A morning where the shoe doesn’t slide on, the electric cord doesn’t behave, ideas about the future won’t hold.
I walked to the dentist. The clouds enchanted me. The wind blew cold but we don’t really have winter around here anymore. It’s disorienting.
During various stages of lockdown, I got spoiled by calendar-months free of appointments. Now I have to catch up: mammogram, annual, endocrine check, another dentist visit, cardiologist.
Groceries came close to midnight last night. My bad. I expected them at noon. But that’s not all — onions that I bought by the piece last time were softball-sized, while this time they’re smaller than baseballs. The last time I ordered a sleeve of garlic, five heads arrived, neat as buttons in a mesh bag. This time: three. It’s hard not to wonder how much of the size-fuckery is intentional on corporate America’s part (and not, ah-hem, a function of ADD).
The silhouettes quilt is finished except for a sleeve on the back.
I turned one of the @threadcrumbshop moons into a sun.
I considered and rejected accentuating the circles in the B&W base fabric.
The quilt for Baby Girl M is pieced and about half-quilted. Unfortunately, one of the shows I’m watching now (Call My Agent) is in French, so I have to quilt or watch, can’t do both.
A month and a half ago, I anticipated that we would all be feeling intense relief on Inauguration Day.
Nope. Who here isn’t feeling dread? Who here hasn’t learned in no uncertain terms that trump’s army is gonna be reckless and violent for seasons to come?
Peace above us. Peace below. Peace behind us. Peace before. Peace all around. Peace. Peace. Peace. This is where Michelle’s voice would bring such wisdom and hope to us all and I miss her.
Dee, that sense of comfort has left, hopefully not forever. Listening to NPR this morning was an article on the language – spoken and written – by leaders of the Evangelical church congregations across the country…how sad to hear over and over the words of “battle”, “blood”, “war”…and knowing that folks very often believe in the words of their faith leaders puts my radar and my “self” on a level of apprehension that continues to be uncomfortable.
Just north of Missoula is a very large Native Reservation, the Flathead. In the early 1930’s there was open land grab available and a good portion of that fertile, beautiful valley where several tribes had been relocated became the “homestead land” of a large community of farmers. In the past two months large billboards have been placed on land owned by those settler’s descendants that are rife with anti-Native language. The Montana Human Rights Network, to which I belong, has just put up two very carefully worded billboards embracing the dignity of all people. The non-violent response is so necessary, the fears rise as more egregious actions take place here in our state and across the nation. I long to have a sense of peace and yet I cannot step back from my so many years – over 60 – of standing against racism. A life-long journey seeking peace.
Love reading your words and how your journey resonates with mine.
In the Light, Kristin
Kristin – so glad to hear about the efforts of the Human Rights Network to which you belong. I was so dismayed to see on local TV the grinning faces of a whole busload of people from Newton returning from the Jan 6 insurrection. How do you reprogram tens of millions of people? Some of them have clearly never heard the number 81 million. They haven’t heard it.
I miss her too.
It’s overwhelming really.
She always knew how to bolster the positive and the real and the possible — all while being grounded. So rare.
I hear her laughing.
I only spoke to her once or twice so I don’t know how she sounded laughing.
Me too you guys. Every day.
She was such a force for good.
How uncanny this is because this morning I was thinking about Michelle, while I scrolled through photos that I took when I marched in Albuquerque in the Sisters March, Jan. 21, 2017, almost 4 yrs ago. I has sent MIchelle an email telling her that I was going and sending her a photo of the little poster that I had made to take with me and the cap that I was wearing; didn’t have a pussy- eared hat but I did have an Irish wool cap that my daughter Shelley had given me, with many strips of pink and green and Michelle thought that the words on my sign and my cap were perfect: My sign said:
R- Rights
E- Equal
S- Strong
P- Peaceful
E- Emboldened
C- Community
T- Together
I often go to her blog and scroll through, as if needing reassurance. She wrote this on Jan. 24, 2017:
“As for the future, I know there’s grueling work ahead, that I’m not as strong as I used to be, that the obstacles are formidable, but I feel energized in some deep, essential way despite the continuing horror show of this new administration shredding every gain we’ve made, tossing out all the babies with the bathwater, despite the unsolved issues that divide us. I feel I’m part of a HUGE family out there in the world. It’s put a spring in my step, and I have to monitor an impulse to break into song for no particular reason in the most inappropriate places.”
Michelle, I can’t promise that I will break out into song, for sure, I will break out into dance as I’ve done recently but the road ahead is hard, long, nonetheless, I commit to doing all that I can, to do my part. How I wish you were still here in body but then, you are, in spirit and that is a comfort as we step, once more, into the breach…
Marti thank you thank you! You shared a quote that exactly encapsulates what I was talking about! To read Michelle’s words is to be buoyed by them. To read yours, as well. I too went to a Women’s March in January 2017. I had knit pink hats for two friends and sewed something along those lines for myself (maroon). I wrote “Black Lives Matter” with black sharpie on a square of muslin and pinned it to my coat. Before catching the train home, I left the square on the gravestone of John Hancock’s “servant,” Frank, who was undoubtedly his slave and renamed only so that he could be buried in the granary burial grounds where Blacks were not allowed.
There is a comfort in knowing how others think of Michelle as I do. Just the other night Maria came to my blog, leaving some comments on old posts. When responding, there she was, Michelle, with her way of being. On my post of Dec. 2019, she said “Time and light and Lemon Loaf is what I’ve got tonight as the Winter Solstice carries us through the darkness of this longest night and on to the path toward Spring. Bllessed Be. ”
May her words carry us through these tough days, towards Spring and something better. Lemon loaf and all of you deep on my heart sounds real good right now.
(((Dee))) have a good feeling that Biden & Harris will bring compassion and calm into the equation
Yes me too — if given half a chance.
Dee~ i really like that bird fabric! The quilt has an old timey charm, perfect for a new little one. I also like seeing your collage come to cloth. It works.
our online grocery app enables notes to the shopper … I can always tell whether they have been read or not, like the time I wrote “as small as possible please, there are only two of us” on a cabbage order and got one the size of a bowling ball
we also have a place in which to write “appreciation or encouragement” to our shoppers … I always do and will do so here …
thank you for your posts, filled with evocative words and images … thank you for your actions, which inspire us … thank you for your wicked sense of humor … and thank you for showing us your socks and mocs, which are absolutely awesome
You’re very talented, writing and quilting.
Thanks for your kind comment and the follow. 💕