Photo Finish

My kids weren't like yours.

Mine were the most beautiful little girls ever made.

They had smiles like light bulbs...

 ...and were Olympian in their physical prowess.

They were masters of disguise...

and the Rodins of their time.

Unlike your kids, mine were adorable. Which is probably why, unlike you, my kids' photos have taken over my house. They are to my walls what kudzu is to South Carolina...

And waxy yellow build-up is to tabletops.
Detect a slight change in tone? You betcha. Because here's the truth. My kids were beautiful. I cherished their childhoods, I worship the women they have become.

And I am really sick of having their pictures all around me.

I write about this because I am trying to understand the paradox. I filled my house with their photos while they were filling my life with hot pink tutus and roller blades. I artfully arranged frames of their antics, their smiles, their moods at the very moment they were artfully arranging my bed into a trampoline. So now that they've flown away, taking their giggles and hair products into far-off zip codes, you'd think I would feel nostalgic.  I'd think I would feel nostalgic...and want to surround myself with reminders of the magic place in my life that was motherhood.

But what I am really feeling looks a lot more like this.

I am of course still a mother...still an active mother at that. Although my ranking as the Ultimate Source of Information has fallen as that of Google has risen, I still am the one to call about the broken foot, the thrilling promotion...and yes, the request for bail. I get indecipherable text messages daily, I hear their voices weekly, I kiss their silky foreheads multiple times a year.  

And between you and me, that is enough. I can't believe I would ever say that, could ever say that, but it is true. They are Out There, where they are supposed to be. And I am in here, in my life, doing the work of entering my 60s.  I don't need to have their childhood pictures in little frames on my dresser because they are in the Vault of my mind, playing in an endless loop at any and all times of the day . I don't even need to have their adult pictures hanging on my walls because I feel their pulses in my own heart even as I sleep.

I'd rather fill my walls with images that reach the whole person that I am.

Where I came from...

Where I've travelled...

...and where my soul wants to be.

What appeals to my sense of playfulness...

Imagine doing all this work by hand and spelling the words wrong! (Flea market find)

...and of course, what just plain old appeals to me.

Sigh.

So this will be the summer that the photos of those little girls will move off the walls, the dresser, the ledges..and into the little cabinet under the Roadkill Frog Band. I don't feel guilty...

...I won't feel guilty.

Will I?

How to Make A Shar-Pei

Start with a boxer...

Have her swallow a bee or a spider...

The Thing I No Longer Fear

When Clutch died, I lost my other four legs into the local nursing home.
I've already written here about the surprisingly wonderful experience of taking Mr. Congeniality here into the dementia and skilled nursing units. I no longer fear the demented elderly--in fact, within weeks of getting Molly, I registered her for the Therapy Dog International Test at the end of July. We've been working hard together so that she can earn her red kerchief, trot through those big wooden doors, and make a senior's empty eyes flash with love.

And do it without knocking over three walkers trying to nab a Milk Dud that rolled under the chair two weeks ago.

I ached for my contact with the residents but really didn't want to just wander around the halls there. Because Life works this way if you keep your eyes open, the nursing home magically put out a request for a volunteer to help with ...ta da...art activities!!

I signed on, thinking ok, I would be of service where needed until Molly got her certification. Because Life works this way if you keep your heart open, over the past two months, I have fallen in love.

Again. 

This time, with about a dozen folks who come through the workshop as part of an Adult Day Care program.

They live in their homes with caregivers, they live in the homes of their children. Some still proudly flash hot pink nails and jewelery and ask why waste time with an upcoming Tea Party when everyone would rather have cocktails...

 

 Others sit quietly, grateful for yet another reminder to put the glue on the vase and then the paper.

Still others sit in another world. Or so you think, until its time to go and you hear,"its just that some days are not happy ones," from one who has had 93 years to learn the difference.

At first, I rolled my inner eyes at what seemed like juvenile projects. These are our parents and grandparents, not our children.  But the paints, the construction paper and pipe cleaners, and the ribbon attached to paper plate hats are just tools for maintaining--or recovering for maybe just one hour--engagement with the world. 

And they are just the prop I need for fulfilling the urge coming from somewhere deep within me ...the urge to teach myself to be with the elderly wherever they are at the moment.

With Mrs. M, when she is talking about how to make tomato sauce or how to outwit bossy daughters who feel they have the right to dress their mothers.  With Mrs. J, when she rolls her eyes and spits one husband was more than enough for me, thank you very much or with Mrs B, as she applauds a very fine mate because "he came home every Friday night sober and with a paycheck."

Or holding hands with Mr. C, who can only manage to spend the hour fighting back tears because I miss my children. Even if he cannot remember who they are.

Lest you keep confusing me with Mother Theresa, know that I never actually feel like going there. Wednesdays are my only truly free day and I run through all my excuses so I can stay at home and loosen the rein on my spirit. But  I inevitably wind up dragging my butt into the car because I just can't bear the thought that I might miss something...

...something like the day we were making hats like these for the upcoming Tea Party. 

The chatter had melted away into convivial concentration.  Out of the silence, a paper plate went on a tuft of gray hair and a small voice started singing in a faulty soprano:

"On the ave-e-nue....on  Fifth Ave-e-nue.."

And the others joined in.

"In your Easter bonnet,
With all the frills upon it
You'll be the grandest lady
In the Easter Parade."

I couldn't give this up, ever. I will just have to teach Molly how to work a glue stick.

Off the Wall, Part One

The sewing projects that I started about this time last year are at last off my design wall. I feel very satisfied about Pinball, which will be my contribution to Kaffe and Liza's 2016 quilt book and that I introduced here.

Satisfied schmatisfied, I am downright ecstatic about it! And I want to try this concept again for myself, unencumbered by the fabric choices dictated by the marketing gods. (I believe you art folks call that "working in a series.")  It has always been something floating on the horizon of what interests me, the idea of staying contained within one design form and exploring how much further I can use it to express myself.

The felted wool birds (no link: my blog is littered with them) have also just taken flight off the wall.  I thought they would like it here:

 

But they seem to prefer it here.

 

Guess they're like all the other birds in the neighborhood, suckers for Himself's latest contribution to aviary public housing. The open house has been going on for a few weeks but it appears that a nice young finch couple has moved in to the yellow center hall colonial over the weekend.

I am stitching the last bits down on the outside border with an old woven Kaffe Fassett plaid fabric that I earned by cleaning out Liza's studio.  The pattern includes 96 wool berries on the outside border. Mine are currently very happy lolling about in a ever-so-juicy basket by Patricia Spangler...

...and they will stay there as I finish my creative visualization exercise. Specifically, I am visualizing me, stitching down wool berries with wool thread, onto a heavy wool blanket draped across my lap as temperature begins to climb into the 90s....

My last project, the One Block Wonder for the wedding couple, is also off the wall and on its way to the machine quilter. It simply is not my style and the less said (or shown), the better.

Oh, right, as if I could stick with saying less about anything.

Its just that I learned a valuable lesson: while the notion of making a gift may be heartfelt (and it was) the gift itself must also be part of the maker's creative heart as much as her hand (it wasn't).

Anyway, three projects that kept me company for the past year are now winding their ways out of my life. I am happy to once again be starting a dating relationship with this:

We're taking it very slow, since neither of us wants to repeat our the mistakes of our past.

Which brings me to Off the Wall, Part Two. Its about the other walls in my house and why I want my kids to get off of them.  But it is now Friday night, Shabbat descends and I am going to go to synagogue, sit in the front row with E, admire Rabbi Diana's dancing eyes and lime shoes...

and feel satisfied and grateful for it all.

Shabbat Shalom.

Into One's Own

For months, I've been thinking about Grace's musings about "coming into one's own." One's own what?

Sorry to say that after months of rigorous intellectual questions, the answer looks something like this.

My "own" was a silhouette of me...fully formed but not at all clear to me. And always just out of reach.

 Like Peter Pan and his shadow, I was always out of step with this silhouette. For decades, I shaped my self mostly by the noise I made bumping up against other people or other places, like a hard metal ball sprung loose inside a pinball machine. I sure could make the scoreboard light up but I could never grab hold of the girl in the silhouette.

And then, as I ticked toward 60, the frenzy seemed to die down almost biologically. It settled into a slow, persistent inner rumbling instead of mad chaos directed outward. And the rumbling had a strong magnetic pull. First, it took me into the kindler, gentler stitching world of Spirit Cloth...which lead me to discover all of you.  And that took me back into creating, back into my garden, back into my faith.

Back into deep and trusting relationships with a few trusted friends, one beloved man, and various boxer duos. 

 

All of which lead me in turn to discover, uncover, recover my self.

 

And I was able, at last, not only to grab hold of my silhouette, but to step into her.

Into my Own.

My Dog Star

Remember this? A relief of Clutchie's paws in the snow the day before he died.

Remember how it turned into this?

On Sunday, I buried Clutchie's ashes under the bush where he used to rest with his pink ball after fetching it just one too many times in the summer sun. I put the ashes on top of his Therapy Dog ID card and then covered them with his ball, so that just the handle with his collar tied on sticks out of the dirt.  I did it tearfully.

And then yesterday, his cloth became this.

And I am smiling inside.

A Field Trip for You and Some Oil for Me

As I come out of hibernation from Winter Camp, my ability to write freely seems to have rusted shut. My brain, it turns out, is like the Tin Man, squeaking for some oil. So permit me to lubricate my cortical gears a bit with the easiest of exercises: taking you on a field trip to Chicago.

I went to primarily to nuzzle Thing One and to wander through The International Quilt Festival 2015.  But I saw much more.

These are lwa (LUH-WAH) from the Field Museum's current exhibit on Haitian Vodou (and yes, I am spelling it properly.) They are representations of specific spirits, complete with their own specific powers.

This lady lwa is my favorite, possibly because we have the same anatomical feature(s).

The Field Museum also had a majestic exhibit on The Vikings.Which, I might add, is actually a verb, not a noun. (As in,"the various tribes of Norse people went on "vikings," which was a way to replenish their supply of slaves and other stuff.") Not surprisingly, they kept doors and boxes locked shut (probably in anticipation of other tribes viking through) and keys are a dominant feature of the archaelogic finds.

 They also hung a lot of their goods on their belts...probably for the same reason.

I spent four hours at the Quilt Show, which opened with flocks of redware dancing in the air like so many kites.

The various exhibits featured both the old and the new. I was particularly enchanted (and awed) by the tiny perfections of the stitchers who came before...

But some of today's appliquers also had me at "by hand??!??" .

We went to a taping of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, and, since Thing One is a hotshot in the Chicago restaurant business, we had no shortage of very cool meals. She recently opened a tikki bar (what one always thinks of when one thinks "Chicago in winter," yes?) and I found myself beset by a panoply of drinks that sprouted parasols, orchids, and other wildlife.

After three nights of staying up past 9 pm, I flew home in exhaustion to the waiting arms--and paws--of my family.The cups in Pennsylvania just have coffee in them. And that's fine with me.