

        Today is Blue's 21st birthday.  It holds both, too.

    "I collected my thoughts and got up again." -Yayoi Kusama

returning & gifts

    The "Love Can Mend" pennant is back from being a part of Mo's powerful installation of love, "I Dream of a World Where Love is the Answer".  Mo's vision, talents and magic gathered together love and hope from around the world.  I wish I could have been in that room and have been surrounded by the energy of it all.

        There is some weariness going on here, just as there was in the making this, and remembering what I wrote, back in November, when sending it off to Mo, "...maybe this is how it really is.  This work and struggle for peace, healing the earth, trying to find a way through-  It doesn't usually happen because everything is a calm and hunky-dory garden of sweet peas and roses.  The ripped and rough places show us what's really going on, and call to us for mending.  For most of us, we do what we can with what we have.  Piecing together whatever kind of inner scraps we might have within.  And just maybe, all of the frayed worn bits can be brought together and worked into a kind of wholeness again."  

    While I'm sad that the gathering is over, it's been good to have it back, as a reminder that there is love and beauty in mending.

    Mo's generosity continued with the added gifts of one of her brilliant stars, bit of blue and a cloud of wedding cloth (I see some sails in there...).  And while wrapping the ties in the tree for photos, there was a sudden movement to the left, turning my head, there was a hummingbird mid-air,  eye-level, within arms reach.  We looked at each other for a split second before it zipped away, another gift.

    A heart-deep thank you to Mo and the Gathering, oxo.

another pin photo & a few thought scraps

    I was trying to think of something interesting to say here today, and instead found myself taking photos of pins.  We're all three at the tail-end of colds, which has involved a whole lot of boxes of tissues, and not a lot of thinking.

    A lot of simple squares were made and are being added to the story quilt.  It's been great to revisit old fabrics (the ones in the dusty tubs under the bed) and remember some of their stories.

    Some pieces are almost finished.  There has been lots of wishing for the ocean lately.  

    And today, some thoughts about healing- all kinds, the layers of it, and the wonder and unexpectedness of parts of it.

purple days/daze

    We had a very nice time away.  Good weather, delicious food and a fancy hotel (they brought us fresh cookies each evening!)  We walked, talked, relaxed, and these socks were started.  I'm not much of a purple person anymore, but I'm loving this yarn (it doesn't hurt that its colorway is called "moon phase".

    There were purple times...  In fourth grade I was jealous of friend who had her bedroom painted the same grape shade of the socks worn by our favorite teen idol.  I surprised my college roommate by painting our room lavender one weekend.  (I also crayoned a big bunch of balloons on one wall.  At the end of the year, unable to scrub it off, I leaned a mattress up against it in order to pass the room inspection.)  And almost all of the socks I wore during my thirties were the same shade of eggplant.  

    More lavender memories...  It was Grandma Blanche's favorite color.  The trailer she lived in was trimmed in violet and surrounded with gladiolas, irises and sweet peas.  She even bought a lilac nightgown to be buried in.

    Today I stitched down amethyst seas and thought about family, mostly Dad.  He would've been 75 today.  He turned 21 the day before I was born.  For the first time, there isn't a phone call for our birthdays, saying and not saying the same old things.  

    It's all such a tangle, and then things change.

making home

    Thinking about...

    Home and community.  How we make them, how they shape us.  

    Grace's comment on the last post, "Back. To the Home You created."  (A very good centering reminder.)

    Talking with a friend last night about the trip, the place, the feelings there.  She asked, "How did you get out?"  I heard myself saying, "I was going to, or die trying."  Which made me laugh, because that was one of Dad's sayings.

    And talking with my sister today about our hometown, and how glad we are to be back in our now homes.

    There are some good memories, too.  Scraps of stories came back while walking down our old street, naming the families that used to live in the houses... Paula's grandma's where I saw my first bleeding heart flower and learned that yogurt was made from live bacteria, and couldn't believe either things were true.  Maxine's, where we watched "The Wizard of Oz" and ate too much salty popcorn one night.  Coach Cook's, who saw me running one day and said I would be joining the cross-country team.  Charlie's with the empty lot next door that we all called "The Field".  Once a year he'd mow it down, in-between we would run, hide and play in the tall tall Queen Anne's lace, grass and weeds that covered it.

    I just keep stirring this pot of self and the past, waiting for it all to come together into something.  I was going to apologize for that, but I'm not.  I'm tired of being sorry.  So, if folks don't mind, I'll just keep whisking and folding the thoughts, and hoping that nothing curdles.

ghosts & hope

    This morning, in that place in between dreams and waking, there came old feelings and memories, tiny flash-backs of moments.

    The clearest was from thirty years ago, while visiting a friend...

    "What's the hardest part?" she asked me.  

    We were in her backyard, on our backs looking up at the stars.  I can't remember much of the house, or even where it was, but I can still feel the cool grass on the edges of my face and the heaviness of the depression I was struggling with.

    "Waking up and knowing that I have to get up and do it all over again," I said staring into the night.

    

    In the fog of this memory, opening my eyes to the dim light of early morning, I was glad to know that there was plenty of time for a shower, oatmeal and making tea before the sun was all the way up.  That there was a whole morning with cloth, without a wasted bit of light, to look forward to.

  How swell it was to realize things are so different now, that often there are too many ideas, plans and wishes for each day, and that the dark skies usually hold hope and possibilities.

    And now it's snowing!  A tiresome burden for much of the country, I know, but it's a rare treat here in the northwest.

    Wishing you all some peace-filled dreams and days, oxo.

making story

    This long vacation, Blue being on the other side of the world, Dad's death... time seems to have slipped into a forever feeling.  Things are so strange right now, and I feel really ok in it, which adds to the strange.  

    I am working at breathing.  Last week I was told that I don't breathe out deeply, or enough.  There was a discussion of how people "fight, flight or freeze" in the face of trauma.  All three have been useful in my story.  Chapters of it are bubbling up, which I suppose is to be expected.  So, I'm noticing how often my breath is held, and how old the air of it is.  What I should or want to say here, I don't know.  Truthful is always important to me, but so is useful, and safe.

    And story.

    Story has always held connections, possibilities and escape.  Today squares were added to this slowly growing quilt.  Looking at these patches- holding thoughts of friends, travels, and other makings...  And there are places where imagination takes me away to the sea, moon gazing, snowy nights, space travel, and flying with bluebirds.  I'm going to call this blanket-to-be "Story".  Everything is.

    Exhaling.........

dot by dot

    Those white polka dots were too much and bugging me, it seemed too complicated to get that scrap out from under the stars, so I filled them in.

    I don't know, this is slow going.

    Thank you for your kind heart full comments.  I'm sorry I'm not writing back to each of you, every time I start to it all gets blurred with tears and stories, but I am grateful.

    The last few days, so discombobulated.  Gathering and navigating with family in Oregon about what happens next around Dad's world.  Each of us with different stories, different needs, wrapped in grief- some for what is, some for what was, and probably, for most of us, for both.

    I already wrote this to Jude...  She had sent this little star a couple of months ago, something to hold onto.  It was in my pocket during the time in Oregon.  In the middle of it all, fists shoved in my pockets, I felt it there.  Opening my hand to touch the cloth and threads, thoughts of Jude, this community, and stitching filled me, and brought me back to myself...the me of now.   I can't tell you how centering it was, to remember that there is a me outside of all of this.

blythe days

    I'm just back from such a good week-plus with my sister, such bad photos on my part, oh well...  

    We drove from her place in Providence up the coast of Maine.  It was my first trip to the state.  Really, really beautiful.  Loved seeing new views of the Atlantic. 

    One of the places we stayed had this view at 5:30 am.

    There was a bench at one with a plaque that read, "Sit and enjoy the view Doris loved, "The wind was no blyther than she".   I did.

    Popham Beach was so windy and cold, the sand stood up in little peaks, and it was amazing in every direction.  

    On another beach we walked and walked.

    There were beautiful things,

    and unusual,

    and clams the size of size 10 feet!

    Heading toward our place at the beginning of twilight.

    There is more to share, but the ocean... it was at the center of everything.

seeing

    Maybe folks are tired of seeing this piece?  But it's consuming, filling, pulling and pushing me.  Today, looking at this "stair" space.  Thinking about light, lightness- how it lets us see through and clearly, and lifts.

    Pink was added into the cracks of it.  You might think that is the light, cheering things up in the dark corners, but pink is part of the weight here.  I've talked about pink before, and am at peace with it now.  Still, when it comes to the past, it represents squashing oppressive slaps in the face feelings.

    And now adding blue dots to wander through it all.  The cool peace of blue.  Blue that holds space, endless possibilities & hope.  Remembering the conversation with the contractor twenty years ago, holding the light robin's egg blue paint chip out to him in the soon to be bedroom.  "You don't want blue, it's cold, you won't feel relaxed in here."

    "Blue," I said.  I still love it, and if I had the energy, the rest of the house would be the same color.

    Blue, a way through and true.