Two more inches last night. One hundred-plus roof collapses in Massachusetts recently. Ice hanging off the eaves. Not delicate, crystal-like things, but big, burly, menacing fangs of ice. Snow banks five-six feet high. But! The days are getting longer. Driving home from the high school just now, the sun glared off of wires, making jewel-like lines in an otherwise drab landscape. Double strand of gold over dirty snow. Even now, after five, the sky holds enough light to read as periwinkle.
A gate – a symbol of, if not hope, then at least transition. It is a color xerox of a sketchbook page, scanned into a B&W PDF, then photoshopped (a little) — [from the “Jackets, Blankets and Sheets” sketchbook]. And to go with that gate, an almost randomly picked quote from Annie Dillard:
“We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy that we control any switches at all. We sleep to time’s hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if we ever wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of light uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it’s time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it’s time to break our necks for home.”
from “Holy the Firm”
Ah-ha moments come in the middle of mess, TV, exhaustion (too bad I don’t get them running four or five miles, eh?)
It fell into view, while sitting in my TV chair, staring at the mess my composition had become on the floor overnight.
Two identical pieces of upholstery fabric (LOVE those polka dots), overlapped, with various fabric elements lain on top (or pawed away by Mr. Jack scratching himself a night-nest or D. moving the chair, the better to kill Nazi Zombies from)… and it came to me. Lay out the composition on ONE piece, and, using it as visual reference, lift piece-by-piece and hand sew on the OTHER piece.
The dots had been cut for a pillow, and now are pulled into service to construct a new quilt in a slightly new way.
AND, I grabbed the coffee table.
Wouldn’t it be nice if……
tomorrow held a big block of silence and unstructured time in which I could figure out how to work with woven squares, uneven scraps, and beautifully dyed fabric (a recent purchase from arlee!) in a whole new way — maintaining the spontaneity of collage and the wandering edges of overlapping… without getting into the frustrating business of turning everything into rectangles — which is what I did with the “Treasure Island Quilt for a Boy” (I finished it, BTW!!! I Finished it yesterday!!)
Wouldn’t it be nice if …..
I was working on a big, flat table completely devoted to my project, where track shoes, gloves, lunch bags, papers, cameras, keys, newspapers had no business landing, and where the dog hairs would a least have to fight a little to arrive in multiples
Wouldn’t it be nice if…..
I could work on that piece all day in the quiet and on the table and know that worries about money weren’t going to eat me alive…
It’s winter. And what a winter it is! I type here, with a heating pad on my lap.
Originally, I typed up a few tired lines about not having enough… vision, money, time… we all know the drill.
And, I had to strike them, as is wise.
Here’s my little insight of the moment:
I know that comparison-mind generates much suffering, particularly when its radar for ‘less than’ is going at 100 beeps a second. But what if comparison-mind could be employed to constantly remind myself of how much I can control, how much I have… This feels slightly different from a gratitude practice, although perhaps that’s precisely what it is. Maybe even a coercive discipline would be welcome here — forcing the mind to notice all the ways that ‘more than’ occupies my life…
Another day of everyone home. Something nice about the interruptions to work weeks and school weeks and commutes and stockings… I finished a book, worked awhile and made a yummy risotto for dinner. A good day by any measure.
