handstories

On the brink with pink

    Recently, I wrote a friend about feeling on the brink, and that I didn’t know why, but making a boat always seems to help. And it did.

Actually, I made two boats.

    Another “I don’t know why…“ is the reason that there is so much pink in recent pieces?  This one was actually started a month or so ago and put aside when I got stuck. There was a lot of heavy stitching in it. I finally got out of my own way, took out the stitches, and replaced them with so many tiny ones- to hold it together and echo the beautiful dyeing by Jude (moon) and Deb (pink fabrics). 

    Another of Jude‘s moons and Deb’s threads- a kind of remembering of how much small spaces can hold.

    July 1st, a third boat... without words. 


    Today’s.  I wanted a pink house from the get-go, and one thing led to another. There were a lot of thoughts about process.  Wondering if it was a kind of doodling- adding something here, there… But I think it’s more connected to writing for me. Starting with a “Once upon a time…” followed by the “and's…”

    Whatever it is, it feels good today.

maelstrom

    "Story" goes along.  Stars fill gaps left by wayward stitching.  I look forward to working on it every morning, rushing to get showered, oatmeal and tea made, so that I can settle into it.

   It was a happy surprise to flip it over, after days of not looking, and find a whole other story going on.

    This chart was made on a day it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, to document and see progress.  Each day is a new color, except for that big blue space that was the first accounting of finished squares before Tuesday.

    Tuesday was a crazy bad day, in lots of directions.  Including a meltdown while trying to dismantle and pack up as many games, puzzles, etc. to send to Blue, who had asked for them, and I was so glad there was something I could do for him 2,351 miles away, but not so glad that it meant a trip to the crowded post office, which stressed me out. 

    And then another in the car when I couldn't release the emergency brake Moon had set as hard as he could. 

    And another upon returning... just because. 

    The last one included a word that Moon has never heard me use before... which sent him into his own meltdown.  We were all like a whirlpool, with everything being sucked down to the bottom of the ocean... sea, sand, ships, and great whales of emotions.

    And then morning came... with that after storm stillness, everyone treading lightly, checking the weather.  The sun came out, and everything has been very peaceful since (knocking on wood)!  Clearly I need to swear more often!

    As for Grandma Rosee, when last we left her, she had just gone to work for Stew, the baker.

    "I told him I knew shorthand and bookkeeping, and he said he’d never done any bookkeeping because all he had was bills, and it was less discouraging to just throw them in a flour barrel. However the Income Tax man came along and requested a report. Stew said he’d give me $5.00 extra if I’d clean out the barrel and put it in a ledger, which I proudly bought. At last I was going to get to use my Business College that I’d taken four years ago in Seattle.

    When I got all the bills and nasty letters recorded, I found a blank space under rent. Nothing but nasty letters and threatened legal action from the landlord in California. I asked Stew why we never paid the rent and he explained that he’d either have to lay off a baker with a family to feed or pay the rent, so he hadn’t paid the rent for three years. That was the picture all over the United States in those days.

    When I’d been there about three months, with Stew sleeping and swilling whiskey in the chair beside me, he came down one morning and said, “Rosee, I’m going away for a while and someone has to sign the checks, so come down to the bank with me and I’ll authorize your signature.” That was all the authorization I ever had and he was gone for almost a year."

    To be continued...

the stories of Story

    These last 169 squares should be enough to finish up the "Story" blanket top.  It'll be small, nap size.  It's been great digging through these fabrics, some quite old and forgotten.  They're full of memories of moments, travels, imagining, and thoughts of friends- including some long gone, and some I've never met.  There are childhood rememberings of mermaid pretends, willow trees, and wrapping paper, of little boys and their robots and rocket ships, along with wishes for the sea and sky, and a scattering of moons shining over it all.

    In seven weeks, school with be out, and my this job will end.  I've been thinking a lot about how to organize my life for this next phase.  I do love routines.  Maybe this could turn into a personal writing assignment?  Each square could be a day's writing prompt.

    Hmmm...  Yep, this is feeling good.

ways to lose myself

        Alone for a day, with time to think and daydream.  Some of it was about how I work best, and the realization that it depends on what the work is.  For stitching it's relaxed quiet with daylight and tea.  I love the slowness, the feeling of the thread sliding through the cloth, the surprise of a star's shape when the fifth point is pulled taut, and the wondering of how it all might go.

    Back when I used to write plays for school, it was always at the last minute, late in the evening, with Star Trek episodes playing in the background, and a glass of wine.  In the early years there was a panic of getting it done in time, and the worry of what if nothing came and the students were let down?  Over time I learned that it was just how my process went, something always happened, usually in a flood of ideas and dialogue, and the rhythm of the ride became fun.

    The scribblings over the last year or so have been more personal, for a class and a few submissions.  This kind is best done in silence (as much as can be managed in this little house without enough doors.)  The other day I came home determined to finish something, sat down on the couch, volleyed K.'s and Moon's attempts at conversations, and focused.  When it was finished, it was four hours later.  I had no idea.  It felt like one, or maybe two tops.  Working and wrangling the words over and over is hard and great, but it's so good when it flows, and I'm remembering how much love it.

    Today there was daylight and tea, some thinking, and lots and lots of daydreaming.

truth making

    The garden grows, abstractly.  That seems to be the way things go around here.  Woke up to sprinkling rain.  It's been 39 days.  I went outside and just stood in it this morning.  It was "beach" rain, that misty feel good kind.  It seems to have stopped now.

    At writing class last night, we wrote and wrote.  Each exercise taking off in a new direction from the last one.  My pencil was worn down and my hand hurt.  It was great.  Near the end, she had us talk about it all with the person next to us.  My partner and I both said how surprised we were that we had ended up writing about our parents.  Which led to sharing a little of our backstories, their stories.  

    And then, there was a quick back and forth of something else.  Starting with the information that her writing is generally cheerful, and my stitchings tend to be peaceful daydreams.  Which led to the thing that had been pecking at for both of us for a while now... People have questioned why she doesn't write about the truth of her life, and I have been asked why I don't stitch out what happened to me.  

    Recognizing we both carry feelings of being a fraud and a liar, we stared into each others' wide-open eyes for a second.  The next few moments were so quick, I couldn't even tell you who said what between us . . . the gist of it was . . . that we've already been there, to those stories, lived them, mostly worked through them, and that while they are always going to be true and present (and not that we don't ever write or stitch the ugly stories out, or that we don't appreciate and admire those works of art that tell it All), we realize, that when there is a choice to spend time creating, we usually lean towards making things wished for, wanted, needed.  

    I am not a toucher, but as things spilled out of both of us, I reached over to her hand, and said, regarding the stories we write and stitch, "This is the truth we've been waiting for."  "Yes, that's it."  We both scribbled that sentence down, and then turned to rejoin the class.

rainbowing

    Full of anxiety about a new something that was beginning tonight, I spent much of the day stitching and stitching on this rainbow edging.  This cloth has been therapeutic even before it gets to Wendy.  I suppose that's true of most stitchings.

    Anyhow . . . Anxiety.  Talking with my sister this afternoon, she said a lot of smart things, but the connection wasn't great, so I missed a bunch of it, but could feel it was good stuff.  We wondered how often anxiety is habitual?  And if it is a habit, how do you break it?  And what if it's a Pavlov's Dog habit, something your body has learned to do, no matter what you think?  I suggested eating cake every time the stressor happens.

    Tonight's nervousness/pounding heart/hives came from starting a writing class.  It's been thirty years since I wrote for a class.  Would they all be twenty-something?  Would I be the only newbie?  Would they all be "real" writers?  Would they make me read my writing out loud?   Would I get off at the right bus stop and find my way there?

    The first thing she had us do was make a list of things people might not know about us, and then we would share one of them.  The first thing I wrote was "panicking panicking panicking"  The one I actually shared was- "Out of irrational fear, I will do everything in my power not to step on metal coverings in the sidewalk."

    Arriving right on time, there were six of us, a range of twenty-something to my fifty-something, four of us new (or rusty) to writing classes, two had books waiting to be published, and the teacher said that she would never make us share our work.  It was off to a swell start.

    It was good.  Really Good.  We read wonderful essays aloud, talked about them, and ended with a timed exercise of writing a List Essay, that I ended up wanting to share.  

some starts

    During college I had a notebook where I wrote down character names, descriptions of places, and opening lines for possible stories.  Unable to imagine whole novels, I pondered the idea of writing A Book of Beginnings.  Wonder where that notebook went to?  

    There was a passing thought of writing my family's story.  Focussing on those few years when I was about twenty and Mom was in her early forties.  She had stopped watching soap operas, saying they were too dull next to the happenings in our world.  It was going to be called 20/40 Vision, . . . but my family would never speak to me again, and nobody would believe it anyway.

    I'd better stick to cloth.

another very swell thing

    Uppercase:  for the Creative and Curious, do you know about this magazine?  Chock-full of creativity and passions, it's a wonderful publication, one of the few I subscribe to.

    If you happen to see the latest issue (# 30), take a look at page 69 . . .

    (And, yes, that was me doing a happy dance by the mailbox!)