handstories

Imagining light

    It's great to have the sky back, the birds too.  I slept with the window wide open under a few quilts- the ones named Story, Serenity and Uncertainty.  It was a great sleep, but then anxiety set in... about the world, Moon having his senior year up in his bedroom, financial worries, my computer, this blog.

    (If you've seen Jude's post, I'm in the same sort of boat, although not quite as far out to sea...yet.  (And, yes, I do believe she's being blacklisted, because her comment was found in my spam.)  I post photos on the phone, text is added on K's computer- which is very touchy, so photos often get accidently deleted, so back to the phone...repeat.  I can reply to comments only on his computer, only on a certain browser.  Also, I can't leave comments on other Typepad blogs, unless I'm on that certain browser.  Since it's hit or usually miss whether my comments make it through to Blogger or Blogspot blogs, I may just be fading/sinking away from everywhere.)

    Given all of the above, it's weird that I've suddenly found the urge to blog often.  Maybe it's the fear that it could all be gone any moment.  A kind of dog-paddling.

    This was a hard week, so much is unknown and being lost, but when someone asks how things are, my usual answer is, "OK enough."  Which is true.  We are healthy, have a home, have each other, have enough. 

    It was the answer I gave dearest friend when we met for a walk today, I asked her the same question back, knowing the answer, knowing that things are incredibly hard for her right now, that she's a special ed teacher being asked to do the impossible as she tries to plan for and teach virtually. 

    She replied, "Fine."

    I stopped in my tracks and whipped my head sideways, "What?!"  Thinking I had misheard her, "How ARE you?"

    "I'm fine."  We took two more steps when she stopped and burst into tears, "I'm NOT fine!"

    We stood on the sidewalk hugging, "Of course you're not.  How could you be?!  How could anyone be?"        After we walked, I came home and straightened up my table.  This surfaced.  I can't remember what it was for?  Some kind of reference for myself, I think, a way of making something make sense.

    And then I stitched.  I wanted to make a mermaid, but couldn't think of a way within my skill or patience level.  So I imagined them- imagined hoping and knowing that they were there just below the surface, slapping their tails, scattering droplets of sea and magic.

layering

With tea.

With self.

With "uncertainty".

an uncertainty of ships

    While doing a search for "collective noun for ships", I found and loved the following…   

    "The collective noun for the group of ships that one is waiting for is ‘an uncertainty’…The uncertainty isn’t any fault of the ship . . .  No. This is the very nature of ships and why the actual noun for their collection is fleet: transient. Fleeting: floating, shifting, fickle."

    -Laura Jean McKay

    I do love a little uncertainty (it took a lot of years and therapy to learn to say that!)

    

what I know for certain . . .

    That there is no large wall in my life, only a crumbling old fence, and it will have to do…

    That I'm calling "Uncertainty" finished.  

     That the idea that this side began as the front seems strange.

    That I like how the backside of stitching looks.

    That some of the smallest spots seem the strongest.

    That when I looked at the whole of it for the first time, the wide open spaces between markings were a surprise, and even more so, that it still seemed full.

    That it is filled with maps of stars and stitch.

    That hope and possibility are woven into it.

    That the unknown can be ok, maybe even welcomed, and that if you wrap yourself up in it, it can be a comfort.

moon making

    Weaving till my eyes blurred into a new booklet.

    It's just a smidge bigger than a quarter.

    Stitching a found scrap onto "uncertainty".

    The dark side.

    A quick play with paint.

this way and that

    The other night I started thinking about how to bind the edges of "uncertainty". 

    I held the unbound layers and mulled . . . 

    . . . Noticing the places where one side came up short to the edged of the other, the uneven sections, gaps . . . 

    . . . Wondering what fabric to use for binding, whether trim off the extra pieces that stuck out, to extend with more fabric, or to true up the lines of it with scissors?

    I began folding over what was there, as it was.

    The perimeter line came into being that is uneven, turned to one side and sometimes the other, with patched and stitched over gaps.  It curves, widens, thins, twists, and zigzags around itself.  Uncertainty allows for all kinds of possibilities.

hours and hours of uncertainty

    So, last week I said to a friend, "I rarely get sore throats now…” That will teach me.

    Recovery has included lots of echinacea, goldenseal, tea, sleep, and stitching down the edges of "uncertainty".

     There is something very freeing about these wild whipstitches, made without a care for the view on the other side.

    The latest "uncertainty" moment . . . a couple of days ago, sixteen year old Blue was planning a night out with friends.  It involved driving back and forth across the city, to several locations, late at night, with drivers we don't know.  (Actually, I had met one of the drivers when she was a baby.  She was adorable, and the younger sister of one of my five year old students, who I adored.  Is that enough information to go on?)  And to top it off, they weren't sure of exactly when and where they would be- only where they would begin and end.   I'm not sure when I became one of those mothers, but I have.  I fretted inside and out.  

    I dropped him off, grabbing him in a frantic hug, "Be smart.  Be safe.  Come back.  I need you to come back!"  Fortunately, we both survived.  If only parenthood could come with that carefree feeling I have while stitching on this, with no worries for what might come.

 

 

how much can stitching do?

    Wondering that if I keep weaving into "uncertainty" will there be a better understanding of the layers of it all, or am I just muddling up the possibility of clarity even more?

    What I pondered today while stitching-  We're about to start talking about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad and stitching with the fifth graders again (to see what we did last year click on the "Harriet Tubman" category below).  Last year we hoped to share the importance of telling their stories, and how art is a way of doing just that.  While talking with their teachers today, about recent situations in the classroom, another thought came- the importance of children understanding that not only do they need to be able to tell their own stories, but also that they get to have a voice in what that story is, and what role they play in it.  I hope that by sharing about Harriet's life, they might grab hold of the idea of becoming their own heroes.  

revisiting uncertainty

    Just when I thought the "uncertainty" blanket was nearly finished, I've got it back in my lap, and am asking more questions.  This afternoon I spent half an hour stitching this inch or two.  Afterwards, I fell asleep, woke up too late to make dinner, and Thai food was ordered.

    Today, I just don't know.  

an aside about a side

    I sliced and wove into the "uncertainty" blanket, inspired by the "Considering Weave" continuings.  What I like about it is that there is no right side, that the green weft is on both sides.  It's not between, so, does that mean that there is only one side?

    A blanket with a side.  A one sided blanket.  My blanket's side.  

    And what about being inside of a blanket?  Is that really possible?  And is it possible to be outside of it?

    I might need more sleep . . . under the side of "uncertainty", of course.