Gary and I were awake at three this morning. I am trying not to read the news, not to compulsively check statistics for an entire day. I deleted unread all the news in my mailbox right away this morning without even reading headlines. Instead, I worked on the story, revising what will go live today. Gary has brought me coffee, and then drank it himself. Coffee allows him to go back to sleep. (which we did.)
I think today I will finish the second shawl of this warp. I was still weaving yesterday past seven in the evening so there is not so much left of that dreamy ocean-colored shawl. (The photo shows just the start of that piece.) I usually take a risk with the third length of weaving, choosing unexpected colors for the weft. I am not decided how the last will go, will I use the odd multicolored skeins with violet that I have laid out or something entirely different?
The weather is changing and we felt a little groggy yesterday from the dropping air pressure. Thursday is our day to go out to get mail and groceries, but we are tempted to go today just for mail and to recycling.
What have we given up this year? We stopped eating seafood, but it that has not been much of a loss. Our favorite fish and chips place has sold and we do not know the new owners so well. It was a weekly treat we barely miss. We have not driven to Portland since March 6th. We miss our family. The parks are closed in the city and with young children, daily life must be hard. One son has a job he works remotely, the other has no work because his job is in live theater. The arts, some of the arts at least, will be badly damaged during the shut down, distancing, sheltering in place—whatever we call it. I am not sure that my husband and I have lost so very much compared to others.
We are still here, still alive, still healthy, still occupied with little chores and projects. Today, perhaps we will start tomato plants. I ordered Sun Gold seeds before things began shutting down. We have saved little pots to reuse for seedlings. There is soil. There is time.
When Giving Is All We Have
Alberto Ríos (1952- )
One river gives
Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.
We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.
We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—
Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.
Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:
Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.
You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me
What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made
Something greater from the difference.
Rios is a favorite. Aside from writing a funny poem about the embarrassment of death by mango during a hurricane, he was born the year I was born.
below: my youngest granddchild’s quilt, before being quilted.
it is always better to give than receive so I think that every tax day our wonderful great white fathers should give us a stimulus cheque to encourage us to shop. Wado!
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The quilt is so lovely. I’m clinging to much of my sewing equipment in the hope that I might make one last quilt … but probably not. I have no one to hand things down to, but that’s okay. I can make little quilts for my cats. A friend recently returned from closing up her deceased mother’s estate. She brought back boxes and boxes of stuff (her husband said it was like Christmas opening the boxes). My friend has her mother’s baby clothes (her mother was 95 when she died). She has a little outfit that she (my friend) wore as a toddler which she has past on to her youngest granddaughter. It gives her a lot of joy to share these still usable relics, yet it makes me glad my mother–although a hoarder of plastic bags and newspapers–never saved my clothes nor her own.
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Thank for this comment. I have no baby clothes from my childhood, but one truly ruined stuffed toy.
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