handstories

The Seattle Women's March . . .

    We left the house at 9:30, the buses were all full to the brim and didn't stop, so we walked the two miles to the rally.  The streets were full blocks before we reached the park.

    Approaching the park.  50,000 were expected.

    It's estimated that 130,000 showed up!

    Wonderful strong eloquent women spoke- reciting words from Maya Angelou and Cesar Chavez, and reminding us that we stood on sacred Duwamish land, and that we need to love and protect each other.

    At 11:00 the crowd began to move to the street . . .

    It took an hour and a half to travel the first few blocks.  While we stood there, waiting for the bottle-neck to inch forward, two bald eagles soared over us.

    The sea of people heading towards downtown.  K. took this photo of my good friend and me (bottom center, her with long blonde hair, me to her left in two-toned pink hat)

    Until we reached the Seattle Center at 3:15, 3.8 miles.  So very glad to have been a part of it all.  

    Riding the crowded bus home, everyone tired and hungry, but chatting, smiling, asking each other how their experience was, "Wasn't it a beautiful day?"

    Yes, it was.

starry thoughts

    Back from a weekend in Portland visiting my sister-in-law.  It began with a trip on the Bolt Bus, a first.  I even got the one dollar ticket!  There was a worry that it would be a broken seat by the bathroom, but it was surprisingly swell.  Especially for someone who hates to drive.  Once there, I was wined & dined, taken on a picnic, and more.  A whole other world for a couple of days.  

    I took along the star cloth, and the latest library find.  Loving this book, too, and adding some constellations to the galaxies.

    Began with the Northern Crown.

    And then discovered the Ship.

    There are so many to be added . . . the Crow, Whale & Fishes, Southern Crown, Magellanic Clouds, and more.  On some distant edge there will be Andromeda.

    But first, I'm heading over to Jude's place, to catch up on the rerunning of her whisperings of "SunMoonStars Diary", where I'm sure to be filled to overflowing with starry imaginings.  

"Cloth Lullaby"

    Found at the library, Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois, words by Any Novesky, and pictures by Isabelle Arsenault.  OH, MY . . . the illustrations, the lyrical language, the story of Louise. . . all of it.  So much inspiration . . . the stitching has begun.

    " . . . on the water that wove like a wool thread through everything."

    "She loved to work in the warm sun, her needle rising and falling beside the lilting river, perfect, delicate spiderwebs glinting with caught drops of water above her."

    " . . . Louise would study the web of stars, imagine her place in the universe, and weep, then fall asleep to the rhythmic rock and murmur of river water."