My goal was to post once a week on Fridays. I had posted randomly, sometimes a few times in a week, sometimes a few times in a month. It seemed to me that reliability should count for something. Mostly often, I plan ahead; sometimes I write a post at the last minute. Like today.
Over the years I’ve experienced many unbelievable things. People have said things to me that were so shocking, I didn’t know how to respond. Then I did. I’ve given up all hope. Surprise! Things fall into place.
I have been thinking a lot about housing during the past twenty-five years. My husband and I moved to the family home in Oregon in 1979 and started a family. It was what my grandfather’s third wife and her second husband hoped we would do when they left the home to us. It was a two bedroom, one and a half bath retirement home when we got here. We removed the half bath and added a bedroom and second bath. Two sons and six hundred square feet. My husband worked long hours and I stayed home with our children while they were small, which was financially challenging but also temporary. [We lived below the poverty line for some of those years, and I will never recover the lost income from remaining out of the workforce for those years. That’s another issue—instead of “affordable daycare” how about making it possible for parents to parent their own children without taking a crippling and permanent financial hit?]
Then my mother began a downward decline, a process that went on for years. Her driving was dangerous, she couldn’t see to read, never did like cooking, and my husband stopped by every day on his way to work to make her coffee. [If she’d taken better care of herself with a healthy diet and exercise… well, she lived to be 82, and most young people would see that as a ripe old age.] She was in pain and unsteady on her feet, would not take the suggestions of various helpers, and was in and out of assisted living for those last five years. It was crushing for her to live with the assistance of cooks and nurses and others, but she could not live without it.
There should be no shame in accepting what we need. There is no honor in taking more than we need. Yet we judge others by their living situation. I admit I do it myself.
In a two-year-old article, Ann Patchett explains that as a teenager she did not consider cream soup spoons essential when she bought sterling flatware as a 14-year old. I do. I will say that I already gave away all the family silver and have bought only odd pieces which I intend to use daily in the new year—using her sterling was something my grandfather’s third wife, Genevieve, did too. Patchett wonders what to do with her dozen champagne flutes that will never find a dozen people wanting champagne, but we have kept fourteen flutes purchased over the years on anniversaries. Though we have no better idea when or if they might be used, they line a high shelf and give me pleasure every time I take down a plain water glass. Throw them on a beach after I die.
I’m waiting till 6:30 to go for my run so that we can stop at New Seasons on the way home to pick up tomatoes and avocados. Maybe cheese.
The sky is absolutely clear overhead—faintly aqua to pale gold around the edges with strands of pink clouds east of the city. Windows wide open. My coffee within reach. Gary reading news on his phone in the other room.
The center panel is composed of eighty-one different patterned squares, crossed by twenty or thirty different black and white cotton. The split frame is of several purples, and these each change from step to step. There is also a pieced border.
There is more to this post—I figured out a workaround.
Above is the center panel with the border pieces, unsown and just separate pieces of fabric laid in place. Below is the border pieced without corners and not yet joined to the center—trust me, it evolved. It’s entirely sewn as of now, and today or tomorrow I hope to complete the border, trim the backing, and fold it all up so it’s ready for Linda Pinkstaff at Astoria Quilting to work her magic. We will carry them north in the next week or two. Perhaps by then I will know what I am doing next.
Yesterday I got stuck. We walked north to Arcadia Beach, two miles away. I made granola and peanut butter cookies that were mostly peanut butter, a riff on Maida Heater’s recipe. Gary liked them, and he’s always insisted he did not care for peanut butter cookies. I finished the dreadful novel I began earlier in the week, skimming the less savory parts.
What I did not do is work on this quilt, which now has a name: “Aurora Which Means Dawn.” That is a line from a Golden Book about Sleeping Beauty. So perhaps I should call this “Sleeping Beauty”? Except it’s not a sleepy piece but bright day. It is my fifth quilt during the past year. Can that be? I have not made that many quilts in a year before. Let me think. Why would that be?
Some people bath less often, some are drinking too much, some quarrel with or avoid their family, some have shifted their political priorities—perhaps a national healthcare system and stable income seem more reasonable necessities when the alternative is bumping into sick people who cannot afford to take better care of themselves?
Anyway, I’ve tried most of the above, and settled on rewatching favorite television series such as The Mentalist, Psych, and Monk while working with color. I must have a couple hundred skeins of Koigu wool, a fine, two-ply Canadian merino that is hand painted. I have hundreds (plural) of different batik fabrics gathered over the past twenty or thirty years. Some are were once lengths of a yard or two, but most were never more than a quarter yard, now reduced to scraps.
My work is not mere craft but neither is it great art. There is art in the design and craft in the making. There is pleasure in looking at the many patterns and rich colors.
I am more than a little bit obsessed with the sky.
Gary went to the Post Office yesterday and we received a “limited edition” 2021 calendar from a nonprofit. He considers this an act of optimism, not merely because they hope we will give them money, but because they think we will need and use a calendar next year. That seems almost naive. In the mean time, I now have three packages temporarily missing if not actually lost in shipment. The painting is still lost (for two weeks) and now also a small yarn shipment I wanted for my next warp seems to be misplaced, both carried by UPS and last seen in Hodgkins, IL; the third shipment is from an artist-friend in Russia, so that would be Russian mail or a ship sank or a plane went down, or it burned in New York. And Gary has a CD that will get here eventually from Estonia. I wish I could explain why all this is so funny because we both think it is hilarious.
My novella was shortlisted by a very good magazine and rejected three days later. They would like to see more of my work, and I wish I had more to offer. I have sent the novella off again to another magazine. Assuming it is also rejected there, I will submit it at least twice more. If no one chooses to publish it by then, I will stop. These are carefully chosen markets with smart editors and if they do not find it publishable, I will accept their judgement. I was telling a friend that I have submitted one story at least 58 times and received some quick rejections and some very kind ones. I revised that story after each rejection, and many other times besides, starting it different ways, altering chronology and point of view—hundreds of hours—so you see how I have over-invested in it. However, whatever is wrong with that story, I still love it though evidently I am the only one. Enough already.
The lost packages will be found, or money refunded, or some combination, or not, and my novella will find a home or not. I am entirely resigned about publication. Instead, I will create my own little book with a spectacular cover illustration, print off ten or twelve copies, stitch the binding, and give them away. Sometimes I just need to see the process completed. Maybe I will write more of the story as Tula sees it, or Rosetha, or the Daughters. Or maybe I will just be done. It is good to finish things.
Just a bit of the pieced top in progress—you’ll have to trust me that this photo does not do the fabrics justice.
Since I do not have the yarn I need, I turned in another direction for the sake of sanity. Mid-March I ordered vintage Indonesian cotton from Cargo Inc. in Portland, hand block-printed and batik fabrics. I wanted to visit the store, but we were already self-isolating “in an abundance of caution” as people were starting to say then. The fabric came quickly by mail with a lovely string of little bells. I wanted to piece the front and back of a quilt. They had sold out of one fabric, and another was too blue so I thought for a while, sorted and arranged, pre-washed and ironed twelve yards of fabric, fiddled and rearranged. I had what I had and could not get more. I dug through my grandmother’s cotton threads and decided to sew with red. That was a happy choice. Piecing the black-and-cream backing took only a day and I was satisfied. Then there was the long period of staring at the rest of the fabrics, of accepting that the original vision would not fly and seeking an alternative. Eventually, pieces began to settle in my mind’s eyes. Yesterday morning I started working on the front, cutting and sewing. It is a center diamond pattern, a simple and classic America design. Two frames in red, an inner and outer border. When I ran out of red thread, I used pink. Strangely, no major glitches along the way. I work fast once I figure out what I am doing. The top and backing are finished already, the top in one day, and are pressed, folded, and ready for quilting. I began this task before eight and kept at the task unsteadily for the next eight hours. This morning I ache all over from my efforts and am grateful showers and downpours will likely keep us from a long walk. It is currently pouring rain, a great dark cloud moving in from over the ocean.
[Gary has stripped the bed so that there will be no question of going right back to bed after we eat our oatmeal. Tempting.]
Emails have carried many messages of solidarity from museums and news agencies, social activists, and yarns stores—from virtually everyone I know virtually! It is heartening.
“As always, we hope you’re well, and we hope you’re safe. We took a break from knitting this week, to speak from our hearts about the deep-seated problem of systemic racism and anti-blackness. We just haven’t had the heart for our normal chatter about knitting.”
And perhaps heartening of all, the NFL has finally reversed their stance on players taking a knee. A white player has apologized for his wrong-headed condemnation of protests over racial injustice: “Through my ongoing conversations with friends, teammates, and leaders in the black community, I realize this is not an issue about the American flag,” New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees wrote. “It has never been. We can no longer use the flag to turn people away or distract them from the real issues that face our black communities. We did this back in 2017, and regretfully I brought it back with my comments this week. We must stop talking about the flag and shift our attention to the real issues of systematic racial injustice, economic oppression, police brutality, and judicial [and] prison reform.”
One of the greatest accomplishments is to change our mind.
Eyes gone but the teeth . . .
Seriously, anyone recognize that mostly-eaten fish up top? Teeth! What looked like a dorsal fin. The eagle got most of it. I think our resident pair have eaglets they are feeding. We have seen a great deal of them. Seagulls had dragged the tail off to a safe distance.
The osprey has been fishing in front of our house.
The ravens do a fly-by just to be sure they aren’t missing anything.
Most of the tail with the toe of my shoe for scale.
“A successful shelter in place means nothing happens.”
This Chicago doctor spoke the words of reassurance I’ve been waiting for. If that link doesn’t give you the story and video, try this one. You might feel better. I do.
In the mean time, I am following good advice. We have time to accomplish goals. Continue reading
The “Flamingo” quilt before being cropped and the edges bound. The white showing around the edges is cotton batting; the red showing on the very outside beyond the batting is the backing.) My quilts generally begin with a signature fabric that drives the design. In this case, I was captivated by an Indonesian batik in a Japanese plum-blossom pattern, imported and sewn in the United States. This is one of the pieces that will go into a local show in December 2020. (Assuming they allow me to bring such large works.)
Gary sewed a button on the other day. A few months ago I made repairs to quilts I’d sewn for our older son—quilts that are decades old and have been through the wash too many times. I recall my dad talking about learning to darn socks in the Army. I know, in theory, how to darn socks and I even have a favorite pair of wool socks that need darning. I also have a tweedy charcoal/brown silk noil sweater that I bought at Banana Republic that needs some attention under the right arm where the stitching has come undone. It was originally intended for one of the boys—it’s a man’s sweater—but none of them wanted it. I took it for myself and despite the label that says “dry clean only” have been machine washing it in cold water and hanging to dry for over twenty years. It will take me a few minutes to repair.
Repairs have become rare. Continue reading
We each found a piece of sea glass this morning on our walk. “Our work is done,” Gary said. It is a common line between the two of us, a joke, but also reflects our sense that gathering abandoned graham cracker packets and finding pretty things is our excuse for walking.
Recently, while we were gone, the people staying in the house next door lifted two sitting-logs over their fire and then deserted it. It was still smoldering two mornings later and Gary lifted the one end that was still hot and managed to toss it into the sea. People sometimes try to use sand to put out their beach fires, which rarely works and a smoldering fire stinks. I think people simply have an unrealistic idea of how fires burn. A tourist once built a tower of beachwood well over his head. Locals tried to talk him out of it, but he set it alight on a Sunday morning and then was gone home a couple of hours later. He seemed to think it would all go up in a blaze of (his personal) glory and be done. Gary helped put that one out too.
The tourists now staying in the house north of us put out their beach fire—ten barely-burned pieces of firewood!—so Gary didn’t have to this morning.
When we left the other day we had fog rolling in from the sea and it was thicker, unusually thick, the next day when we got home. Though we have back-up baseboard heaters in some rooms, we don’t leave the heat on when we are gone. The house was cold and the power had been out since early morning. Our neighbor said it was supposed to be back on by 1:30, but that didn’t happen. We were grateful for our wood heat as there is no natural gas and power does go out now and again.
The sun came out and a roll of clouds rested out on the horizon, one of my favorite things. It rained on us on our way home from our walk today. Now the world has gone pale gray, ocean and sky, a color I enjoy but not what most people declare as “good weather!” Nevermind.
I am doing well with NaNo, 22k words and over 80 pages as of this morning (about 4k are not new).
Yesterday I learned my visual art has been accepted for a local gallery show in December 2020. I will be putting on warps all spring. Purple, blue, pink. Green. I expect to have a dozen shawls, three large quilts for sale, and maybe a couple of pieced Christmas stockings.
I have been asked to lead a workshop for Willamette Writers in April. The coming year . . . 
In the mean time, My most problematic story is still waiting on a response since July 2018, and is short-listed at two other journals. I am resigned to rejection all around.
IMPERFECT PATIENCE 