Stretching the Truth

There's nothing wrong with stretching the truth. We stretch taffy, and that just makes it more delicious.-Stephen Colbert

 Greetings my Dear Ones!

The sky is the color of a blank projector screen above Hermit Hollow these days—all the fire and glory of the Fall has been replaced by shades of ash. People who enter the shop, people who have lived IN NEW ENGLAND…Continuously…For fifty years or more, are looking at me with wide eyes and saying “I can’t believe how cold it is. Can you believe how cold it is? Do you know they are already calling for snow?”

“Better get your bread and milk on your way home,” I remind them as they shuffle away, shaking their heads.

At work, thanks to Daylight Savings, we finish our shifts in the dark.  The windows are already black when the phone rings and a person asks me a familiar question.  I can always tell if I am dealing with a pessimist or an optimist by the way they ask: The optimist says “How long are you open ‘til?” The pessimist says “How soon do you close?”  In this case, I am dealing with an optimist.  “Can I get there by 5?” she asks, upon hearing that we are “open” until then.

“I don’t know, Dear,” I respond. “It’s about a quarter to five now, how long will it take you to get in here?”

“Oh, only about fifteen to twenty minutes,” she assures me confidently.

“So, just to be clear, we are open until five o’clock, but you are planning to get here right when we close or a little after, right?” I am asking both to clarify and to indicate that this might be the teensiest bit annoying as hell.

“Is that a problem?” she asks.

“No…” I say hesitantly, still hoping she feels a little guilty, “I can wait for you but not very long—I’m driving back to Vermont tonight. Is this a major emergency?”

“Not really but it could be,” she says. “My cousin and I just need some dresses hemmed sooner rather than later.”  Oh, great.  DressES…as in plural, with a cousin in tow no less.  Prudence and I agree that it is Ok to judge these people.  (It’s really Not—but I’m tired, crabby, and I have a bit of a drive ahead of me in the dark rain.)  Just to be peevish, I turn the sign on the door to “Closed” at five o’clock, even though I don’t actually lock the door.  I have to have a brief chat with the part of me that is pouting, a reminder about our need to behave like a gracious Professional, when a car finally turns into the drive ten minutes later.  

I am deceitfully sweet, as they sweep in with the rain and drip on the floor I have just swept.  I attempt to get one into the dressing room and one into the bathroom to change simultaneously and save time.

“No thanks,” says one, utterly missing the point, “I can wait. She can go first.” The other nods and saunters into the fitting room with THREE dresses.  The other cousin, likewise, is holding three dresses.  My Inner Pouter is tempted to put on an English Accent and act like a snooty, affronted butler—of Service, yes, but with an Attitude.  At the last minute, she decides against it.  We carry on with the Sweet charade.

The first woman emerges from the dressing room in her first dress and twirls.  “What do you think?” she asks, knowing she is Adorable.   I cannot see anything “wrong” with it in the least, not even the hem.  It is a simple, black, dress made of stretchy material that I might say “fits her like a glove” if I actually believed that gloves ever fit anybody. (They don’t—not really.)  This fits her better than any glove ever dreamed of fitting. 

“What exactly do you wish to have me do to it?” I ask, sweetly, adding “It fits you beautifully.”

“Oh! Well, I just wanted your professional opinion,” she says, grinning and talking at herself in the mirror. “I wasn’t sure if it looked good or not. I left the tags on it in case you told me to take it back to the store.”  Prudence’s eyes nearly pop out of her head.  It is her Professional Opinion, AFTER HOURS, that these two should march right out the back door and keep going.  “Did you not try it on AT the store?” I ask.  Could she not see for herself that she looked fabulous? Does the cousin she dragged in here with her not have eyes and a mouth she could have used to speak up on the dress’s behalf? Does she not trust her cousin? She tries on the next two dresses.  Only one needs a tiny bit of a hem.  She looks amazing in all three dresses.  

“My new diet is so great,” she announces, smoothing the fabric over her hips.  “I just listen to my body. My body is always trying to heal itself in miraculous ways.  All summer, she wanted eggs for breakfast, now, it’s oatmeal.  Makes sense, right? The weather is colder so I need more carbs. Some days I just might forget to eat altogether but she reminds me that I need some nutrition. It’s so clever!” She is considerably smaller than her cousin, who suddenly emerges from the bathroom in her undergarments.  The cousin has on all three: tights, Spanx, and underwear—none of which line up with the same margins. Both the spanx and the tights have rolled down a bit, creating cruel bands that cut deeply into her flesh.  She now has the side profile of a many-segmented worm.  She looks in the mirror and sighs heavily.

“Yeah, well, that’s just great for you then.  Your body isn’t telling you to eat grandpa’s food tray at the hospital while no one else is looking.”

“Honey, um…” the slimmer cousin says, pointing to the Spanx and tights.

“Yeah, I get it. You’re supposed to put these things on in a different sequence.  How is it supposed to smooth things out if I wear my panties and tights over it?  I know…  It’s just for a quick fitting. I’ll get it right when I actually wear the dress.”

“Wait, You’re eating Grandpa’s food tray?!”

“I can’t stand to see it go to waste.”

“But he’s been comatose for a week! Have you been eating ALL those meals?”

“Wha-at? Don’t look at me like that! I’m doing what you do. I’m ‘listening to my body.’”

“You’re not supposed to listen, where purloined hospital food is concerned! Hospital food? Yuck!” The smaller cousin stares at her as if she has never seen her properly before.

Suddenly, I can “hear” my body telling me it is time to wallop the smaller cousin. She is considerably younger than I but I could probably take her. I have intense compassion for the bigger cousin and a sudden desire to protect her.  Many’s the time my body has told me to eat or drink things it really wasn’t supposed to...Swiss cake rolls, Margueritas, an ENTIRE stalk of roasted brussel sprouts…(oh, SO yummy!)  It happens to everyone.

The second cousin slips on her dress and considers herself in the mirror.  The dress, though tight, looks mostly ok. 

“What size is that?” asks the first cousin. The second cousin gives her a number.  The first cousin’s eyebrows shoot towards her scalp.

“Hey! That’s MY size!” she exclaims in surprise. 

She is witnessing the miracle that is neoprene fabric.  Since 1958, scientists and fashion designers have been collaborating to make stretch fabrics—“elastimerics” such as spandex, Lycra, or elastane to help slightly overweight women be “the same size” as their somewhat smaller, more arrogant cousins.  Stretch fabrics are basically synthetic rubber fibers produced by the polymerization of chloroprene—a process developed by DuPont in the 1930’s—proving that there really is “better living through Chemistry.”  Neoprene is sold either as solid rubber or in latex form and is used in a variety of applications such as orthopedic braces, laptop sleeves, and dresses that make you think you are anywhere from 2-4 sizes smaller than you really are.  The fabric comes in 2-way stretch, from selvedge to selvedge, (think of it as East to West stretch) or 4-way stretch, (North-South-East-West stretch) so as to accommodate 3-dimensional bodies of any shape, as well as any purloined hospital food they may have consumed.  Fashion designers have been using stretch fabrics as early as the mid-1980’s, first for swimsuits and bras, then for sports clothing. Now, it’s evening and formal wear.  Nothing simplifies the construction of clothing like stretch fabric.  One does not have to be incredibly precise to get a good fit.

The second cousin tries on the other two dresses, even though she has decided she likes the first one the best.   She thinks she will bring one back to the store and have the other hemmed a tiny bit.  So after examining a total of six dresses, mercifully, there are only two that need minor alterations.  It’s time to get out of here.

“When do you need them?” I ask, wondering if there really was an ‘emergency’ on the horizon.

“Well, by grandpa’s funeral.  But he’s not dead yet, so we are not sure when that will be.  I’m sure you have until the end of the week. Maybe we should have them by Thursday just in case.”

All the way back to Vermont, I consider these two women and the complexity of their situations—from their family ties, body types, and genetics to their relationship with each other.  There was a reason they needed to try on their dresses in front of a neutral third party, as well as a bond that made them shop together in the first place.  They are united in their love for their grandpa and their wish to honor him at his funeral by showing up in black neoprene dresses of identical sizes. 

My mind wanders off on the concepts of “Boundaries” and “Honesty” and how challenging it can be to choose between the old-fashioned Civility of good customer service and the need to maintain a pre-established schedule that is set up to be fair to customers and employees alike.  Rigidity vs. Flexibility. Sometimes, we cannot know the Truth—such as the day or hour Grandpa will head off to his Eternal Glory, simultaneously depriving one of his somber descendents of her dietary supplements and creating the need for stretchy grieving garments.   Sometimes, we know the Truth but we have to stretch it a bit—such as feigning Delight at having customers arriving after closing time, or imagining that we really ARE a certain size.  Sometimes, we think we know the Truth but we just don’t have enough information, experience, or compassion—such as those Life Experiences necessary to engender Loving Kindness for another’s compulsions.  Think of the days when none of our fabric stretched, Ever, At all.  It was not that long ago, when shirts were starched and jeans were like boards. The fabric of a family, the fabric of society, the outward manifestations with which we cloak ourselves in ceremonies, words, deeds, items from J.C. Penny’s… is it not wonderful now, to have just a little Give to them? The Only Truth that really matters is that Love has no Size, no Time, no restrictions or limits of any kind.

May we all be just a bit more Flexible today!  Stretch On, my Darlings, and thank you for your Good Work!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Fitting in in an Outfit

 Greetings Dear Ones!

It’s the time of year in New England when oak leaves sound like rain as they drop upon the metal roof here at Hermit Hollow.  So much so that when actual rain does fall in the night, I dream we are being buried in Oak leaves, which we almost are anyway...  I am relishing the shortened days of snuggling by a fire while applesauce and soup bubble on the stovetop.  But even in the midst of looming Winter, some hearts have already turned to Summer:

 An adorable woman with a glittery laugh enters the shop.  She comes bearing a blouse, some patterns, and a bag of fabric under her arms.  “My daughter is getting married next July,” she chirps, “and I cannot find a dress I like.  I told her ‘I’ll come, but not in a dress!’” Her laughter sounds like pearls spilling all over the shop.  She is unapologetic: “I HATE dresses,” she insists. “I’m just not a dress person. I guess some people are.  I just seem to get swallowed up in them.”  She talks as though Tom Dick & Harry’s Bridal Boutique has nothing but sea monsters hanging on the racks.  “So!” she announces brightly, “I’m skipping the dress!  I want you to make me an outfit instead.”

It turns out that she wants us to use her favorite blouse as a pattern for something similar in a dressier fabric. Then, we need to come up with a plan for covering her lower half—slacks maybe? A skirt, perhaps? A wooden barrel hung on suspenders? Something that looks like an “Outfit,” not a dress.

My ear keeps catching on the word “outfit.” All I can think of is the 1970’s when Sears used “Garanimals” to help muddled middle-schoolers and pre-occupied parents figure out which items of clothing “went together” by matching the animals on the tags.    Is there such a thing as an “InFit?” I wonder.  Is it like Tarot readings, where if the cards are upright they mean the outer world and if they are reversed, or up-side-down, they indicate the inner world of the querent?  “Don’t be ridiculous,” says Prudence. “Fits are only Out. There are Mis-fits, the Un-Fit, and my least favorite, Hissy-fits, but they are all Outward manifestations.”

“Don’t forget, my least favorite is the RE-fit, which is what this little Outfit is going to require many times!” I add.

 For the duration of the morning, my thoughts are snaggled on the concept of an Outfit and how it corresponds to Fitting In.  Clearly, this woman is willing to go only just “so far” to fit in and look like a “Mother of the Bride” at her own daughter’s wedding.  She is not going to let herself be consumed, either by a dress, or the proceedings of the day.  (I like her so much!) 

During my lunch break, I scan the etymology of the word Outfit.  It seems like it was first used around 1769 as a verb meaning the fitting out of a ship for an expedition—which feels exactly like what we are doing now, with the navy silk fabric this woman has chosen.  (Isn’t every wedding a Voyage of sorts?) Less than twenty years later, as of 1787, the verb “to outfit” had become the noun “outfit,” meaning “articles and equipment required for an expedition.”  Our American-English sense of “a person’s clothes” is first recorded in 1852.  By 1883, it can also mean “a group of people,” as in “I wouldn’t want to be a member of that outfit!” Merriam Webster defines the modern noun versions of outfit as “a clothing ensemble often for a special occasion or activity” and also “a group that works as a team…especially : a military unit.”  I smile at the idea that our tailoring shop is really an “Outfit Outfit” assisting Misfits.

Given what I know about the history of wedding gowns (which is not much but is enough to know that they got it Dead Wrong in the Outlander series…) it always seems incongruous to me when a certain “type” of person chooses to wear a certain type of gown. I know I am on dangerously thin ice here…bear with me…no one celebrates our freedom to make eccentric wardrobe choices than a woman who roams society dressed in her own sheep’s clothing, crusty boots and all.

HOWEVER…

The FACT is that what we choose to wear on the Outside—our “Outfit”—will inevitably elicit judgment from our communities about what our Inner state might be. It just will. Prudence nods vehemently.  She is thinking of bridesmaids emblazoned with Winnie The Pooh tattoos.  I nudge her roughly and remind her “Every form of self-expression is Valid.”  She rolls her eyes.  Unfortunately, these communal judgments have a lot to do with whether or not we feel like we “belong.”  Fitting in is all about our personal choices to conform; Belonging is about the community’s acceptance despite non-conformance.

So, what part does the Outfit play in Fitting In? Basically, Fitting In means trying to be like Everyone Else.  Belonging means getting to be ourselves no matter what.   The desire to Belong is a tremendously strong human emotional need, however, when everyone in a community experiences a sense of Belonging, there is a natural shift towards caring for and protecting one another. Brene Brown, a behavioral psychology expert focusing on courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, finds that “Fitting in is actually the greatest barrier to belonging.”  Her definition of True Belonging is that True Belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to BE who we are.

 These external representations of ourselves manifest online as well—in photos, even in the very words we let Out of our mouths or keyboards.  An extremely pious woman said to me recently “I just hate it when someone on Facebook posts about some tragedy in their lives and then you see at least forty people commenting afterwards ‘thoughts and prayers…thoughts and prayers…’ and you know damn well they aren’t saying REAL prayers!”  My eyes widened. “What kind of prayers are acceptable to you?” I wondered.  A stack of Hail Mary’s? Our Fathers? Or will anything from the Abrahamic Traditions suffice? Can we ad lib a little?  Who are we to question how another PRAYS?? Or what is in his/her heart for that matter?

But we do.  We look at their bodies, their clothes, their words—their OUTputs and OUTfits—and we extrapolate inward—this woman is wealthy and organized; that man hates change; this young person still has no idea where the Laundromat is and the semester is nearly over…   Most of the time, we do this innocently and unconsciously. I remember when I first started doing it myself:  Back in the distant past, when I was a little girl—sometime between the days of horse-drawn carriages and the invention of cordless telephones—my mother collected something called S&H Green Stamps.  These were a line of trading stamps popular in the United States from the 1930s until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company (S&H), founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelley Byron Hutchinson.  My mother would purchase items in stores that offered a few stamps with each purchase.  She would save the stamps and select a “reward” from a catalogue. I would look at the catalogues that came to the house and read them to try to figure out what the “story” was.  I resorted to making them up, as we all do when we look at pictures of others:   The blonde model is going to choose this toaster, the brunette is going for that salad spinner, and the plastic-looking guy on page twenty-seven is lost—he belongs on a boat somewhere else in L.L.Bean-land… Catalogues teach us to judge ourselves and others—to choose, to “picture” ourselves as the models in the scene.  

What could it mean if, like this mother of the bride, we get to wear the clothes that we actually feel comfortable and ourselves in?  Fitting in takes a lot of energy; Belonging doesn’t.  Heck, if you could wear anything you want, what would you look like? Would you be like that four-year-old who went  everywhere in a Buzz Lightyear costume three months after Halloween?  Or would you deck yourself out in cheetah-prints and glitter? “No doubt a significant sub-set of the population would be found roaming Wally-World in bedroom slippers and pajamas…oh…WAIT!” says Prudence snidely, “Are you saying that an Advanced sense of Belonging is responsible for that?” I point out that her slip is showing and her tights are bagging around her ankles again so she shuffles away.

Ok, so you don’t have to roll completely with all your wacky ideas, but you can compromise and try and get as close as you feel comfortable, to your Authentic, badass self.  

 During so many seasons of my life I have felt like I did not fit in.  Often, I have thought that I just did not know which clothes to wear to make me feel less awkward—that it was about the clothing, not my Inner Being. Then, in my fifties I discovered that it is possible to go to a dance in a four-dollar dress bought that day at Salvation Army and Love the dancing and Love the music and Love the life you are living and the friends you are meeting so much that you don’t even notice when your bra cups slip around to the middle of your back.  You Dance anyway, for the sheer pleasure of being where you Belong in that moment—and you find way more partners seeking your hand for the next dance than if you were decked out head to toe in Yves Saint Laurent because you are Alive and Dancing and being Authentic to who you are. (“Though one must never underestimate the allure of bra-cups on your back, as well,”notes Prudence.  “All the Big Names will be going for it on the next season of Runway, no doubt!”)

 My darlings, you do not need ear gauges, pierced tongues, and an assortment of ripped clothing that smells vaguely of pot and patchouli to be “Unique” in order to Belong.  Trust me, if you dress like an 1850’s farm girl from the Nebraska Prairie in long woolen skirts and frumpy shawls of your own home-spinning, you will stand out!  You don’t have to wear what someone else dictates. You have to wear what makes You shine.

 I love how this Mother of the Bride is so clear about who she is and what she wants. People like that are often the easiest customers to please.  The ones who have no idea keep moving the target until we wind up remaking things over and over until both profitability and patience go completely out the window. We begin to wish such customers would go back to Tom Dick & Harry’s Bridal Disasters and get eaten up by one of the Sea Creatures they have hanging there.   The best Outfits ARE In-fits that let your Inner Light shine.

Shine on my darlings, I love you sew much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Every tool can be a hammer...

“The best investment is in the tools of one’s own trade,” Benjamin Franklin

Greetings Dear Ones!

The frost is coming on hard at nights now—making the ground sparkle in the starlight as I send forth the tiny hounds to do their last call of “dooty” before bed. The rash of Mumpkins (mums + pumpkins) that has infected every doorstep from here to Alberta is starting to subside—or at least wither and sag and look less virulent. Everything, including me, has decided it is time to Rest, rot just a little, and go to seed.  We clamber just a little earlier into our beds and the room is warm but the sheets are cold. Our flannel and fur-clad bodies radiate warm, safe, round pockets in the middle, with paws and toes gingerly exploring the frontiers of Cold at the margins and scurrying back to the warmth. When we awake before dawn, the room is icy and the bed is warm. It’s a time of Turnings.

Here at Hermit Hollow, the orchard apples have been harvested and are now either apple sauce or gently fermenting delicacies for drunken mice to nibble. Exciting things are happening.  We are building a shed for the sheep! “A She shed?” someone jokes. “No,” I say, “a SHEEP shed. There’s a P on the end.” What the heck is a “she shed?” It turns out, it’s A Thing!  A “she shed” is the feminine counterpart to the “Man Cave.” Who knew? Apparently, while some men (not all) like to have a dank hole in the cellar in which to wallow in their manliness, shoot pool, and consume frothy pints of hell broth with their brothers far from the madding cries of Suckerware parties and Pampered Chef implements, some women like to have an outdoor shed or building, upstairs in the sunlight, separate from the main building of the house—“reserved specifically for the use of an adult woman, in which she can relax and pursue her interests” says Pinterest.   Well, if you are me and your interests consist of cloven-hoofed wool and pellet producers, then your “She shed” will have a P in it. Come to think of it, it might have a LOT of Pee in it. But that’s beside the point.

The point is that these beloved Hermits are MASTER builders and I am learning how to swing a hammer properly (not just smash the nails until they are pretzels), drive in GRK screws, and how to measure many, many, MANY times. It’s a lot like sewing but with wood, except that fudging things by a quarter inch in sewing is forgiveable—in wood, it is not. They don’t use words like I do, like “skinch,” which means “skinny inch” in Nancyland. They know to the 32nd of an inch what a board should be.

While I am learning, I am also teaching. I am excited about having a little sewing apprentice in the form of an 11-year-old homeschooler in town.  She has bright, magnetic green eyes that collect ideas quickly.  I can almost hear the clicking sounds as I show her things and they snap through her lenses and into place in her brain forever. She already sews beautifully by hand—with neat, even little stitches that look like mice may have done them. My job is to teach her how to use a machine and all the other tricks of the trade. “Empowerment is having tools and knowing how to use them,” I tell her.  This is NOT sissy stuff.

 When people ask if I write this blog for seamstresses I have to laugh.  Heavens NO!  I think there are less than thirty-nine of us left in North America—what kind of target audience is that?? We are not as endangered as New Caledonian Owlet Nightjars but we should definitely be put on some sort of Environmental “watch” list. Seamstresses are a dying breed.  Most of us are too old now to mate so we have to indoctrinate the young we poach from other nests. Sewing is not hereditary anyway.  Those Stitch-witches who do manage to reproduce tend to give birth to offspring who say “Hey, Mum! Can you fix this? I need a costume by tomorrow…”

So, very carefully, I begin to teach my darling acolyte the names of our sacred tools and what they do.  I am learning the same things from the carpenters building the shed.  Everything has a name. I appreciate how overwhelming it is to learn this new language.  When the carpenters refer to a “framing square” I have to say, “Is that the bent thingy or the long thing with bubbles in it?”

“What’s this?” my student asks.  “It’s a seam ripper,” I tell her. “It’s for when you want to take out stitches, accidentally slash into the good fabric, and spend the rest of the afternoon saying bad words.” She nods bravely. “And what is this?” she asks, pointing to a rounded wooden object in my basket. “Ah! That…that is something special! That is a darning mushroom; it’s the Vegan version of a darning egg—for when you wish to mend a hole in a sock. You simply slip it under the hole and use it to hold the shape of the sock while you weave threads back and forth and say ‘darn-it, darn-it’.” She smiles in a polite yet concerned way. She hasn’t quite decided whether I am totally bonkers yet but she’s getting close. We discuss all sorts of nomenclature like warp and weft and selvage; placket, piping, and ruching, these dear (to me) and familiar (to me) words of our craft.  I had not quite realized how extensive this vocabulary is—how much “knowing” it contains and how it sounds as old-fashioned as witchcraft on young ears.  I think the hardest thing about any business (with veterinary medicine being the hardest, of course!) is learning ALL the NAMES for things first. For example, “This is a Cow. This is a Sheep. This is a brachial plexus avulsion of the nerves…” and so on. The language of sewing, like the language of carpentry, is specialized and so are the tools:  A hammer strikes; a vice holds fast; a lever lifts… And yet… as my wryly-wise beloved Builder pointed out to me recently, pretty much any tool can be a hammer. I nod knowingly. (Guiltily I remember trying to pound my son’s bookshelf into place using a gallon jug of laundry detergent. How was I to know the cap would shatter and that his desk would foam for the next three weeks?)

We need physical tools to do physical tasks—they make life so much easier and our products so much better. We also need Tools for dealing with emotional crises that are instrumental in building relationships with others and ourselves. I remember being down on the family farm—helping my father, who taught me the line “Don’t force nothin’; Just get a bigger hammer.” Get your hands on the best tools you can.  Don’t worry—better tools will come along in time.  Sometimes the best way to smash something into shape is with a gallon jug of laundry detergent—sometimes you are lucky enough to be using a Bosch SDS rotary hammer drill… Seek wisdom greater than your own to learn the difference. Invest in the best you can acquire. It’s worth it.

Use of tools is considered a very “human” thing to do. (Though many species are known to use “tools,” not many use laundry soap to build a shelf; I’m pretty sure that distinction belongs only to the subset of me.)  We shape the tools and the tools shape us.  Knowledge of our tools informs us that “everything happens for a reason.” Cause and effect are immediate and observable. Good Tools help us reverse, redirect, reshape and restyle our circumstances or garments or shelters. With determination and Good Tools, we can co-create or re-create the life we choose—no matter what Fate or Karma has decreed. Best-selling author of computer language books Jeff Duntemann is quoted as saying, “A good tool improves the way you work. A great tool improves the way you think.” I agree.

Success in diplomacy, foreign policy, carpentry, surgery, seamstressing, even attending the upcoming Thanksgiving Dinner with the family—all require the Right Tools for the job:  Do we use our tools to Accept What Is or choose differently to Make the Best of something? Are stubborn perseverance and hard work the best options? Probably, somewhat, more often than never. Are Compromise, Acceptance, Patience, and Tolerance? Aye. About the same.  Which is it in the end—Do we “never give up” and just get bigger hammers? or Surrender to our limitations Gracefully? (That is, when we are full of Grace.)  Tools will change our thinking. Sometimes we can lift much heavier objects by being Smart, rather than strong. So the answer to both questions is YES. Yes. By all means, Give Thanks for all your Blessings. Then get a Seam Ripper and start over if you must. You can always Get a bigger Hammer.

Be well, my Dear Ones! May today be the day you gather your best tools and begin the work of your dreams.

Yours aye,

Nancy

People are Animals...

All God’s Critters got a place in the Choir; Some singing low, some singing higher;

Some sing out loud on the telephone wires;

 some just clap  their hands, their paws or anything they got now…”  Bill Staines

 Greetings Dear Ones!

On my way to the tailoring shop, I pause at a red light behind a car covered in paw-print stickers.  The bumper reads: “I don’t need a Higher Power. I have a cat.” And “I [heart] cats—it’s people I can’t stand.”   As soon as the light changes, she starts honking at the slow car in front of her.   With a wild wave of arms and flashing turn signals, she swerves left with unnecessarily violent acceleration.  Foul-smelling Anger in the form of dark exhaust fumes pollutes the intersection as I drive straight through.  I can’t help giggling for some reason.  I send the pissed off Cat Car a Blessing even as Prudence begins her commentary.  I remind Prudence that it is wrong to judge people.  She seems to think judging People Who Judge People is just fine. It’s really not.  “People should not MAKE me Judge them,” she huffs.  It’s one of her favorite lines.

I love people; really, I do.  If it were not for People, especially two people in particular, I probably wouldn’t even be here.  I used to think I only really got along with animals—that people were confusing and tricky—that is, until I realized they were just large, somewhat less furry animals in cloth costumes.   So I sympathize with the Cat Car driver.  Sometimes it feels like “everyone else” is out to get us and that only animals are safe.  We forget that any creature can bite.  I wonder about what softens in her belly when she gets home to her feline family—her personal domestic welfare population circling her ankles in search of the sound of a tin opener—no doubt they are needy and demanding but in ways that don’t bug her or insult her personal boundaries as much as an anonymous fellow motorist delaying her for three seconds at a red light.

In the shop, everything is bright and cheery against the gloom of the grey windows.  These past few days have had only the damp, foggy lights of a photographer with his strongest filter on, as the October rains extinguish the fiery maple and oak leaves and wash them to the ground.  My dear co-worker is in the corner working on a set of window drapes she has had to re-hem three times for a persnickety customer who has no idea how a tape measure works.   “I don’t know why it bugs the [poopy] out of me to have to do things twice, never mind THREE times!” she says.  I understand.  Someone with a perfectly “Zen” mindset sees everything as a “first.”  We wish we could do that.  Somehow, there is a big difference between hemming the same drapes three times and having three different customers come in separately with the same drapes.  We rely on a sense of forward momentum to maintain morale.   She steps on the foot pedal of the machine and the needle jams.  I hear both the machine and the seamstress whine.  Next, I hear a sound I do not recognize immediately—a low rumbling sound.  I know I’ve heard that sound many times but I cannot quite place it now.  My eyes widen. “Are you GROWLING???” I ask my friend in disbelief.  She sounds like a Rottweiler issuing a severe warning to someone about to lose a leg.   The growling snaps quickly and shatters into guilty laughter.   I howl with glee.  “Don’t tell anyone!” she begs.

“It’s Ok to growl,” I assure her.  It’s ok that we love our work and we hate our work.  It’s ok that we love people and harbor secret contempt for their choices too.  It’s too early on a grey day to succumb to being annoyed with People, so to cheer myself up I decide to use my magic powers to turn all our customers into animals.   For some reason, animals are so much easier to love than ourselves.  Animals are the necessary, blessed bridge to our own humanity sometimes.

First in is a very tall, somewhat meddlesome Hare with long, long legs attached directly to her back.  She is taking tango lessons and she wants us to make some adjustments to her dress to make it look as though she has a sexy bum.  She laments that she towers over all the Latin men with whom she dances so she never wears heels.  Her skirts don’t need hemming but she has taken elastic bands and bunched up the fabric between her pelvic bones in the back.  “Can you do something like this?” she asks.  “I really like the look of this.  This will be really easy for you—see? No sewing!  You just use a hair band. Simple!” On and on she goes, turning this way and that in the mirror, smiling and telling me how Simple it is going to be for me to do what she wants with “no sewing” whatsoever.   (I confess—I panic a little when people tell me how “easy” my work is going to be for them.)  What she has created, Hare-brained as it is, truly looks like a little rabbit’s powder puff of a tail.  Seeing her as an animal in a cute little fable I am creating helps me restrain the urge I feel to smack her.

Next in is a woman whose clothing smells of kitty litter.  I am tempted to turn her into a cat but she has the loyal, mournful eyes of a rescue hound.  She has nine suits from the late nineties that she has dug out of the back of her closet.  Thanks to a strong muzzle and regular leash-walking, she has reached her goal weight and wants all these suits updated for her “new” look.   The suits hang off her in a listless, apologetic way.   “I haven’t been this size in twenty years,” she says in a voice utterly lacking triumph.  The shoulder-pads look like benign tumors that need to be resected from under the faded hanger marks.  We have to take in all the skirts by eight inches—basically remaking them from scratch—then hem the jacket sleeves and take in the backs as much as we can without distorting their shapes and making her resemble a barrel-chested bulldog.  At the end of the day, these suits will still look exhausted, uninhabited, and baggy, like she herself does.  I desperately want to give this woman a good brushing—to scratch her behind her ears and find her something she likes to play with.  I want to see her eyes sparkle. I want to see what makes her bolt and bounce for Joy.  I want to tell her to ditch these old clothes and spend her tailoring money on getting something fresh that fits Who She is Now.  But she is still trying to be Who She thought she should have been twenty years ago.  She is loyal through and through, in a weary, saggy, resigned sort of way. 

A slim, slinky weasel with bright, cunning eyes and a tiny, pointy snout comes in next. She is adorable and perky.  She is upset that she cannot buy jeans with low rises anymore. Someone in the fashion industry has hit the “Up” button on the elevator of Women’s waistlines and she can no-longer reach the lowest floors so she needs her old jeans mended.  She has to keep them on life-support until the elevator hits the top and begins its inevitable descent in eight to ten fashion cycles.  She also squeaks about how baggy a certain brand of jeans are in the bum. “They just put too much fabric in there” she sneers, “—and it’s stretch fabric too!” My ears perk up.  “Tell me the name of those jeans again,” I say, “the ones you don’t like? Exactly WHO makes those terrible jeans with the big bummage?” I grab a pen and a scrap of paper to take notes.  (I have a good lead on where to shop now!)

The phone rings.  I cannot tell whether the voice on the line is a Goose or a Gander or just a heavy smoker. “Can you hem a pair of pants for me today, if I come in right now?” I pause to scan the shop and see how busy we are.  Before I can answer, the voice says with some impatience “You’ve done this for me before!” as if I should not hesitate to say “sure.”  I hang up, wondering why this person bothered to call if [they?] were already assured of the required services.  Eventually, the person with ruffled feathers comes in.  We take the necessary measurements and I agree to have the pants ready before closing time.  At no point during the interactions am I certain of which pronouns to use—even the trousers themselves are no clue—which is fine with me. I don’t need to know a person’s “pronouns” in order to do a good job on a quick blind hem.  Those species of waterfowl lacking visible displays of sexual dimorphism have enough trouble without having a gender-muddled seamstress adding to their woes.  They find themselves swimming upstream enough!    

A middle-aged house cat is just about to pay for his dry-cleaning when he pauses and burps.  He proceeds to cough up a small hairball, chew it, swallow, then comment on it for the next five minutes.  We learn all about his acid reflux, how he can no longer eat mice, how he’s allergic to certain kinds of kitty litter and how much he loves salmon but it plays havoc with his delicate bowels.  Instinctively, we all give him the averted-eyes body-language that indicates discomfort with his bland candor about his bodily functions. Languidly, he ignores the social cues and continues to behave as if he might through an ankle over his shoulder and casually lick his own arse right in the middle of our carpet.  Finally, with considerable relief, we get him to depart the shop by asking him where he has parked.  When the door shuts, we all talk at once, as if we have been simultaneously holding our breath.  “Save your confessions for a priest!” mutters Prudence to the departing car. 

“Do we LOOK like bartenders?” asks one exasperated seamstress.

“Jeez, Louise, I had no idea how far he was going to go with that…is there no one else in his life who can listen to that verbal diarrhea?” says another.   I think about how we interpret the actions of strays in animal shelters—Someone, somewhere, must have pampered him and convinced him that he was entitled to endless feminine attention.  Clearly, he’s just lonely and self-centered, with no one to rub his furry tummy. (Yuck. Now Prudence has a hairball.)

Some customers are difficult. There is no doubt about that.  Sometimes it takes a little imagination to see them as the funny, loveable creatures they really are.  But it’s work worth doing at the end of the day—not so much because they actually “deserve” it but because WE do.  It’s worth it to our own souls to laugh more, to love more, to see ourselves as Abundant enough to be able to afford any kindness to a stranger or a rangy, gentle Moose Mother who wants her Otter Son’s wedding to a Fish to be perfect.  Those strangers might be “Angels in disguise,” or they may be fellow animals in search of food and shelter and a cheap, quick way to cover up the tails they wish to hide. 

It’s Halloween, “All Hallow’s Eve,” the ancient Celtic New Year—a perfect time to notice the Cats, Critters, and Costumes around us—a time to prowl the Darkness around our hearts in search of Sweetness and the return Home.  These orphaned creatures craving attention, affection, and Milk Duds—they are US.  We can notice how awful we are and point it out to others via caustic messages of intolerance on our bumper stickers, or we can trust the Blessedness of our Inner Beings to bring light and warmth for one another as the days grow short and cold. It’s our fierce and free Choice.

 Thank you, Dear Ones, for the Good Work you are doing.  On this Hallowed Eve, I wish you happy hearths, hot cider, and much Mischief, Mirth & Music—tonight and ever.   I love you Sew Much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

It Must Be Nice...

Greetings Dear Ones,

 I am sitting at the laundromat crocheting a new finger-top to a pair of mittens for a customer while I wait for the machines to get done masticating my laundry.  This is a new laundromat for me and I am all charmed up because it only takes quarters—not those new-fangled credit cards that you charge up, then misplace in a pocket of the shirt that just got locked into the machine… The twenty dollars’ worth of pirate’s booty that the coin machine spits out is as hefty and reassuring as pieces of eight.  I am tempted to set sail for Bora Bora immediately. Who would spend such a heap of treasure getting crud off of clothes anyway?  How droll.  I can’t remember the last time twenty dollars worth of coins has made me feel so giddy, so Rich, so Invincible.  But dutifully I feed the coins into the eyes of the machines and my soiled clothing into the open mouths and begin the long wait.

 I love laundromats. I love getting everything Clean & Sorted all at once.  It does something almost as positive for my soul as for my wardrobe. Out the big picture window, the sky smolders a smoky grey above a hillside ablaze with oaks and maples in full glory.  Each leaf is like a scrap of flame as it flutters.  The mittens I am working on are shades of purple and green and complement the scene outside.

A woman waiting nearby sees me working and says, “It must be nice to be able to do that,” nodding towards my crochet hook. “I could never do anything like that.  I just haven’t got the time.”  I peer at her quizzically.  We are both sitting at a laundromat. I’m going to sit here with busy hands and she isn’t. Which one of us, exactly, has More Time?  “Well, you’ve got some time right now—I’ll show you!” I offer. “Oh no…” she stammers hastily. “I’ve tried before.  I just can’t do it.  I don’t have the patience.” Prudence raises her eyebrows but says nothing.  NOT having patience is one of the anti-virtues most likely to prompt her to get a run in her tights.  She also has strong thoughts about people who make Excuses instead of Efforts but at least she has the sense to take this rare opportunity to shut up.  “Patience” is a funny concept.  Personally, I don’t have the patience to sit still with idle hands! It drives me batty to go somewhere and forget my handwork.

The woman watches the yarn inching through my fingers, drizzling itself over the hook into tidy coils, like the watery sand-mud of a drip castle at the beach, then hardening into a firm line of neat, tight stitches. She sighs. “It sure must be Nice…” she says softly.  There is something about her wistfulness that melts me.  She feels a certain call, a certain yearning to be a Maker but she keeps churning up reasons why she cannot do it.

Normally, when I hear comments like “it must be nice…” (which I hear quite a lot actually! “it must be nice to be able to sew…it must be nice to be able to spin… it must be nice to be able to fix your own clothes for free…”) it brings to mind my Least Favorite Fairy Tale.  Perhaps you have heard it?

It’s a Grimm tale called “The Three Spinning Women,” first published by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in 1812, and it is certainly grim, in every way.  Firstly, there is a daughter who refuses to spin flax so her mother beats her.  A queen, rolling by in her fine carriage stops and asks what all the ruckus is about. The mother, embarrassed for her lazy daughter, lies and says she cannot get the daughter to cease her incessant spinning and that the squeaking of the wheel is driving her nuts.   So the queen tells the mother to let her take the daughter back to the castle with her, where she can spin to her heart’s content. “I have plenty of flax for her to spin and there is nothing I like so well as the sound of a spinning wheel in use. I am never happier than when the wheels are humming!” (I heartily concur.  This is the only part of the story I agree with—the pleasantness of humming wheels, that is, not the kidnapping of other people’s daughters.) Back at the castle, the queen tells the terrified (yet still lazy girl) that if she spins three huge rooms worth of flax, that she shall have her son’s, the Prince’s, hand in marriage and one day inherit the kingdom. “I don’t mind if you are poor—for Cleverness and Industry are dowry enough.” (Ok, I agree with this line too.)  So the poor girl is locked in the first room with all the flax and cries herself to sleep.  (“We HOPE she is regretting her Laziness,” insists Prudence. “I’ll bet she’s saying “It Must Be Nice to be able to spin flax now! If only I had bothered to learn, instead of frittering my time away on Social Media and Sit-coms…”) The girl cries for three days because that is the rule in fairytales—things happen in threes. On the third day, three kind fairies show up—one with a big foot, one with a big thumb, and one with a big lip.  They tell the girl that they will spin all the flax for her if she will agree to invite them to her wedding, call them her aunts, and seat them with her at the table. She agrees. (People who are desperate and lazy will agree to pretty much anything.)  So the kindly “Aunts” spin all the flax for her and she gets to marry the prince.  As promised, the Lazy Bride invites the Aunts to her wedding, where the rude, outspoken prince questions them about their “deformities.” The one with the big foot says her foot grew large from treadling the wheel; the one with the lip says it grew from having to moisten the flax with her spit; the one with the thumb says it grew from the flax rushing through her hands as it was being spun.   The Prince is aghast.  He bans his new bride from ever spinning again because he wants nothing to spoil her beauty.  And they all live “Happily Ever After.” Yeah, right… (sound of retching noises from Prudence)

There is just so much that is annoying about this fairytale.

Yet I cannot help being fascinated by the idea that the constant spinning had somehow “deformed” the three aunts.  As a fellow spinner, I can say that different parts of our bodies DO come to “embody” the wisdom that comes with many repetitions.  There IS such a thing as “muscle memory.”  Understanding how to do something and being able to do it well are two completely different things.  For example, my left foot “knows” how to treadle the wheel but it can’t—I am completely “Right-footed” in much the same way that most people can only write their signature with their dominant hand.

Being able to “Do Things” is NOT nice.  When people comment, “It must be nice…” Well, No, actually, it isn’t.  People who can do or make things have been at it a long time.  They have sacrificed parts of their body to endless repetitions that create deep-tissue “knowing” and change their bodies and brains forever.  There is a tailor I know whose hand-sewn button-holes are a work of art.  I long to be able to sew buttonholes like he does.  But whereas I have only done mere hundreds, he has done thousands. Therein lies the difference.

People who do things well make them look “easy” and effortless—like it might be “Nice” to be in the middle of a flow like that, with such economy of effort for such a rich result. Because hard work eventually looks “easy” people begin to think it is “nice.”

Last weekend, I watched a friend dancing at a fundraiser for our favorite public radio station in Boston.  She was floating about the stage as if she was weightless, as if she were reaching down with her feet to hit the beat on the deck below her, instead of pushing up off the ground.  She dances as if most of her body is the liquid representation of Sound.  Someone next to me commented, “Wow, imagine dancing like that!  It must be nice to be able to move with such grace…” I nodded.  What I did not say to the admiring stranger is that my friend has been in a horrific two-year battle with Lyme disease to be able to move at all.  It’s not just Nice that she can dance like that—it’s miraculous—AND she earned every bit of that miracle through her own daily persistence and the strength of her spirit.

Writhing behind her on stage sat my son and his merry band of music-makers. Each slice of their fiddle bows cut open a vortex between worlds for pure notes to enter, gush, splash and splatter all over the slickened dance floor.  I stared with pride and awe. I envied their ease with their instruments, yet I know there is nothing “Nice” about being able to play like that.  All creativity begins as some form of self-defense. I have heard him for YEARS, practicing until the wee hours of the morning; driven to claim his Powers; striving to create his identity through Skills, rather than the jeers of misguided middle-school peers who labeled him differently as a result of his learning style. 

What it comes down to is that there are two kinds of people: the Makers and those who marvel and say “It must be Nice.” What the Makers do is love the thing they do more than they love their own comfort.  That’s it. They embrace the inconvenience of doing things badly in order to begin to do things well.  They take the time it takes. They risk. They grow. Their change their bodies with their minds.

The now-done laundry before me is a harvest I pick over critically, deciding what to cull and what to keep.  I can’t help thinking of the line from poet David Whyte, “anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you” as I sort. 

Our bodies DO change by what we teach them.  What we have to do to them over long and patient hours is not the least bit “Nice.”  We are not “deformed” as in the fairytale, but we are Re-formed in our own image of ourselves as Dancers, Doers, Makers, Givers.  That which brings us Alive can’t help but make us Bigger. “Beauty” might be something girls in fairytales are born with; Magnificence isn’t. 

Autumn is the season of fires and farewells, a time of hoarding away or discarding in the liminal space between the tender, languid riot of Summer and cold Permanence of Death.  Is there something that you think would be “nice” to do?  Is there a part of yourself you see in someone else’s habits or craft? Plant that bulb today and one day it will shine a Light from within. You DO have Time. Grab it, Claim it, Pummel it by the hours, bit by bit, until you know the full Meanness of what it is you have accomplished.  And someday, someone might look at you doing That Thing it is you have chosen to do and say “Wow, it must be nice…” and You, with your big feet, your big lips, your thick fingers and aching toes will say, “Damn…It’s NOT Nice. It’s MAGNIFICENT.”

Be well, my Darlings! Thanks for your Good Work.  I love you Sew Much!!!

Yours aye,

Nancy

The Story and the Teller...

“Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution -- more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.” - Lisa Cron, Wired for Story

Greetings Dear Ones!

An amazing and wonderful thing happened to me the other day. Some children came to visit Hermit Hollow.  They weren’t just any children—they were sweet, old-fashioned, Magical children! (“Like the kind YOU were before video games were invented,” says Prudence.) They knew how to cup their hands to make fine china for make-believe tea; they knew how to take a blanket and throw it over a chair and make a palace or a cave; and they knew how to transform instantly into any kind of creature from pigs to kitty-cats, complete with authentic sound effects.  I crawled into their Shanty Blanket town and fell in love.  I was supposed to be “getting a lot done” on my day off from the tailoring shop. I was supposed to be doing office work and laundry and spinning wool into yarn I can sell, as well as a myriad of other useful, Boring things. Grudgingly, I pulled out the spinning wheel first, thinking it might entertain the children while their father talked with the other men of Hermit Hollow about Serious Grown-up Things.

“Do you know the story of Rumplestiltskin?” I asked. They did. 

“And Sleeping Beauty?” They nodded. They were up on their fairy tales.

“We’ve heard them all,” insisted the five-year-old politely. Her name is Ruby Rose and she wasn’t being cheeky—it was the truth.  Her parents had read every last one, multiple times, to her and her brother Toddle-thump, who was only just two.  They had also read a good bit of the Red Wall books by Jacques and other classics like My Side of the Mountain and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle—so many of my favorites! Instantly, we had a common language. I was thrilled. Prudence finds it so depressing when youngsters today have no idea who is Rumplestiltskin!

“We live in a cabin in the woods,” said Ruby Rose, “just like Hansel and Gretel. And every day they read to us,” jerking her head vaguely in the direction of her father.  It turns out that this family, sired by an ex-marine who has seen multiple tours of duty around the world, lives off grid and goes to bed with the sun and stories every night.  There is no such thing as T.V., electronics of any kind, or even indoor plumbing. These little ones have known no other life than the one of a pump-handle well and bulk barrels of beans and rice. They play outside in all weather.  Inside is where you go if you are sick or need to sleep. Prudence was enchanted.

These Magical children lay on the floor by my smallest traveler’s wheel, passively watching it whir around and around as we discussed the merits of flax vs. wool and how much work Cinderella really had to do.  They liked feeling the wool with their hands and helping me treadle with their stubby little feet along side of mine, all of us barefoot.

After we had done a bobbin’s worth of spinning and chatting, I asked if they had ever played a real harp--harps being the original instruments of storytelling.  I was not surprised to learn that Ruby Rose already had her own tiny Celtic harp.  When I dragged mine out of its enormous, padded case, her eyes widened to the size of hens eggs.  “It’s HUGE!” she squealed, clapping both hands to her cheeks. It towered over both children. The two-year-old looked up at it longingly.

“Peas?” he said imploringly.

“He means ‘please may we touch?’” Ruby informed me in that tone big sisters have when they have to serve as translator-diplomats for younger siblings.

“Yes! Of course!” I said. “I only bring out the toys I want to share. You are so good at knowing how to touch things gently, I felt sure you could do a great job with my harp.  I’ve only had it a little while now and I can’t really play it yet.  But isn’t it Lovely?”

Ruby Rose looked at me and wrinkled her brow and button nose in confusion.  “What do you mean you don’t know how to play it??” she queried. “All you have to do is go like this!” She swept her hands across the strings, making them tremble with sounds, back and forth, back and forth, like the sound of the waves or wind. “See? Easy!” She looked at me reprovingly.  I nodded.  I love how most five-year-olds are such excellent problem solvers. There was no point in trying to explain about hand positions and scales and whatnot.  The way to play a harp is simply to play it. Just like that. Easy. We all laughed at my silliness.

“Want to see my favorite way to play it?” I asked. They nodded.

“I like to make up sounds to go with stories.  Maybe you can help me—what do you think the Giant’s voice might sound like?” They picked among the strings until they settled at the bass strings—the longest, deepest sounding ones.  They came up with scary sounds and rhythms that sounded like the rumblings of a discontented giant—or a stomach that should not have eaten mystery food of indiscernable sell-by date from the fridge.

“And where are the fairy voices?” I asked next.  They made their way to shorter strings and more cheerful melodies.  “How about the wind? How about the storm? How about tiny raindrops?”  On and on we went, exploring the ways we could make sounds on the harp.  Finally, we were complete with that.

“Good!” I announced. “We have found all the things we need to tell the BEST Story EVER.”  They started hopping up and down with glowing eyes.  It was like I had just announced we were having ice-cream for lunch. 

“Once Upon A Time…” I began, as they plopped down on the ground and attempted to twist their legs into pretzels, “There were two Adorable Children…”

“Named Ruby Rose and Toddle-thump!!!” piped Ruby Rose excitedly, as if she could not wait a moment longer for me to say that part of the introduction. She was wiggling all over and patting her own chest and Toddle-thump’s head proudly and expectantly. (If the Audience cannot expect to see itself in the story, why listen?)

“Yes,” I continued. “However did you Guess? They were called Ruby Rose and Toddle-thump! How did you know that?  Have you heard this story before?”  They looked at me wide-eyed and shook their heads. 

“Well, Ruby Rose and Toddle-thump lived in a beautiful cabin in the middle of the woods, just like you two, and just like Hansel and Gretel, and they were the bestly behaved children anyone had ever seen.  They loved to go into the woods and hear the sound of the wind singing through the branches…” I motioned to the harp and they jumped up to help make the sound of the wind singing in the branches.

“One day, it started to rain,” announced Ruby Rose in a Theatrical Voice, switching to rain sounds. “And Storm!” roared Toddle-thump going for the bass strings. There was the equivalent of a Nor-Easter on the harp for several moments.

“Shall I continue with my story now?  Is it safe? Has the storm passed?” I wanted to know.  Ruby Rose held up a hand to stop me. “I’ll take the story from here,” she said, dismissing me as if this were a horse only she knew how to ride.

Now, I’ve been a “Professional Story-teller” for nearly thirty years—telling tales in libraries, schools, festivals, and birthday parties all over New England.  I’m always on the look-out for great stories or new ways of telling old stories.  One of the Best things about working as a seamstress in the tailoring shop is that every single customer is a Character and every single article of clothing they drag in there is a Problem with a Deadline. What is a Character with a Problem? I’ll tell you what—it’s the making of a Story!   As you might surmise from scanning this blog, there is simply No End to the Stories in my corner of the Shire. That’s because the two Most Human things we do, the things that separate us fundamentally from every other creature on this planet, are Tell Stories and Wear Clothing.  (Sometimes I like to do them both at the same time!) For as long as people wear clothes and need them fixed, I will have stories to tell. Some of the stories are boring and tiresome but most are not. It depends on who is listening.

You might think that I would be insulted to be pushed aside so readily by a Five-year-old who had not done her time at the feet of Duncan Williamson or David Campbell years ago in Scotland, or spent her college days devouring the works of Joseph Campbell and the ancient Greeks.  Frankly, I was relieved—she was going to do the heavy lifting and I could just rest. I was tired. I was also Curious. What does she know of setting, plot, and rising action, pivotal moments, or satisfactory resolutions?

Well, Everything, it turns out.  Five-year-olds who have been read to consistently from birth are some of the Best storytellers in the world.  They use complex words like “incidentally” and “regrettably” (which almost always improve any story) and their plot twists are real zingers, especially if they sense the listener glazing over! I listened to her with my eyes and ears and whole skin and suddenly realized she was teaching me a Wonderful New Thing about Storytelling that I have always partially felt but never really thought about cognitively until today.  This little girl reminded me that the most important thing about any story is not the Teller, nor even the story itself:  It’s the Audience.  Masterfully, she kept checking in with me to see if I was engaged—was I listening or distracted? Was I overacting my reactions? Was I, heaven forbid, paying too much attention to the little brother? How her “audience” responded shaped her telling visibly, audibly, continually. 

There is a holy Trinity between Performer, Craft, and Audience, in every art form—whether one is performing fiddle tunes, writing for the Tightwad Gazette or staging an Opera. Even hemming a wedding gown.  The Rules are universal—the audience must know it is Valued. The circle cannot be completed without achieving some sort of capacity to Receive, engage, ignite or delight. You can strike flint on steel all day long but without some form of tinder to catch it, there’s no fire.  If you are performing because you want it to be all about “you,” so that You can be loved, then you may wind up very sad.  If you are sharing something you love so that others might love it too, you might get a few more takers.  But to really hit the big time, you have to love your listeners.  Ruby Rose showed me that a good storyteller loves her stories.  A GREAT storyteller loves her audience. I could tell because we all got “squgged” at the end. (A squg is a squeeze + hug, she explained.)

I’m so glad these wee teachers came to visit!  I’m so glad I “got nothing done”— Sometimes, what I lose in forward motion, I gain in depth by sitting still and Listening.  And remembering the truth about Stories is probably the most valuable thing I have done in weeks.   It’s all about YOU, dear readers.  If you cannot see yourselves in these tales, and remember who it is we are deciding to love by doing our Best Work, then I’d better go back to mending socks and making anonymous thunderstorms on a harp. Or laundry… Yuck.  Who wants to do that?

Be well, my Darlings!  And be on the lookout for good stories!  They are all around us, like pumpkins and mums this time of year. We need them now, more than ever (stories, that is, not pumpkins and mums!), as the nights begin to gnaw away the margins of the day and we must seek Sunlight Substitute by the hearth. Stories not only bond us to other humans, they are the most human thing we can create, besides a pair of jeans that don’t fit. I wish you warm and merry, with many fond tales to tell and listeners to hear your love.  I love you sew much.

Yours aye, incidentally, with a big tight “squg”,

Nancy

Needs, Wants, and Desires...

“Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned 

Greetings Dear Ones!

A Cheeky little bridesmaid who has nipped in for a fitting just before closing time pops her gum and looks at her phone as I write up her slip.  Her gown needs to have the shoulders taken up, the sides taken in and three layers hemmed but she has forgotten her shoes so we have no idea how much. She will have to come back for a second fitting. “How soon do you hope to get this done?” I ask. “Is there a rush? When is the wedding?”

“Oh, no…” she says blithely, still looking at her phone. “There’s no rush.  I don’t need it until Friday.”

“This Friday?” I say, eyebrows raised, noting with a sense of panic that it is already Tuesday after 5:pm.

She gives me a startled, is-there-a-problem-with-that look.   “I don’t NEED it until Friday,” she says again with emphasis, as if this should fix everything.  

“I NEED this by Friday/Today/Tomorrow/2:pm….” We hear some version of this almost daily.  It always sends Prudence into some sort of rampage. “Oh really?” she screeches. “Need? Seriously NEED? As in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Is this a physiological need? Are you planning to eat this gown to survive the winter? Or are you simply going to shelter in it as near to a buffet table as you can manage? Is it necessary for your safety, security or health? Is it your key to love and belonging? Esteem? Self-actualization? Do you have any idea what Real Needs are? Would you ever guess that there is a woman who uses our cutting table to make cloth, washable, reusable maxi-pads for homeless girls in Africa? What exactly do you think a NEED is, Madam? Perhaps the verb you seek is DESIRE. You desire to have this work done at your earliest convenience, if no one else’s!”  

Needs, Wants, Desires… What a struggle for us all!  You know that if I begin a blog with a quote about “desires” I must have spent the past weekend at the Vermont Sheep and Wool festival wrestling myself out of a lot of “wants” masquerading as “needs.”  No, Nancy my love, you do not NEED some Icelandic lambs no matter how silky their fleece feels to touch (nor ANY lambs for that matter—back AWAY from that beautiful morrit Shetland ewe!), nor do you need rainbow-dyed roving when you have TEN trash bags full of roving ready to spin already (yes, but it’s not rainbow…), or an antique CPW spinning wheel with a wobble… It’s exhausting to listen to my inner self begging in such a degrading manner.  She really should have been a lawyer, the way she can make cases for the Absurd, without a trace of irony or guilt. It’s like taking a toddler to Disney Land. It’s a jolly good thing my inner parent brought only enough money to pay for admission and lunch!

At the end of the day, when I return to Hermit Hollow and sit by the fire spinning my dull grey roving, I find myself very much amused and contented.  Desires are a wonderful way to tell us if we are on the right track—if we want more of what we already have, then it’s a twisted form of Gratitude, I suppose.  If you leave a session hungry to play more music; if you leave a dance looking forward to the next dance; if you enjoy your work and want to do more of it after a break—it’s quite possible that you are a Very Lucky Person indeed.  

A grandmother who recently attended her town’s Fall Fair comes into the shop.  She presents us with some pink fur and some other glittery fabric.  “I need you to make a unicorn pillow for my five-year-old granddaughter,” she says. “She did not win one at the fair and it was a disaster.  A Total melt-down. I looked at it and thought it was a cheap piece of crap anyway.  I don’t know why she even wanted it. I figure you can make her something better.”  We all smile at the little grandmother hobbling away from the shop, confident that she can make her granddaughter’s new and improved dream come true.  Prudence shakes her head in wonder. “Who says dreams have to come true?” she wants to know.   I find it endearing and also slightly naïve that this loving grandmother thinks she can edit and substitute and still satisfy her granddaughter’s longing to Win something, long after the moment has passed—kind of how my parents used to say our own home-grown beef burgers, running with pink juice between two square slabs of home-made whole wheat bread were “better than McDonald’s.” No kid in her right mind will buy that!  So many of our desires, no matter how fiercely irrational they are, are just of the moment.  Desires are like hunger pains—they come and pass all day long.   Sometimes it’s better to just go hungry.  Who knows if this kid will even want a unicorn pillow by the time we are done constructing it?

When my children were little, and especially at Fairs, I used to make them crazy by having them distinguish between needs and wants. “Darling, you need food, you want ice-cream… I buy the needs, you buy the wants.”  (They still bristle to this day when I ask if a purchase is a want or a need!) Recently, I got curious about the difference between these two and looked up the etymologies.  By now, I have read enough conflicting reports to realize I know Nothing for Certain, which seems like a very scholarly result:  It turns out that “wants” and “needs” actually were once very similar! No wonder so many children still confuse them. The word “want” as in “lack” comes from an old Norse word, vant, and relates to an Old English word wanian (i.e. wane) which meant “to diminish.”  The noun “need” comes from the West Saxon “nied” and was used to convey peril, distress, lack, necessity or hardship.  It comes from an older, Proto-Germanic root nauti- “death, to be exhausted” which gives rise to Gothic naus “corpse”, Old Irish naunae “famine, shortage”, and Russian nuzda “misery.”  It comes into English as “a means of subsistence” by c 1400.  

When these Germanic “needs” and “wants” get tangled up with the Latin “desire” is when things get interesting. (Who among you is NOT surprised that “desire” is derived from a Romance language?)  Since about the 13th Century, we have tended to agree that “to desire” is to long for or hope for something that is missing or absent.  It may or may not be a “need”—as in a Lover’s desire to be loved, a mouse’s desire for cheese, a Jack Russell’s desire to soil clean carpets… and so on.  But the old Latin definitions seem to suggest the word arises from a combination of de (meaning “away, of, or from”) and sider or sidus (meaning “star” or “constellation”).   Interestingly, the word “consider” seems to have the same root—translating roughly as “with the stars”—as in thinking about something via a form of fortune-telling using astrology or omens from the stars.  But I digress.  There is a newer theory now that an older, non-celestial meaning for “desire” is actually along the lines of “target, mark, or goal.” This too makes sense given that early humans navigated travels by steering by the stars.

As humans, we cannot escape our desires. Christians have a long history of believing that desires, especially carnal ones, were “temptations” sent by the devil to lead us, not upward, by the stars, but to Hell.  As if getting what we want is worse for us than not getting it—that we can be somehow even redeemed by forgoing our wants and “offering them up” as internal sacrifices towards points on our ultimate salvation-tally score-card.  Buddhists would have us believe that Desire and Ignorance lie at the root of our suffering.  And clearly, any grandmother who has witnessed her favorite five-year-old NOT win a unicorn pillow at a Fall Fair has indeed Suffered.  They don’t see “desires” as emanating from the stars but as base human cravings for pleasure and material goods and wants that can never be satisfied.  (The Buddhists, that is; not the five-year-olds.) Suffering is the result of desiring what we cannot have. (And also of dealing with five-year-olds.)  The absence of Desire is Nirvana.  But then, this must also be the absence of antique Canadian Production Wheels, and rainbow-dyed roving, and unicorn pillows, and cheesecake…. And… Who in their right mind wants THAT???

What if the ancients were right—that Desires are “of the stars” which guide us to who we really are and where we really need to be? We may, like the stars themselves, never actually reach them, but they inspire us to work harder, make sacred choices (sacrifices).  Of course, there are a myriad of stars and Desires. Some are not so good. It’s a good thing we have Free Will and access to homemade rainbow socks.  The journey back from where-we-should-never-have-gone-in-the-first-place can be a long one.

Ultimately, we are all “of the stars.”  The sheep’s wool I spin each night by the fireside begins as sunlight hitting grass, which turns to sugar via photosynthesis, which is eaten, belched up and eaten again multiply times by the animal, until it works its way into a follicle and turns into keratin strands, heaps of which I carve off their sweaty bodies each June.  Even the logs aglow on the hearth began as light hitting a forest and return to light on dark autumn nights.

What is our Job while we are here but to Be and bring Light in every form—from  woolen socks to unicorn pillows? And Desires light our path to Light.  What if our Desires are not hungers but instead Food? How we receive them, how we deny them, how our desires evolve as we mature and take on new wisdom—these are the ways we grow in Light and Love—so that one day, when someone meets us or our work, they feel a sense of warmth, of blessing.  Willa Cather, one of my favorite authors of all time, says in The Song of The Lark:  “The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.”

So… When do you actually “need” those pants hemmed? And how will having them hug your bum just right help me bring Light to this world?

Be well, my Darlings!  Thank you for your Good Work!

Loving you to itty-bitty sparkling bits,

Yours aye,

Nancy

Exquisite Inconvenience

Greetings Dear Ones!

I have missed you! I apologize sincerely for the recent lapse in blogs.  I know it was only two (and some of you may not even have noticed) but I have been adrift on rough and wild seas.  I am writing to you now, battered yet resilient, amidst the rubble of the shipwreck of yet another “former” life.  I have sold my cozy homestead in the Enchanted Forest and moved to the wilds of Southern Vermont, where the kindly and beloved hermits of Hermit Hollow have taken me in, along with the sheep and dogs and mountains of clutter I don’t know what to do with.  I don’t think it’s appropriate to get into all the whys and wherefores at the moment—just that it seems to be part of a Grand Plan I’m trusting. 

As with all Epic Battles, the intervening weeks have been an interesting blend of the hideous and ludicrous.  Had Homer known such things in his day, he most certainly would have included in his sagas such tribulations as having the buyer’s bank lawyer research the wrong title, say it was not clear, and temporarily deny funding to the buyer; having the seller mend all the old screens in her attic (at great inconvenience and expense) only to discover that they were not even the screens to the windows of her house. There would be much screeching and gnashing of teeth directed at monsters posing as garage-door-repairmen who put “company policy” over customer satisfaction; most of the army would drop a KitchenAid mixer on its head at least once; and a very tired little witch would drive to Vermont with a fully loaded vehicle, arrive at midnight, sleep four hours and drive back to the cottage in the morning without ever unloading the vehicle! (And not even notice until she opens the door and wonders blearily why she cannot put in any more stuff…)

So! September, which always feels like the “real” New Year to me, packed a wallop! Many hijackings of time and energy propelled me willingly and unwillingly through a series of sheddings and Passages—all of which, oddly, feel like Births.  A dear lady is gone whose life needs to be commemorated with fiddle tunes and tears.  My daughter’s Birth was celebrated for a 22nd annum. (Last week, my own birthday was cancelled due to lack of interest but I seem to have aged a hundred years anyway, instead of the customary “one.”)  New Life, Deep Changes, Exquisite Inconveniences of Epic Proportions…these have Mothering written all over them.  The New tears itself away from the old, amidst much grieving and bleeding, so that it can go forth, rise in glory, learn a few new tunes, and then borrow your car keys forevermore.   Behind every New Beginning is a Mother—someone who claims “YES. Let’s do this. Let’s dive into the Mystery of ‘what if?’ and find out if it kills us.”

I have been thinking about Mothering a lot.

It began two weeks ago.  Inevitably, my slacking-until-the-last-minute collided with the one thing that could trump anything else I do—the needs of my children.  So, at 5 a.m., instead of writing a blog about all the pregnant bridesmaids I have been seeing lately or packing up my yarn collection, I was in the Emergency Room of the local hospital, being A Mother myself, and watching my nineteen-year-old blow the most dainty smoke rings using the mix of albuterol and oxygen the staff had given him to open his cramping lungs.  I was awash in all those usual “mothering” feelings—concern, fear, tenderness, pity, relief and VEXATION—colliding and cascading with their usual turbulence.  He had come home the evening before to help pack and been up all night with a full-blown asthma attack.  He had not had one for so many months he was no longer in the habit of carrying his inhaler—which was back in Boston. He lay on the gurney, blowing the smoke rings and giggling just to tease me, now that he could breathe again.  He saw my face, then got quiet and said, “Sorry Mum… No…really.  I’m really sorry for this inconvenience.”

THAT made me laugh!  Inconvenience indeed…

What is Motherhood, or parenting in general, but the most Exquisite Inconvenience?  Just ask all the pregnant bridesmaids!  It seems like there has been at least one in each wedding party we have done all summer—some poor girl who had no idea her belly would be this size when she ordered her dress six months ago.  “Can you do anything to disguise this bump?” they ask. As what? I wonder—a beach ball you happen to be carrying? A watermelon you can’t put down? “I don’t want to look this big in all the photos!” they whine.  [Side bar: WHEN are we going to convince the women of this planet that there is nothing more gorgeous that a radiant young woman swollen with impending New Life?]  “What if I don’t like this?” a pregnant bridesmaid asks, scowling at her mid-section in the mirror… I’m not sure if she is talking about the changes we are making to her dress or the ones Life is making to her Life.  “Oh, Honey,” I assure her, “the dress is going to be fine. And so are you.” But I think privately, “and you are going to HATE some parts of motherhood like you had no idea Hate could hate! But parts of it you are going to love beyond describing.  You aren’t going to lose yourself—you are going to find yourself.” “Yes,” says Prudence, “a Whole Lot of Yourself.  You may never fit into a size six again.”  I continue.  “You might have to forfeit your waistline and a perky bust for the rest of your time on earth but you will have hand-colored macaroni strung on yarn necklaces that will be nicer than any jewelry you can imagine, and one day, when someone does a turd in the potty, you will clap as if they had just won an Oscar. Your Joy will be Boundless.”  She wrinkles her nose in doubt. Perky tits for turds does not feel like a good trade to her. (YET.)

Talking about the ambivalence of motherhood makes some people uncomfortable.  It’s as if those who have decided to play the role of “Mother” in Life’s docu-dramas are to stick to apple pies, serving milk, and kissing boo-boos—never lifting the curtain on the horrors of hemorrhoids, insomnia, bladder incontinence or other Exquisite Inconveniences.  I say we need to claim it ALL.  Survival is the ultimate in Feminine Power.

Long before I had my first child, I was deeply suspicious of what motherhood would entail.  I had gone to a cafeteria style restaurant with some friends—the kind where you pick up your napkins and cutlery at the end of the line.  Without thinking, I brought enough napkins and forks for everyone.  Sure enough, they had overlooked this and were gushing with gratitude at my practicality and thoughtfulness.  “You’re going to be such a great Mom!” they said.  When I cleared the table, I heard “Thanks Mom!”  I started noticing when people talked about “great” mothers, they were not talking about women who slept until noon, hiked the Hindu Kush or brokered power deals in Real Estate.  They were usually talking about the lady voted most likely to clean up the mess. 

My personal concept of Motherhood crystallized the day of my grandmother’s funeral.  I was 32 years old, 32 weeks pregnant with my son, and had just been released from two months of bed-rest due to pre-term labor.  The only reason I was leaving the house was to attend the Life celebration of a beloved woman I adored and for whom I had been named.  My feet were too swollen to fit into any of my nicer shoes so my mother loaned me her black clogs, which were a size larger than mine and easy to get on my feet.  I wore a huge black raincoat over the maternity romper that would not have looked appropriate at a funeral.  (Why do maternity clothes make gestating women look like overgrown toddlers? We are having the babies, damn it, not dressing like them!)

My daughter, who at two and a half was going through “a difficult phase,” was dressed in a white gown with an ankle-length blonde wig over her sweaty curls, topped with a tiara and a magic wand.  Rounding out her ensemble were fairy wings and red glittery shoes on the wrong feet.  She had missed her nap and was in a nasty mood.  She was vastly displeased at having to sit with me on the hard pews and be quiet.  She alternated between doing an annoying, boneless sort of wiggling in my arms and swatting me with the magic wand.  Three quarters of the way through the ceremony, I had had enough.  She needed to go outside and stop distracting everyone. I grabbed her with more savagery than I am proud of, slammed her on what could be found of my hip after the belly had consumed it, and march-waddled quickly out the side door of the cathedral while she shrieked and hit me over the head with her wand.  As soon as I pushed hard on the heavy outer door, I froze.  I could barely breathe. A contraction gripped me and I knew I was about to wet my pants.  Somehow it passed and I made it outside, where it was pouring rain.  Another contraction hit. I would not make it too many steps before my bladder burst.  I scanned furtively for some bushes where I could relieve myself.  Up ahead, in the mist, I spied some large rhododendrons that would serve nicely.  Still balancing the raging fairy/troll on my hip, with no way to see my feet over the belly, I squatted in the bushes and tried not to fall over as I filled my mother’s shoes with warm urine.  “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do!” gasped Prudence Thimbleton in horror moments later when we crawled out from under the bushes and discovered I had taken my much-needed piss at the feet of the shrine to the Virgin Mary!  There she was, towering above us in the pelting rain, a gentle, sorrowful smile on her face—looking as many mothers often do, as if she knew she should admonish me but couldn’t keep a straight face.  I closed my eyes, slipped off my shoes, and just stood there in the pouring rain, holding a bedraggled but now-quiet fairy princess. “So…” I thought, “It’s come to THIS…”

Whenever I think about Motherhood, I cannot help but think of that moment—the panic, the pain, the irony, the humor, the weakness, the strength, the need for good shoes—it’s all there, in the truly Human intertwining of the Sacred and Profane—where we do our best and yet make a Mess—a mess no one else will clean but Us mothers—by that, I mean ANYONE who participates with the Divine Feminine in saying “Yes. Ok, now what?”  

As I parent myself through this next chapter and rejoin my Fellow Travelers on this journey, it’s good to remember one other, gooey truth of every Birth:  We keep the BABY—not the Placenta.  We thank all that which has nourished us and fed us to this point. It was necessary and non-negotiable. But to carry some things beyond the need for them, be they possessions, relationships, or ideas, would be um, either problematic or downright disgusting.  Burn them or bury them, thank them and bless them and move on.  Some things are absolutely Vital (i.e. Life-giving) until the moment they need to be shed—then to hang on to them means possible infection or death. The Past belongs to the Past.  (And so do all our clothes that no longer fit! Don’t drag them to a bewildered seamstress and expect miracles!) As Wayne Dyer says “The Wake of the Boat does not steer the ship.”   We each must ask ourselves, “Do I really need the whatever-made-me-Who-I-Was in order to evolve gracefully into Who I Really Could Be? Do I still require food or beverages or relationships which are potentially toxic? Do I really need FIVE spinning wheels, an equal number of sewing machines, and All these Shoes??? (Yes, yes, I really do!) (These astonished hermits have no idea what just hit them!) As someone who has just culled half of her possessions and needs to cull more, I understand how bitter these sacrifices can be—and how Liberating!

I’m grateful to be back in the shop today—looking forward to a new season of Mending and Stitching and lovingly (or grittily) embracing All That Comes!  I wish you, Dear Ones, Good Transitions, happy New Beginnings, Fond and Grateful Farewells, and plenty of Autumn Pumpkin Spice wherever you may be.  Thank you for your Patience and your Good Work.  I love you so much.

Yours aye,

Nancy

Children and Animals

If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”—Mark Twain

Greetings Dear Ones!

You might not believe it, but we are swamped (again) in the shop.  It’s almost as bad as prom season. I explain to a man that it might be a few weeks before we can get his five suit jackets tailored because we have so many wedding parties and bridal gowns with immanent deadlines to do ahead of his order.  It seems like half the county is getting married on September 20th.  His brow furrows in befuddlement.

“Weddings?” he asks. “Really??? People are still doing that?”  The combination of his stunned look and the ambiguity of his question hits me sideways and breaks me into giggles.  I don’t bother to clarify whether he means “I thought June was the month for weddings; who gets married in the Fall?” or “Really? People are still dressing up in thirty yards of silk and lace, eating cake with too much icing, and promising to love each other truly until Death grants one an end to the how-to-squeeze-the-toothpaste debate?” (From the Bottom! Insists Prudence vehemently. What kind of Neanderthal would ever do otherwise?)  I just nod. He shrugs.  “Ok then,” he sighs with reluctant acquiescence, “call me whenever they’re done.”

Yes, it’s Wedding Season in full tilt.  If there’s one thing that New England does almost as well as cider donuts and pumpkin lattes, its starched white steeples etched against cobalt blue skies, every shade of fire in the maples and oak leaves, and stunning old mills with waterfalls as the backdrop of wedding photos.  Throw in a horse-drawn carriage and some pumpkins and Cinderella-for-the-day could not be happier.   The photo opportunities will be perfect, especially when all the Ugly Stepsisters’ gowns (the gowns are ugly, not the stepsisters!) are hemmed so that their big feet and horn-like toenails with chipped summer pedicures don’t show. With all that magical pageantry going for it, you would think people would not have to involve children or animals in the matrimonial circus.   

BUT… NO….

People hosting and planning weddings are usually amateurs under pressure and they have forgotten the number one rule of Show Business: Never Work with Animals or Children. Especially children your siblings have given birth to!  That is, unless you WANT your rental tuxes returned with their pockets glued together by sweaty gummy bears.

Don’t think I am saying that children don’t belong at weddings. Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Weddings are about celebrating Family—of course they should be there!  It’s the best chance ever to mingle with fun cousins and get into just enough mischief to get a glare from an Aunt or Uncle but not a spank from your mother.  Children should be there to snitch olives off the hors d’ouvres table and sneak sodas and compare bike-riding scabs. Totally.  Just not in matching silk outfits they are expected to keep clean for formal pictures.   

One family of sisters comes into the shop to get SIX tiny, matching white dresses—each with about ten yards of tulle and a huge satin bow—tailored for six little girls under the age of four.  These sisters have a favorite brother who is getting married to a naïve woman who thinks it will be Just Adorable to have all the little niece-in-laws in her wedding.  (Have I mentioned that the ceremony is scheduled right smack at nap-time?)  The grandmother, who is in the shop to help wrangle the little ones in and out of their dresses, confides “I don’t know what she is thinking! They might as well set six live ferrets down at the end of the aisle and hope one of them makes it to the altar.”  The mothers look stressed out.  One child is climbing the grandmother like a jungle gym, another is eating crayons.  One has stripped herself of her clothes and is now wandering the shop.  One won’t take her dress off; the other won’t put it on.  These sister want to love their brother’s deluded bride, truly, they do… 

Another young bride comes in and says we need to make a waistcoat for her dog—she wants it to have a little pillow for the wedding rings attached to the back.  He also needs a matching bow tie.  He is going to be the ring bearer.  This makes total sense to me.  You can train a dog to do things.  They will have much better luck getting a dog down the aisle than six toddlers missing nap-time.  In fact, why does this chick even need a husband? If you want someone who will listen to you every time, do everything you tell them to do, and always be there for you for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, a dog is really your best bet.   Unless, of course it is a Jack Russell! But I’m not sure Jack Russells are actually dogs—they are more like tiny, spiteful people who made a wrong turn in the karmic cycle of rebirth and came back in fur pajamas with a serious Attitude problem.  But I digress…

Funny, I have yet to see anyone ever have a cat be a ring-bearer. Does anyone do this? A veterinarian once told me that cats have 32 muscles in their ears—all devoted to ignoring commands from you—that can locate the sound of a tin opener sixteen miles away. People think cats are un-trainable but that is not true.  You can train a cat to do anything it wants to do in the first place.  I’ve heard tell that you can even train them to use a proper toilet instead of a litter box to relieve themselves. Without getting the seat wet, or leaving it up!  What adult male human can manage that?

Cats figure in weddings more than you know.  For one thing, they are irresistibly drawn to wedding dresses for some reason.  We warn every bride who comes to collect her finished gown—“Don’t let cats near this!” They love to climb the dresses, nestle in the layers, and the plastic covering we put over the gowns is a major suffocation danger.  We warn every one--the Dog owners look mystified. Cat owners nod knowingly.

I am in the dressing room with a nervous bride and her mother for a first fitting.  The mother is pointing out all the places where the beading has come a little loose on the gown and will need to be tightened.  To me, the dress, though “new” looks a little shop-worn—like too many people have tried it on.  Maybe it was last-year’s model.  Maybe they got a deal.  I don’t judge; I just make mental notes or put pins where I see things that need to be mended or tweaked.  The bride, who has been twisting and turning to see herself from every angle, suddenly notices all that I am noticing and turns to her mother.  “Was this like this in the shop?  I don’t remember all these loose beads.”  The mother looks like a balloon that has been slowly filling up with water.  Finally, she gushes:

“Ok!  I didn’t want to tell you this but I had the dress lying out on the dining table because it was too long to hang in the closet.  I figure it is safe to tell you now.  The cat has been getting up on it. She LOVES it. Finally, I put the dress in its garment bag to protect it and it’s a good thing I did.  The cat threw up on it. Don’t worry; it didn’t get on the actual dress.  Just the bag and I washed that…  Wha-at!? Don’t look at me like that!  It’s FINE.”  The mother turns to me.  “I’m so glad you’re here. I did not feel safe telling her this alone.” She turns to the daughter, who looks like she has smoke coming out of both ears, “Really, Darling.  Don’t be upset. It’s FINE.”

It’s true.  There is something about animals and wedding dresses.  There is something about the pristine that just attracts the dirty.  I have made several wedding dresses for friends and family over the years.  To my HORROR, one of my dogs once lifted his leg on the bottom edge of one of the dresses as it rested on the mannequin in my sewing room. I had to cut that entire pattern piece out of the dress, buy more fabric, and remake the dress.  (If you are reading this, and I once made a wedding dress for you, don’t worry—it was probably, hopefully, ABSOLUTELY  not YOUR dress!)

Regardless of the specific details, Weddings are about celebrating a new Family Union.  We come together creatively and collectively to make a memory—though in all honesty, one Spouse will never remember and the other will never forget precisely on WHICH calendar day this Memory occurred.  But from this day forth, Children and animals are really what it is all about—why not involve them from Day One? They bring chaos and chaos brings Opportunities.   Opportunities are where we choose our Fabulousness or hideousness for the growth of our Souls.  I have been talking with my children a lot lately about how “we have no more Problems… Problems are a thing of the past.  What we have instead are sudden New Priorities!”  

Involving Children and animals in a formal celebration will provide a lot of New Priorities for their handlers.  (Priorities that probably involve paper towels and wet-wipes.)  Ultimately—each wedding leads to new birth—more children, more animals—more of Life seeking Itself.  They might not necessarily be those of the Bride and Groom, but trust me, New Life will result!  Just ask all the pregnant bridesmaids I’ve been fitting lately! Apparently, nothing makes a woman more fertile than ordering a three-hundred-dollar dress in January and pledging to stay a size 10 until October!

Be Merry and Well, my darlings!  Remember that Mirth is your shield against all ills.  When Chaos presents its choices—choose Love! It’s always there. I promise. I love you all so much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Uniformity

“The uniform is that which we do not choose, that which is assigned to us; it is the certitude of the universal against the precariousness of the individual.” ― Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel

 Greetings My Darlings!

August’s race is nearly at the finish line. Already, we’ve had two crisp nights in the 50’s (Farenheit) and just like that it is time to castrate the Spring lamb (who is suddenly having carnal desires for an elderly nursemaid ewe)(and pretty much anything else with a pulse). Sheep become amorous when the temperature drops… It is also time to round up all the children, scrape the pine pitch off their shins, wash the greasy matts out of their manes, stuff their little hooves into shoes and send them off to school with  conciliatory backpacks with unicorns or superheroes  on them. (Homeschoolers can still roam feral for another month…)  Like the last of the garden squash and tomatoes, it’s time to pull Summer up by its roots and neuter it.

School Uniforms have been flooding the shop in recent weeks, as local families return from their beach holidays and realize that their gritty little Christians, who smell vaguely of hermit crabs, need to be slip-covered in Tartan post haste.  An array of pleated skirts lines the ironing board, awaiting moved buttons and raised hem lines.  Elsewhere, some tiny pinafore jumpers need lengthening.   It brings waves of nostalgia over me as I realize how yet another generation of students is going to get to look as much like misshapen upholstery as I did, over forty-five years ago.  Not one damn thing has changed.  But then, is that not the very definition of “Uniform”?  From the Latin: You (as in you are no longer)/Knee (as in these cannot show)/Form (prepare to be molded).  

I will never forget the moment I introduced the concept of a uniform to my five-year-old daughter many years ago.  We had enrolled her in a local pre-kindergarten program that required them all to wear matching  grey track suits.  GREY. Solid grey…For a five-year-old GIRL who had slithered around the floor in a mermaid costume since the age of three.  Her wardrobe contained nothing that did not have some eye-watering combination of Pink, Purple, Glitter, Cheetah print—or, God forbid, all of the above—accessorized by an abundance of gaudy jewels, plastic shoes, and sunglasses.  I had to plan my moment well: close enough to 5 o’clock so that I could have a stiff drink, not so close to bedtime that she was up all night with night-terrors.  It was worse than I thought. “Why do they want us to look so UGLY?” she sobbed. 

“It’s not that they want you to look ugly, dear heart, they just want you to look the SAME.” 

“Then why can’t we all be in rainbow clothes with sparkly wings?” she wanted to know.  I had no good answer for that.  Left to their own devices, every girl in her class (and maybe some of the boys) would have turned up in Princess ball gowns.

She returned from her first day disgusted.  “You said we would learn to read at school and we didn’t.  And, since we all look the same, they don’t know who we are. We have to wear name tags,” she said, picking off her sticker.

Back in my day (how little-old-lady-ish that sounds!) we had one or two dresses for church on Sunday, the school uniform Monday-Friday 7:am-3:pm, and barn or “play” clothes otherwise.   The only time we could dress how we really wanted was on Halloween.   In High School, on rare occasions, usually to line the coffers of some worthy cause, we could pay a small fee on sanctioned “dress down” days and wear clothing other than our uniforms. Those days were awful.   Neither a church dress nor grubby jeans would catapult one to the top of the popularity poll—but either was far preferable to being the ONLY wretch still in her uniform when everyone else was going wild in their preppy, 1980’s argyle sweater vests, button-down polo shirts and loafers!  Then, it was not a uniform at all.  It was the thing that announced in LOUD plaid that you were a Total Goober to all who could bear to look at you.   Uniforms are only uniforms if everyone else is wearing them.

Well, that’s what I used to think, until I heard about Steve Jobs and how he chose to wear the same thing every day.  What a great idea!  Twelve years of my life were spent wearing the same thing nearly every day.  I could tell the time and the day of the week just by looking down.  One sister (not the fashionable one) and I would sometimes sleep in our uniforms to save effort in the mornings.  I know that sounds repellant—but wearing a uniform had nothing to do with taking pride in our appearance or identity.  It was purely about convenience.  What is more convenient than waking up already dressed? (Prudence thinks the people lurking in the frozen food section of the local Market Basket in their pajamas may have taken this one step too far…)  

As a result, I never really learned to dress myself appropriately until I had my own resident fashion consultant in the form of a Teenage Daughter.   Yes, that grubby little mermaid who used to dry-mop the dusty floors with her homemade glittery tail, who used to “swim” under huge swaths of sheer blue fabric to collect trinkets and seashells, wound up having a far more advanced fashion sense than I.   If it were up to me, I would be like a Von Trapp child, roaming the countryside in up-cycled draperies and yodeling.

There is really no evidence to suggest that uniforms make us better learners—if anything, they truncate the portion of one’s brain that is required to get dressed in the morning.  But they do teach us to find our safety through clothing.   They clothe our cowardice.  Our tribe claims us as members as we become transformed from one who wears the uniform to the Property of the Uniform.  Attempts to get us all to think alike, just because we all look alike don’t always work either.   Back then, our individuality worked its way out in the form of French braids and hair ribbons. Without realizing it, uniforms actually promote personality over attire.  One learns to look for more subtle clues about who someone else really is.

From the moment we were out of sight of our parents, until the homeroom bell rang, we were doing our best to heighten our individuality through the use of staples to hike up the hemlines, rolling our knee socks into patterns around our ankles, and that glaring, daring, dash for dangerous  sensuality—clear lip-gloss.  Don’t think for a minute that we had no idea who the “pretty” girls and boys were.  We did.  And more importantly, we knew who wasn’t.  (Every single one of us, it turns out.) (I thought it was just me.) At the time of our lives when we were desperate to be cool and sexy and fascinating—we were just like my little wee ram lamb—confused hormonal teenagers trying to get the attention of fellow beings who just found us annoying.

When we graduated, there were those who vowed to burn their uniforms.  I never did.  I had a Stockholm syndrome kind of relationship with it.  Secretly, I am very fond of scratchy woolen skirts.   Who’s to say if wearing a uniform is a denial of human rights or the crushing of individuality?  Do they promote school spirit?  I think all these arguments are highly improbable.  Rather, it interests me to think about how “the bad guys” in movies are all dressed alike (think Storm Troopers in Star Wars) and “the good guys” are always some rag-tag band of individuals with non-uniform clothing.  In fact, usually, they are an odd assortment of people one might not think would otherwise be united except against some common enemy.   They come together despite their differences, to unite around problem-solving, shared values, and shared ideals—using wit, courage, and ingenuity in a hard fight that leads to their collective freedom from threatened oppression. Their tribal bonds are forged by commitments, not clothes.  How do we get more of THAT in our schools???

And meanwhile… What the hell should I wear today?

Be well my Dear Ones!  Whether you’ve been Bad in Plaid or not, have a wonderful day and keep doing your Good Work!  I love you so much.

Yours aye,

Nancy

The only Constant...

“We love the things we love for what they are…” –Robert Frost

Greetings Dear Friends,

Cricket season has arrived.  As I go about my morning livestock chores, they dive outwards beyond the toes of my boots shooshing through the waves of grassy morning dew like tiny black dolphins before the prows of ships.  I am both delighted and sorrowful to see them.  I know they are here, once more, to sing Summer’s Lullabye.  They herald Change.  For one whose entire focus, eight hours a day, is on making good Changes happen for other people and their clothing, I have to admit this secret: I don’t love Change.  Sometimes I want things to stay exactly Just The Way They Are, frozen in golden sunlight.

A bride brings in a dress she “just LOVES” but she wants the entire neckline and all the beaded mesh (which is lovely and modest) removed.  She wants her bare cleavage to bulge up more. She wants the thigh area of this A-line skirt taken in very snugly to create a mermaid sillouette that simultaneously shows off her voluptuous bummage and requires that she not sit down at all, ever, during her reception. She needs lace taken off here and beading added there and Way More Bling. Can’t have enough Bling to suit her.   She is the type of customer who brings a Volkswagon to a mechanic, hoping she can tinker with it until it turns into a Ferrari.

I work on this gown, which I have dubbed the “vampire gown” with considerable (and humbling) bitterness.  This thing seeks my blood.  I have stabbed my hands repeatedly with the thread-ripper and pins—each time running for the super glue to seal the leak before I accidentally stain the ivory silk.  The biggest wound comes as I am reapplying six yards of lace to the bottom of the hem and my index finger is unexpectedly bitten by the downward driving needle of the sewing machine. Without thinking, I yank my hand back and tear the flesh from the tip of the finger.  No amount of sucking or gluing is going to stop staining the Kleenex red.  The other seamstresses are cringing and expressing commiserating winces.  These “bites” happen rarely but they hurt.  It’s a savage little reminder to Pay Attention.  Things can change without warning.

While I wait for this fresh leak to stop, I bind my finger in a piece of linen and wait on other customers.   A young woman comes in to collect her gown—a simple wedding gown she is wearing on a beach this weekend.  She tries it on, looking radiant and glowing.  “I can’t see a single thing you did to this!” she exclaims.  “It looks as if this is exactly how it came from the shop!” She cannot contain her surprise and delight.  This leads one of the other seamstresses to comment under her breath, “honey, did you WANT it to look like crap? That’s why you came here. We’re Professionals! That means you’re not Supposed to see what we do!”   I know they take umbrage when customers are surprised that the work is good.  I think it’s fantastic.  I love it. It pleases me no end to “see no change.”  I prefer when things are better by pure, invisible Magic—when we can forget the Effort.

The next man in has three pairs of pants showing signs of severe waistband fatigue.  He pats his stomach and grins. “The summer grilling season has been too much for me,” he says. “You can tell—I ain’t been eatin’ salads. Can you let these out a touch? And by a touch, I mean as far as they can go?  They’re my thin pants.  I can't bear to switch to the fat pants yet.”  We all nod understandingly. This is the same man who comes in February, after six weeks’ worth of New Year’s Austerity Measures and has us take everything in.  I look at the exhausted pants.  I know them well.  They go out and in so often, they might come back as accordions in their next life. I think about Heraclitus, the Greek Philosopher who said “you cannot step twice in the same river.”  This man does not sit twice in the same pants—Change is the only Constant in his wardrobe.

Change is a Constant in Fashion too.  No sooner do we get all the men happily wearing pleated fronts and cuffs that catch everything from dust or falling Doritos to dog hair, then the fashion pendulum swings the other way and we taper their trousers until they are tourniquets.  Pleats are OUT, flat fronts are In.  May every bald or hairy ankle reveal its true glory to the world! Doritos will just have to land where they must.  With women, it’s waistlines.  No sooner have we got everyone shifted into low-rise jeans that show off the hint of bum crack and thong (so that we can all resemble plumbers mending a loo), then the tide rises and we go back to having high waists at our ribs.  Muffin tops are out; bums that climb half way up your back are in. They say you can tell how old toddlers are by what they can do.  I say you can tell how old their mothers are by where they have gotten off the fashion wagon.  To the trained eye, waistlines are as easy to read as sedimentary layers of rock.  The hairstyle is just confirmation.

Some of us think we crave Change. Only, we don’t.   I had a man tell me he had such long arms that he had never ever in his whole life had a shirt fit him correctly.  So I made him a custom shirt with extra long arms.  When he tried it on, they came exactly to the right point on his wrist.  The new sensation of something hanging to his hand drove him crazy.  He hated it!  He came in again and again asking me to take the sleeves up “just a bit.”  After three times, they were at the same length of all his other sleeves! We think that having something “fit us better” would be A Good Thing—but sometimes it is too uncomfortable to live with.  We prefer what we are used to.  This is the premise behind Alain de Botton’s TED talk: “Why you will Marry The Wrong Person.”  We like what is familiar, even if it is bad for us.

Other times, we feel stuck without change.  We are enlivened and stimulated by possibilities and Choices that give our Free Will room to choose new trends, new shoes, new handbags in an endless variety of shades from vermillion to vomit.  We need to clean out the Old and replace it with New.  For no Good reason except that Novelty stimulates our economy. Mostly, we like the changes we choose, and if we don’t, we are always free to choose again!  The changes we dislike most are the ones we cannot Choose—the changes that require us to rewrite our agreements with Reality.

Back at home, a cricket hops into my bandaged fingers. We stare at each other intently for a long while. These crickets are not the same crickets as last year, though they are identical and serve the same Muse.  Essayist/Poet George Santayana reminds us that “Repetition is the only form of permanence that Nature can achieve.”  They teem in the grass around my home. For now, in this golden moment, this individual is not Anonymous.  I think that is the essence of Love—that I have Known One.

These crickets are here to sing us through the change of Seasons using the songs passed down by their ancestors as each generation replaces itself.  I leave all the windows open so that they can sing me to sleep along with Summer.  Tears leak into my pillow at the death of one of my horrible little dogs, whom I love so dearly, and the recent transition of a friend, who has left her place in earth’s choir and gone to Heaven’s instead.  I can still hear her laughter; I can still feel her spirit; but I cannot hug her ever again and that makes me deeply sad.  Another Love is having serious health problems… I am fearful and indignant about what these Changes require of my soul. I have No wish to rewrite suddenly my agreements with Reality.  I have gotten used to the way I like things and vice versa.   

The seasons are about to change and so are we all.  We will change our clothing—haul out sweaters and jeans to replace shorts and T-shirts—and begin the process of defining through colors and textures, tweeds and twills, who we shall Be until the hard frosts come.  Can we change our hearts as well? Can we breathe through the struggles to open the windows of our hot minds?  Can we reach Lovingly towards all that is Becoming and relinquish Gracefully all that went before? (I might have to kick and scream just a little.) I listen to the fresh batch of crickets in the dark.  Do they know what became of last year’s crickets? Is that why they sing?  The only thing that comforts me in times like this is the Joy of what I still have:  Gratitude for what Is and ever Shall be.  Change is not the only constant—Love is.  

This, and Pumpkin Lattes are on their way back!!! Woo hoo!

Much love to you all, Dear Ones.  Be Well!  Thank you for your Good Work!

Yours Aye,

Nancy