handstories

doodling the days away

    Last week, the students were creating gems, and I was itching to join in, but there were other things that needed done.

    This weekend the dark gray weather got to me, so I scattered some swashes of watercolor, including some shimmering supernova colors from here  (not surprisingly, my favorite is "starlight"), and then doodled my own cache of jewels.

    Meditative and fun, a very swell way to spend some time.

    (And, no, there isn't a Christmas cookie in the house, a gift wrapped, or any ornaments up, but there are lights on the tree and the afghan is almost done...)

    "There's still plenty of time," she told herself (almost convincingly).

and pages

         Working through technical difficulties today. This has been a different kind of a making for me. One that flowed almost instantly and by accident. Cloths that might somehow work together were put into a stack, to pack up for taking to jury duty, and suddenly there was a book-like thing. Pages to flip through. A scrap added, a surprise layer. Unexpected over-lappings. It felt like a meditation/prayer before it was recognized it as such.

    The other night, while visiting a friend, I was stitching the pages together and saw that it wasn’t going to work, some of the stitching was too high and being covered by the binding stitches. Took it apart and sat it next to me, looking at it now and then.

    The answer was too easy and took too long to realize.  

    Finally, “I know what to do.”

    She wondered about my process. “Just looking at it sitting there, you know?”

    "Yep.”        Sometimes I get so stuck in what I thought was going to happen.   

    Same friend, same evening, describing a friend changing plans on her, and how she flowed with the winds of it all…

    He had said, “Wow. You’re really ok with things just suddenly changing?”

    “What else am I going to do?” she replied.

    “Come join us in our crazy clinging panicking places,” I said.

charms

    Touching...Moon's hair, Grace's cloth, the fringe on a piece by Jude...counting thirteens, Wonder Woman's bracelet, blue stones, visualizing words . . . imagining it all.

    And something new to add...this sweet blue moon, a gift from Tracey Broome.  I greatly admire her beautiful work with clay and open honest spirit.  Thank you Tracey.

    Things to hold on to.

"will you show us the back...the map of your days?

    Here it is, Nancy.  I was thinking about that - "a map of my days".  It's actually a map of my early mornings.  Wondering, what if I also did it at the end of the day, how would the two squares differ?  Or maybe the back is what things would look like in the end?!

    Also noticing the difference between this back and the one jude shared over in "the magic diaries" class.  Her cloth's back has an etch like quality to it, making me think of star charts and ancient maps.  This backside has a more solid scribbling appearance, not just because of the trailing ends.  I'm thinking of coloring books.  

    And on an entirely different topic, can I just whine about that log laying on our sidewalk grass in the photo below?  It is a telephone pole.  Our neighbor was worried about the leaning rotting one that is between our two properties.  He made all the calls, a couple of years ago.  They came and looked last year.  They brought this pole and put it down in front of OUR house- about two months ago.  They came about a month ago.  They were digging a hole next to the old pole. 

    "What are you doing?" I called out.

     "Checking to see if this pole needs replaced."  

    "Shouldn't you have done that BEFORE bringing the new pole?"

    They haven't been back.  

    The neighbors are thinking about firewood, but it stinks too much.  Maybe carving?     A totem of our neighborhood?

three months

    A few minutes a day, usually in the morning, in that space of time between others leaving and my needing to...

    beside the hundred plus year old window, with it's wavy glass view, using the light that comes through it...

    with a cup of tea...

    the day's square is stitched.  

    Whatever else the day may bring, or not, there is comfort in knowing that these few minutes were spent.

    I really love this cloth, the softness, the lightness, the thin threads of color, all that it holds.

 

lucky day

    Happy feelings came pouring out during this morning's square.  Things aren't perfect...both boys missed days of school this week with bad colds, the house is a mess, the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival is this weekend and I can't seem to get there from here, the sunlight is too strange to take good photos...but overall, life in this little blue house is pretty good.  

    These feelings were magnified after listening to jude's post over at Magic Diaries.  The way she works, creates and shares is wonderous.  I went and gathered all the pieces I've been working on, just to have a look.  I'm not sure if they all belong together, but there they are.  Evidence of happy hours of peaceful stitching.  

      While taking the photos little feathers blew onto the cloths.  Looking around, there were many many little feathers on the ground.  I'm guessing it wasn't a lucky day for one little bird.

    AND THEN...I noticed an old rusty horse shoe lying by the house.  Blue says they recently found it buried in the yard.

    I hope you have a lucky day.

looking for light

Couldn't focus on light this morning, just thoughts of and for Troy.

embracing

     There are all kinds of changes in the air here.   Just the move into school routines is throwing some of us.  For the last three days, Moon has decided that some time between the hour of 5:00 to 6:00 pm, that the only way to cope with his tired-out-no-coping-skills-left self is yelling about all the wrongs in the world (most of which I have somehow caused).  This morning I asked him if we should just plan on ten minutes of screaming at 5:00?  He giggled, but I'm serious.  If it's part of a schedule, a routine, maybe it will become manageable?

  
 

    When I got to my square today, for the first time, my eyebrows were relaxed and my mouth was smiling.  The pattern that came to mind did not use the usual tiny stitches, and I found myself changing directions over and over, so that it was easier to stitch, breaking my own inner rules.  I was still smiling at the end, not caring about broken or unfinished patterns.

    Grace sent a great quote by Anais Nin, something like "everything was different. and nothing had changed but my mind".  

    Things may not look the same after change, but they can be stronger and more interesting.  It may not be to everyone's liking, but nothing ever is.     

    Other changes are happening as well.  It's an awkward hug, but I'm relaxing into acceptance and welcoming.  I don't recognize myself these days.    

    Remember to plug your ears at 5:00...

a shift of light

Each day, a thread, a square, a search for light. 
One month of "Lead me to the light".

Yesterday, the thought didn't focus, wouldn't stick.

I need to quit searching for neon signs in the shape of arrows,

and notice all the candles that are already around me,

and pick one up.

"See the light."

 

moving

     I'm not good at being still.  Never have been.      

    During college I had beautiful notes- all of the doodling in the margins, to help in the attempt at paying attention.  If only I'd been a knitter then.

    There was an attempt at yoga thirteen years ago, post-natal with baby Blue.  After class one day the teacher was sweet talking Blue, "You're so mellow, just like your mama."  "HA!" I exclaimed, "If you asked twenty people who know me to tell you twenty words about me, NOT ONE of them would be mellow."  "But you're so calm here?"  "It's YOGA!  And I'm delirious from lack of sleep!"

    And now.  I've been thinking about meditation.  It was suggested to me last week.  Like the idea of it, but again, there's all of that being still business.  My mind would wander...I'd probably end up thinking about schedules, dinner, star trek, stitching ideas.    

    Stitching.  So often stitching is the answer.  So I've begun this.  Each morning I pull a thread out of the pile, stitch one square, one thread, and think my centering thought-wish.  There's no plan, just in and out, with each stitch being a repeat of the words.  Lots of spirals are coming out, representing moving.  

    Movement and light, that's what I'm aiming for.  I don't know if this counts as meditation, but it may be as close as I can get. 

    Moving to light.  Lighting the way to movement.