handstories

Hoping

"Holding Hope"

Signs

    Yesterday in search of a path.  Using a moon, silky red and magic thread gifts from Jude, I tried to make my own. 

    It’s hard when the best way forward isn't clearly marked.  It's been a rough week, a decision had to be made.  Is it an opportunity, a step backwards, or a leap into quicksand?  We aren't sure.  Instead of making things lighter, it was more complicated than imagined.

    K. wondered why nothing felt right or easy.

    "Because nothing is right now.  Because it's been a f@#$ing hard year for us, and lots of people.  It's not personal."  (I don't usually swear, really.)

 

    The pro/con lists tipped in both directions.  We looked hard for which way to lean..."ONE WAY," "NO U-TURNS," "DO NOT ENTER"... anything would have been welcomed.

    I looked for things I could do.  I could make a call with hope that it would have helpful information at the other end.  I dialed, redialed, and punched in the needed numbers nonstop for over half an hour.  Finally, I got through to a place in the on-hold line (with really awful music), only having to hang up forty-five minutes later because there was an appointment to get to.      

    After days of debate, a leap of faith/decision was made, with hope and trust that the shape of a hill is also that of a doorway- an archway to goodness and going.  (Thanks to Liz for this reminder.)

    I said to K, “We'll do this, and if there are pieces to pick up later... We will." 

    We remind each other of who we are... and that we can.

    Today bases for tree tokens were made.  I don’t usually work like this, in a group.  Sometimes two or three together, but not rows of them.  Without planning there were thirteen.  My lucky number.

    I just wanted to see what it might be like.  Would it would it be an assembly line?  Or would there be connections and relationships?  How might they inform each other?  I wonder if they will have their own individual tales, while still being pieces of a whole?

 

    No answers yet, but it’s interesting to hold so many stories at once… like a wander through a deep forest with much to see in every direction at once.

    Yesterday there was a walk in the arboretum.  A raven cawed and cawed while flying overhead- soaring and swerving as crows harassed it.  It was so big.  And beautiful. 

    The Cherry trees are in blossom, and the magnolias.  This one had blooms the size of dinner plates.  I wanted to gobble them, to be filled with them.

Day to Day

    Friday afternoon...  I did not see this one coming at all.  Was really loving the colors of the base patchwork (including a Threadcrumbs moon), and went looking for hill cloth.  The flower was the right color, and the curve of the framing border suggested a hill shape, and those hot pink dots... There was a "What if?" moment, and then a going.

    Saturday morning... A hard morning- a household weariness over everything and all of the unknowns, and nothing really that can be done.  Definitely was not feeling the red flower.  Said to myself, "You should work on something that's going to work," but kept on.

    Starting with saving the inside of the hill, the patchwork that I liked so much, using Jude's "managing layers" technique.  

    A moment of debating stars, dots or crosses for the sky, and then a yes to it all.

    "What a Difference a Day Makes"

    It could have been named lots of things- Believing, It Was There All Along, Holding Hope, or Almost.  

    Next...

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

floating dots of thoughts

"The Quiet Filled Her"

    I soothed myself with this piece.  That's another bit of Deb's indigo dyed silk in that left corner.  It was a gift when we met in real life for the first time, last autumn, a lifetime ago.

    Something I've really been looking forward to was cancelled yesterday.  These days it feels hard to hope for anything.

"Lui," "Fatima" and "Fern."

    The first two are names of students at my last school.  There were two girls named Fatima- both were challenging and full of spirit.  K. had a great Aunt Fern.  She lived on the family homestead property and was near a hundred when I met her.  She lived to be 102.   These tree tokens are fun to make.  Ten are finished for tomorrow's shop update.  They've spent the week on the table, becoming friends.  Naming them makes it a little harder to let them go.

    To cheer myself up last night, I ordered two new paints.  "Smalt Blue" and "Rain Cloud".  A blue and a gray.  Surprise, surprise.  They should be here next week...something to look forward to!

"In A World of Their Own"

    I have been thinking a lot about friends.

    This morning Moon stumbled down the stairs half an hour after online school began, after ignoring his alarm clock three times.  "This is Monday, isn't it?  Shoot."  Then headed back up the stairs to turn the computer on.  Later, we got the call from the attendance office.  For years we've heard the message..."This is to inform you that your student was marked absent..."  Now it says, "This is to let you know that we are not sure if your student participated in class today..."  It's hard to be sure of anything.

"She Wondered About it All" 

    The debate about whether or not Blue should come home for the holidays continues.  

    Needing to go to the grocery store, and desperate to see something different, K. and I drove to a different co-op in another town this afternoon.  It was good to wander through someplace new.

   

"She Knew Her Own Magic".

    I'm realizing that it's really important to figure out new ways to surprise myself.

    I hope you are all faring well enough and finding some magic in your own worlds.

    OXO, Hazel

Holding Hope

    Creating calm.  The scrap of blue silk on the top is from Deb's indigo dying.  It's like a breath of fresh air.

    The days have been dark and blustery, but there is a moment in the afternoon when the Japanese maple glows through the window.

    Connections are everywhere.

    I remember my parents going to vote when I was around twelve.  It was dark out, they were bundling up to walk the two blocks to the grade school where the voting booths were set up in the gym.  I asked them what party they were voting for.  Dad was a Democrat, Mom is Republican.  "Then why bother going at all?" I asked.

    "To cancel each other out."

    I've started naming the tree tokens.  This is Odetta, yes, after the wonderful folk singer/activist.  This morning I wept watching this.  Satyagraha.

in Remembrance and Hope

In remembrance of Michael Brown (1996-2014)

Social Justice Sewing Academy Remembrance Project 

    Next it will travel to those who will quilt and stitch it and other blocks into "activist art banners for local and national activist organizations who have requested creative statements to be publicly displayed that represent solidarity as well as remembrance. This partnership will create a visual statement to memorialize those who have been unjustly murdered by police, racial vigilantism, or as a result of their gender, sexual orientation and other forms of identity politics. These artivism blocks will honor the lives of individuals through symbolism and portrait. Their names and identities will be displayed during community activism events reminding the world that their lives mattered."

    (Please visit the link above to learn more about the project and other empowering work of this wonderful organization.  This line in their description strikes my heart... "When you take a step back and look at the sheer size of the exhibit you realize the tragic fact that you will run out of volunteers long before you run out of names.")

    That little silver starred blue patch in the middle right is a scrap of mama love.  A bit of the cloth that was used in both Blue's and Moon's baby quilts.  A gift from K. when I was pregnant with Blue, and finally feeling safe enough to hope he would really come.  Now, ages 22 and almost 18, my boys are here, filled with ideas and hopes, with their whole lives ahead of them.

    Michael should be a 24 year old young man now, he should be making the music he loved, working at a job that his college education would have led to, hanging out with friends, living and filling his life with ideas and hopes.  

    This time of stitching this block and thinking on what I've been able to learn about Michael have been a journey.  Reading the stories about Michael's killing, the two sides of it- He had problems/he had promise, he jaywalked and shoplifted/he was joking around, he charged the officer/he had his hands up and called "Don't shoot!"....  It's easy to get lost in the "He said/He saids" of it all.  But they don't matter.

     What is true is that he was an unarmed human being who is now dead.

     There is so much to muddle through in anti-racist work, inside and out.  As a mama, a white woman and a human being, I worried about getting this square Right.   Not for me, but in honor of Michael and those who loved him.  I know that it isn't possible, there is no "Right" in any of this. I'm learning that it's important to being willing to be uncomfortable, unsure, wrong, and to keep trying, to do better for Michael, for those who loved and lost him, and for so many others... for all of us.

rocking in the forth & back

    Almost all day, every day, for the last week, six days left.  Things have been stitched, unstitched, rearranged, restitched...

    The wings became much bigger than planned for.

    Making the letters not fit as expected.

    Tomorrow more cloud work and connections.

    And finishing the "B".

    And then the stars...

still Tuesday (I think)

    The pen was found, so pages are being labeled.  Now I'm wondering if I should mess with it more by adding bits of the stories of each thing?

    The start of today's page, Deb's thread.

    Another book, the first one I made, is open next to me as a place to test paints, practice writing, doodle (this one was one of Carla Sonheim's one-liner exercises).

    This morning I stood looking at the mailbox, trying to remember, "Did anyone get the mail yesterday?  Or was yesterday Sunday?  What day IS it?"  While trying to answer my own questions, it finally occurred to me to just open the mailbox and see. 

    The studio table is overflowing.  Things are precariously balanced atop each other- paints, books with painting that needs to dry, thread, cloth, to-do lists, pens, brushes, snacks...  

    This is how things go in our corner of the world.  (FYI- no one had emptied the mailbox yesterday.)

    Two-hundred-eighty squares (69%) finished, 128 to go.

    There was some spinning this week.  A little each day.  It's been SO long, so long that there were spider webs all over it.  It feels good to be at it again.

    And a piece was almost finished.  It's about all of this- how things might be, and maybe, just hopefully maybe, how things really are at the root of it all.

Rosee part 5:

    "I forgot to tell you about moving Tablespoon to the Dude Ranch in the pine hills. I got lonesome for him and his daily bath.

    Back in the summer of '34 when everything burned up in the drought, all the other horses had sore backs so Bill Hatch asked if he could use Tablespoon to ride circle. When they got back he was all a foam of sweat and they were afraid I’d give them hell for overriding him, so they sneaked him down to the pond and scrubbed him down clean before they turned him out where I might see him.

    Every time they turned him out in that pasture after that he’d go to the pond and climb in and give himself a bath.  Also he’d round up all the other horses and drive them into the corral till they finally had to put him in another pasture all by himself.  Anyway I drove to the ranch and rode him 13 miles to Ostendorfs and put him in their barn.  Emmett (her brother) came after me and took me home for the night. 

    Next morning, I came and got him and rode him about half way to the Dude Ranch.  I was standing by the road looking at him and he was looking at me as though he thought I was crazy, wondering how I could possibly get back on with my sore bottom and sore legs, when Empty came driving gaily along in the car. He leered out of the window at me, “I thought I’d find you just about here walking. How would you like to drive the car and I’ll ride him the rest of the way.“  I dearly loved him that minute."

parenting (& cloth)

    With the first layer there are hopes and dreams, imagining how it might be, and even the fun of the unknown.  You try to make things light and beautiful.

    And then new things are layered on, adding depth and mystery, and the unknown can take on an ominous feeling.  

    And all you can do is hope that in the end, all of the loving, caring and hard work... everything that went into it all...

    Will shine through.