Appreciation

While rummaging through the attic, I uncovered a special box I haven't opened in far too long--the box my wedding invitations came in, the box holding my love letters from Jim, and wedding congratulations from many family members no longer with us, the box housing special notes and snippets thought worth saving.  Sorting through my life of 40 years ago, I wondered if young people still write love letters. I hope so, although truthfully I don't know if I want my children to read these letters. We were so young and a bit sappy.  The beginning of love is lovely but awfully naive, isn't it?

I found a scrap of newspaper, yellowed and small enough that I almost threw it away. It was from the once-upon-another-time "Good Evening" column in the Centre Daily Times, the local paper I still read, now delivered in the wee morning hours rather than the late afternoon.  The small clipping reads:  

APPRECIATION: From Ellen Herman, of State College and Jim Campbell of Pine Grove Mills to two big men in a snow plow for showing us that a blizzard isn't all bad.

My future husband and I were stuck in a winter snow storm, ready to walk and abandon his Mustang to a snow drift. And then we were rescued.  A good story with a happy ending.  An attitude of gratitude is always good.

Yesterday was Mother's Day and on Saturday, my eldest son arrived home with a bunch of tulips to proudly present to me. I love tulips. Then Jim, Matt, and I went out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. My other two children both called.  I am so grateful for my family both near and far, for the town I live in, for the friends who gift my life, and the animals who live it side-by-side with us. I am grateful for my church and the daily grace of my God. I am grateful for the rain that nourishes the spring grounds, the beauty of the azalea and rhododendron blossoming, the birds at the feeder, and the woodpecker in our wood.  I am grateful for the easy abundance of good food and clean water that sustain us every day.  I am grateful for years of meaningful work to do and the gift of retirement to begin something new.  For all these things and so much more, I give thanks...

Yard Sale

40 years of marriage, three children, two apartments and three houses, two dogs and six cats have multiplied into countless permutations of furniture, furnishings, appliances, books, dishes, paintings, and knick-knacks.  Lots and lots of stuff.

Preparing this past week for the “Spring Extravaganza,” a church-wide yard sale, I thought a lot about all the things we possess—so much to use, organize, manage, and store.  Eventually, we sort through it all, deciding what to keep, what to give away, and what to tote off to our local thrift stores.  We really don’t need this much, yet have it we do.  

Much of our married life was spent building our family and our home.  Now one family has become four, with our three children living lives independent from ours with partners, housemates, and children of their own.  We are back to where we started, the two of us (plus three fur people) in one place.  But where we are now is far different from the second-story Nittany Avenue apartment, simply furnished with wedding gifts and hand-me-down furniture.   Substantial mass accumulated along this 40-year journey.

 Assembling items to set out on a table for the yard sale is a retrospective.  I found a box of things that hung on the rough-hewn kitchen wall our our circa 1815 two-story in Northeastern Pennsylvania.  These items, beyond vintage in age, have sat in a box in our attic for almost twenty years.  These old cooking utensils, trivets, and cookie cutters held watch over our dinner table while our children grew up and our family formed.  What they represent is priceless; however, their real value lies not in their tangibility but rather in the significance all the times gathered in that kitchen, all those ordinary days and years flowing together to form a family.  I no longer need the stuff of that time to honor and preserve its memory.

Parallel Play

Last weekend, six of us went into the woods to quilt, all weekend, in a cabin, with no cell phone service.  It was intense sewing and intense fun.

Using Civil War reproduction fabrics, we embarked upon the making of the first blocks from Eleanor Burns' Underground Railroad Sampler.  We pieced the Underground Railroad, Monkey Wrench, Wagon Wheel, and Carpenter's Wheel blocks (and some even pieced Bear Claw as well).  Our goal is to stitch our way through the entire book, replicating quilt blocks that were possibly used as code guiding runaway slaves to freedom.  Quilting lore suggests that these quilts hanging on a clothesline or "airing out" draped over a fence signaled specific directions or steps in the Underground Railroad journey.  It is a intriguing story of feminine ingenuity and compunction.

Sharing a common purpose and passion, we set up machines and stitched and cut...

and ate and laughed and sewed some more.  Several of us (not all of us) even left the cabin to wander the mountain roads and paths and visit another group of quilters retreating up the road at the same camp.  I have never been to hunting camp but I imagine the shared purpose, fellowship, and time to be away in the natural world is very similar to quilting camp.  Being away this way offers time and space to grow specific expertise while at the same time develop the friendship of women.  Coming home and returning to the routine of the week is refreshed, renewed through the lens of shared experience.

Arranging the pieces

Yesterday morning I spent a couple of hours gabbing and sewing in a most visually stimulating places, my local yarn/quilting shop, Stitch Your Art Out.  Gathered with fellow stitchers, I arranged the blocks of my Nana quilt. Benefiting from their collected sage advice, we tweaked the serendipitously arranged patches to balance colors.

I still have much to learn but it certainly is fun learning!

A little of this and a little of that

My calendar today is clear. I love days like this.

I just finished my quiet time, powering appropriately down to enter the day with a certain sense of peace that devoting time to praying and listening always gives me (why do I allow myself to make excuses not to do it?).  I have some bread to mix and knead for a bake sale this weekend (to support a Relay for Life team) and I want to stir up a batch of birthday cookies to deliver to a friend.

I need to work on finishing the blocks of a strip piecing quilt in preparation for class on Saturday.

My daughter introduced me to the women of Gee's Bend, a group of artist quilters who in the midst of nothing created an absolutely arresting body of fabric beauty.  Last night, I watched a documentary on these quilters, listening to the women speak and sing for themselves about their lives, their art, and the crafting of it.  It is humbling to hear women speak of how they took what they had, the "good part" of cast offs and then in their mind created designs for their fingers to implement.  After long days in the the cotton fields, they gathered together to quilt and sing, frequently well into the night.  Their quilts were needed as mattress and covering, often seven to a bed, to keep their family warm.  Amazing...all of it.

My quilting experience is so far removed from theirs...we have such a plethora of fabrics to choose from, pristine cloth, offering designs and patterns galore.  We have fancy machines (although they spoke of sewing on treadle sewing machine and had footage of stitching pieces on a contemporary Singer), and a vast assortment of rulers and rotary cutters.

 These woman cut and pieced on their laps in rooms wall-papered with magazine pages and quilted by hand sitting on their front porches or gathered together around grayed, wooden frames.  Art can be produced so simply by hand if it is coupled with the genius of mind and the passion of heart.

As I putter and quilt today in the relative ease that is my life, I know I will ponder all of this and think on them.

Going South

We just returned from spending time in the South, being quickly transported from this Northern Spring to an almost summer.  There, the azaleas are nearly past blooming, the trees stand green and lush, spring onions tower above the grown, and lawns have been cut more than once (we have yet to start up our mower).  Nine hours away, life hums along, singing a different tune.

It is good to get away and step to another cadence.  Separated from daily chores and weekly agendas, life slows down.

There is time for leisurely walking along a country road...

Time for talking over a family lunch in a charming and friendly diner.

Time for building...

And wrestling.

Time for vegging...

And sitting.

Going South for us is a thing of wonder, because going South means being with our grandsons. Grandparenting is decidedly easier than parenting. There is, after all, simply more time.

Pieces

Oh my.  Almost two weeks have passed since I put words to this space, my designated attempt to chronicle creativity.  Time is getting away from me a bit. Almost three quarters of the way through my first year of retirement, I find that retired life has its own busyness, less stressful than employed due diligence but quietly demanding in its own fashion.  My days tend to be full, and while I assemble the variety of pieces of this new life, a pattern is emerging.  It feels good.

This morning I am off to a new quilting class, called "Summer in the Park" Taught by Deb, my favorite quilting teacher, where we are learning to  piece using a "strip set," or a "jelly roll" of precut strips of fabric.  I love the way these fabric cakes look with all their pieces rolled and tied up so beautifully.   They have been sitting on my desk in the living room since they arrived in the mail.  I just like looking at them.  The top layer is swirled together with pieces of Fairy Tale Friends by Moda.  This quilt will be my "Nana Quilt,"  intended to be used on picnics (both inside and out), at the beach, or outside in the yard to make memories with my grandchildren.

Even as I begin a new quilt, I have one yet to be finished..the "Garden Party" applique quilt I worked on this past winter with my favorite cadre of quilting friends.  After finally finishing piecing it this week, I must say as the third quilt I have made in my fledgling quilting life, I am quite pleased with how it is looking so far.

It still needs to be stitched together and quilted, but I will get to that.

I never really intended to become a quilter; it just happened after I impulsively signed up for a quilting class to make Jamie a baby quilt.  Cutting pieces of fabric and sewing them together has helped me stitch together my retirement, forming images I never imagined.  And for that..I am grateful