Birds of a Feather

“As soon as I get my ducks in a row, one of the damn things wanders off!” –pretty much all of us

Greetings Dear Ones!

The constructing has begun!  The new shop is taking shape. We have a good plan for the dressing room and I am helping to build a hemming platform and a cutting table, while the real carpenter does all the hard stuff.  I work on things I can do, or so I think, as I drive GRK screws through soft pine boards only to discover that I have not hit the intended board on the other side and the screws now connect to nothing.  I am possibly the worst assistant this man has ever had but we laugh a lot.  I wonder if he is going to charge me extra because I am “helping.” When you come to visit and wonder why the facing on the bottom step looks like it was shot up with a Gatling gun—that was me.

When we take painter’s blue tape and section off the floor into areas of access and egress for the customers, it makes me think of how I construct temporary chutes out of hog panels to manage my sheep when they need shearing or medical attention. I have to anticipate where they need to go and where any possible escape routes might be.  Likewise, in this studio space, I want to make sure people are not going to wander aimlessly, with no where to put their clothes and possessions except on the working surfaces or machinery.  They need “their space” clearly defined and made convenient for them. We had several clients in the old shop who would make a bee-line for the boss’s desk and put their handbags and car keys right there in the midst of her paperwork! (We certainly could have used some livestock panels on occasion.) Some people think nothing of plopping their coats right over a working sewing machine, or even a working seamstress.

In my spare time, I am reading all I can about clothing and fashion design.  A well-written but truly horrifying book I cannot put down is Elizabeth Cline’s Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion.  It is making me feel about clothing the way Fast Food Nation made me feel about French fries.  She is bringing my focus and awareness to things I have been so immersed in as a seamstress, I have only vaguely noticed yet impact absolutely everything about my work. In the last thirty years, steeply declining costs have made clothing virtually disposable, with economic and environmental impacts that cannot be ignored.  Most of the cheap, man-made fabrics produced today are either cellulose-based and cannot withstand long-term, repeated washings, or petroleum-based plastic-ishness that will never rot when it hits the landfill, or some revolting mix of the two. There are sobering costs to pay for items that are out of fashion or unwearable three weeks after we purchase them, not to mention the economic hit we take at losing the domestic textile industry we created in the first place. High Fashion used to be designed in Europe, made in America, and copied by the home sewer. Now it is designed anywhere, produced in nations where labor is exploited, and at home, “nobody sews anymore.”

I am thinking a lot about what it means to look “trendy” and the ironically high price we are paying to look, well, pretty much like everyone else.   Thanks to over-seas mass production minimum orders in the hundreds of thousands, our ability to look “unique” is dwindling unless we commit to expensive cutting edge couture, custom tailoring or locally made fashion (yay! That’s Me!), or up-cycling vintage clothing from back in the day when clothes were actually well-made from good cloth, probably 1940’s and before…  And…believe it or not, all of this makes me think of Ducks.

If one chooses to make a living in the fashion industry, (and trust me, NO ONE is more surprised than I am to find ME making a living even remotely connected with the fashion industry!) it’s extremely helpful to have been raised with ducks.  If you think rubber ducks are funny, you should definitely try live ones. Growing up, our one-acre pond was home to an ever-evolving flock of anonymous ducks. Mostly, they were flightless Pecan ducks—white with yellow beaks, black eyes, orange feet. Typical ducks. I never knew any of them personally. One spring, a lady at church gave my father a new duckling to add to our flock. Her grandchildren had been given it for Easter and they were bored with it now.  The joys of watching it swim in a Barbie swimming pool and eat cornflakes had worn off before they had even digested their jellybeans.

It was an odd duck. Instead of having bright eyes that looked like black beads, hers were a milky blue. Her beak was hot pink. Severely malnourished, she had no down on a body the color of dingy scrambled eggs.  For the next few weeks, my sister carried her in her coat to keep her warm. The little duck hooked her neck over my sister’s shoulder to hang on, trilling a constant cooing sound.  She never learned to quack.  We called her “Mello.”

In time, Mello’s flight feathers grew in and, unlike our other ducks, she actually learned to fly. Unfortunately, she only flew UP.   Never down. We were forever rescuing her out of trees and from rooftops. Once, she landed on a sleeping horse in a nearby pasture and together they looked like Pegasus for a blazing moment before the terrified creature stampeded through the nearest fence.  She didn’t exactly take to water, um, like a duck, either. When winter came, she got frozen alive in the pond.  I broke her out of the ice and carried her to the house. The sight of my father, who came of age in the 1950’s, thawing out her frozen rear end on our kitchen table with a blow-drier gave me a whole new impression of what a “Duck’s Ass” hairdo really meant.  She survived and devoted the rest of her long, colorful life to hatching golf balls. 

She is the only duck I remember from my childhood.  She stood out only partly because she was a different breed—probably a Muscovy. Still, she looked pretty much like any duck. What made her truly an Individual, was not on the outside at all. It was her Personality and the way she connected to people. It was her quirky habit of untying your shoelaces as part of her morning greeting. It was the way she would ride around on my sister’s shoulder or head, lecturing her sternly in little burbling trills. (Yes, it was clear that it was a lecture of some sort. We could just tell.)  It was the way golf balls made her broody. (The duck, that is, not my sister.) When presented with a golf ball, immediately she would begin tucking it under her body with her beak.  Then she would sit right where she was, on the golf ball, and peck anyone who dared attempt to take it.  Once, in a burst of ambition, she climbed atop some tennis balls but soon rejected them. She was Opinionated, Passionate, Sweet and Funny and totally Unique.

She had a rough start in life, to be sure, and it made her a little weird—as rough starts make us all a little weird. But that weirdness is also what made her Knowable and Loveable.  I think about that as I read books about fashion and the piles of clothing in landfills.  I remember her fondly as I try to help women preen themselves into something Uniquely Noticeable. I’m not for one minute suggesting we should all sit on golf balls.  But Being Who We Are, quirks, rough starts and all, takes us a lot further towards being Memorable than dressing like a bunch of Dodos from a big-box retail chain.  We don’t need more Quantity in this world—but Quality will always have a home. Find your Love, your version of a Passion or a golf ball, and huddle it close to you and protect it with your life.  Your one, precious, Unique Life.  If you don’t learn to sew, you might soon be forced to dress like everyone else, but for Heaven’s Sakes, BE YOU, no matter what your plumage looks like. Fly UP, my Dearies. Fly Up!

I love you SEW much!!

Yours aye,

Nancy

A Changing Space

Greetings my Dear Ones!

It’s been an exciting week for me.  It took an extra two days because of snow but finally I got the keys to my new studio!!  It’s in a granola-scented Mill building downtown, with fabulous, northern-facing windows and great natural light that will never get too hot or too blazingly direct in the afternoons.  They have the most stunning view of Mt. Wantastiquet.  I got in there, looked up, and started singing “The Hills Are Alive…” from the opening scene of The Sound of Music.  I am filled with joy and slightly off-key Rogers & Hammerstein songs at this new Beginning. I love the “energy” of the place, the sense of history, and my little fantasy of having been an 1850’s mill girl once-upon-a-Time.

First things first, I have to make this empty room make sense as a “sewing parlor” destined to welcome both the Tattered and Dashing. The room is not very large—about ten feet wide and twenty-nine feet long.  Immediately, I realize I must sacrifice about two-thirds of the space for a 4x8 cutting table and a changing room for clients.  These are non-negotiable items that I require to do business. 

The table I can make, no problem.  The changing room will require way more skill so I consult a local carpenter.   He is energetic, young, and extremely clever. Instantly, he begins to look for ways to make this tiny space as efficient as possible.  He questions my need for a changing room. I tell him that the cutting table and changing room are a MUST. I can even make do without an ironing board, if it comes to that, because I can just put mats or portable sleeve and shirt boards on the cutting table.  He scratches his head for a moment.  Then he gets a brilliant idea.  “Why don’t you just have a curtain in the back corner that you can draw across when people need to change? It could be like a small version of a hospital curtain that comes out from the wall and meets at a corner? Then you could still use that space when no one was there.”

While I admire his generosity and willingness to talk himself out of a few day’s worth of fees, I shake my head. No.  My people must have real wood. Real Walls. A Real door.

“But that’s Crazy!” he insists.  “What a waste of space! You are going to eat up a third of your floor space with an empty room that contains Nothing.  It makes no sense.”

I pause and look at him closely. He is sinewy and athletic, in his early thirties, handsome. His dusty Carhartt trousers slip around on his hips effortlessly as he takes measurements, then leans against the wall.  It occurs to me that he may know nothing of Body Shame. When he takes off his clothing and looks in a mirror, a host of gremlins don’t whisper from the shadows about the cellulite around his thighs or the stretch-marks on his bosom.  He has all his limbs and senses. He doesn’t need a railing to keep from falling over.  His body is a fabulous, reliable steed he never has to consider as it carries this knight around from place to place where he can do battle with slain trees, vanquish Rot, and rescue nutty seamstresses in distress.

“You call it a ‘waste’ of space,” I say, “but I respectfully disagree. It’s not a waste if it makes people feel safe.  A changing room needs to be a safe and sacred space dedicated solely to their use.”

“Yeah, I get it, but…” he interrupts, NOT getting it at all.

“Seriously,” I interrupt right back at him.  He persists.

“Why can’t you just tell them This Is How It Is here? If you hang really heavy material, no one is going to be able to see a thing. They will be safe.  And they won’t know any different. You are sacrificing way too much square footage to make an empty box, in a total space that is already too cramped for what you want to do.”  He shakes his head. “This is just nuts.”  I can tell he is losing patience with me, yet I truly admire his dedication to Efficiency, even at the expense of civility.  For once, I am the customer; I expect to be Right! But he is honest and true, through and through.  Privately, we each decide the other is being Unreasonable and Inflexible. I contemplate firing him before he even agrees to do the work. 

On some level, I totally agree with him.  He’s right; the average customer probably wouldn’t care and would do just fine with a curtain arrangement. On another level, drapery Velvet is probably more expensive than plywood—so his solution is certainly no bargain either.

“In a service industry,” I remind him gently, “it’s not what WE want, it’s what our customers want.”

“I know,” he says brusquely, “I’m not saying you can’t have what you want—I’ll DO whatever you want—I just don’t think what you want makes a whole lot of sense.”

“Yes,” I say, “and I totally agree with you. Your idea is totally practical and brilliant. But it’s not going to work for the people I expect to serve.  In the old shop, some of our more fragile customers were missing limbs, some were in wheel chairs, some suffered from vertigo, some were just upset with themselves over weight issues.  These people need solid walls to hang on to, private space that is secure. They need to know that when they come in here to change, they can be naked without being vulnerable. No one will see them until they are ready. I want EVERYONE welcome here, no matter how inconvenient it is to me. THEY are the reason I am doing this at all.” (Well, that and so I can have ready excuses to buy ever more fabric, thread, and sewing machines without guilt… but that’s beside the point!)

He nods.  Finally, he gets it. Like I said, he is a terribly clever young man.  

“Besides,” I tell him, “it’s no use giving me any extra space.  THAT will be the wasted space.  I will just clutter it up with my own mess.  I have a serious case of FSD.”

“What is that?” he asks.

“It’s Flat Surface Disease. It means I am a piler.  I pile things on every flat surface.  I will have my hands full just trying to keep the cutting table clear for cutting. Think how awful it will be if I have to move loads of junk out of the changing room space if we just go with curtains.  If I don’t have a customer every half an hour to keep things clear, like a duck swimming constantly to keep the ice from freezing, there could be an avalanche at some point!” His eyes widen in alarm.

After he goes, I think about how messy I can be when I am working and I make a personal vow to keep the dressing room Completely Clear.  Who knows? It might become my personal little temple I escape to as a haven from the rest of the clutter.  I can see myself in there, taking a time-out or yoga break, recharging my batteries before I tackle a shoulder job on a man’s suit coat.  Having such a space might just save me from the impulse to guzzle whisky by the pint, or eat my weight in cookies, or buy Yet More unnecessary fabric! (Nonsense! There’s no such thing as “Unnecessary Fabric!”)

Yet again, my work has given me a metaphor for my life.  I have this one, tiny, cramped life that is bursting with hopes, dreams, ambition and way too much clutter. Like the shop, one third must be devoted to laying things out, creating templates and plans. The busiest third contains all the machinery—five machines in a ten by ten space!—and the energy and focus around Doing, Finishing, Becoming, Transforming, Manifesting. 

And… and this part is the real kicker… ONE FULL THIRD needs to “empty” as a safe space for others and myself—equivalent to eight hours of rest in each twenty-four.

I have had to think about that a lot in the last few days.  How do I balance these three areas?  Where is the “white space” in the calendar that remains open for whatever comes? Where is the time I have to dedicate to family, friends, and nourishing my own spirit?  Where is the time dedicated to Rest and Recovery? In today’s work-a-holic environment, how do we begin to achieve the Clarity we need to make lives that are sustainable, energetically, and physically, for ourselves and our service to others and the planet? How do we plead for Space? When should we say NO?  I love how paying attention to twin, non-negotiable areas of Creating and Allowing actually serve to compress the space dedicated to the Doing. Like most of us, I struggle often to be a human Being, rather than a human Doing.  My rushed and scattered unfocused “Doings” can take over my whole kingdom if I don’t keep them in check.

I’ve changed myself a lot in the last five years, most of it in the last five months.  I know that changing takes Courage.  It also requires Safe Places and people to help us look at things we don’t want to confront, to make alterations, to be satisfied (or not) with the results. We need strong boundaries.  We need walls WITH doors so that helpers can get in to help us and so that we can get out when we are transformed.  I know for sure that mess, like water, will take the shape of its container.  Clean, clear, empty, Sacred Space must be claimed and defended so that we can get in there, Together, and do what must be done to make a better fit. (The Right Fit!)

Experience brings Clarity. Clarity brings power.  Experience has taught me about what my people need when they come to see me and I am the self-appointed guardian of those needs.  I also know my own needs.  I used to say vague things like “I want to help people. I want to do some good in the world,” and it came to naught because I was too scattered, to unfocused, too vague.  Then I would feel terrible because I knew I was not actually helping anyone. I never actually thought about WHO I would help, or HOW.  Lovely, Overly Grand sentiments went through my butterfly nets like mist.  I achieved nothing.

Today, I Know for whom this Bell toils! (Don’t ask; it is for thee…) I take blue tape and carve up the space on this black, wooden, nineteenth-century floor: Here, we will Plan; Here, we will Work; Here, in this Dedicated Emptiness, we Receive our fellow travelers, just as they are, and allow the wisdom of their guidance. We design and dedicate, construct and consecrate each space to its best use, digging Deeper or piling higher if we must.

Be well my Darlings!  Let me know how it is going in your own creative corners!  I wish you so much love, Emptiness and Happy Piles for your own Changing Space.  Keep up your Good Work!

Yours aye,

Nancy

A Fresh Start!

“Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”― Mark Twain

Happy New Year Dear Ones!

And sew it begins… another day, another month, another year, another decade—but in each moment just one sweet little Opportunity… One stitch at a Time…

This morning, a new Dawn slipped silently over the hill and stroked lightly blue lines on the roof of the tiny sheep shack here at Hermit Hollow.  I was in there, sitting on an over-turned bucket, scratching the chins and staring deeply into the eyes of the residents, feeling the Great Silence of the snow and trees and stars melting into Light.  The oldest ewe put her head in my lap, locked her knees, closed her eyes, and dozed.  Such moments are Bliss.  Their lives are so Un-busy and mundane, while mine is quite the opposite.  These wee visits give us all a chance to trade energies.  It has become my practice each morning since their arrival, to sit, sharing their Calm, inhaling the grassy fragrance of Dried Summer as they nose through their manger, while Winter piles up outside. We Balance: I slow my pounding heart and racing thoughts while they have a small, happy diversion from a long day of chewing.  Today, softly, I tell them that big numbers have rolled—it is now 2020—but they just munch on with Wise Blankness.  For them, it is only ever Now.  I can’t help feeling Restless, tempted to action and activity by the Great Rumour that something Momentous has happened.  My thoughts surge to the Goals of the day, the Goals of the Year, the Great Ambitions and Auspicious Beginnings I contemplate.  Placidly, the sheep chew on…

There is a certain magical energy that comes upon those of us who have been cramming ourselves with holiday sweeties, snacks, and bonus lattes for the past month.  It’s that brisk verve that says “30 days of Hot Yoga, combined with Veganism and Boot Camp at the gym, seems like the most Sensible Choice for balancing out these excesses…” “Maybe just the simple act of purchasing a gym membership will make my pants fit again…” “In the mean time, why don’t I take on an enormous project and give it All I’ve Got until I collapse in need of a big fat nap in three hours?”

There’s also the energy that creeps into our bones, so hungry for Rest, which says “leave the decorations up until March.  There’s plenty of time to clean up this mess before St. Patrick’s Day.”  It’s time for playing in the snow then coming in to hot cocoa and sitting all afternoon by the fireside, staring at a good book you aren’t quite reading.

I don’t believe in Resolutions as much as I believe in Directions or Desires:  I desire to be Healthy; I desire to be Kind to Others as well as myself; I desire to deepen my connection to Love and holy Spirits; I desire to think and study as a perpetual student yet live in peace with all I cannot understand… Now is as good a time as any to check in and make sure my choices reflect my values. “Resolutions” sound too harsh, vaguely militaristic.  They sound Mean. “What a load of crap!” bursts Prudence. “I DO believe in Resolutions! It’s time to clean your messy slate. YOU could do with some Boot Camp, you slacker! Work Hard. Give up your sinful pleasures and trade them for Greater Glory—only not that much glory, or you will likely suffer from Pride and have to make amends for that—but get Sweating, Lassie! Make a Big List. How are you going to pave your road to Hell without Good Intentions? Get Going. Your whole next decade starts Today. Don’t Muff it. (But when you do, I shall not be surprised.)”  

Today, I celebrate with Gratitude all the love and lessons of the past year and all that is now Complete. Every Ending is the seed of a New Beginning. Last Sunday, before the big storm hit, I went to the tailoring shop and cleaned out my corner.  I packed up my table and machines and a box of useful tools and dragged it all back to Vermont.  That shop has been sold to an extremely talented woman who is continuing the business with her own associates, though I have promised to come help them in Prom Season. The three dear ladies with whom I have worked and laughed and learned so much, are Retiring, which, as you know from your high school Latin class, means “getting tired again”! (Good luck with that, Ladies! People will find you and force you to sew for them!)

Meanwhile, I am excited about opening my own studio and beginning a new journey of mending and mentoring in southern Vermont.  To my horror, I learned from a representative of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, a non-profit economic development organization that serves as a catalyst for industrial and commercial growth throughout southeastern Vermont, that the area lost a bid two years ago that would have brought quite a few jobs to people in need of work.  A sportswear factory needed six full-time seamstresses to make prototypes and a city of 12,000 people could not find SIX people willing/able to do that.  I am dismayed but not surprised. This is a dying art that has not been valued.  It needs to be passed on, not passed over. It reminds me of that tale “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for want of a horse, the knight was lost; for want of a knight, the battle was lost…” For want of half a dozen Seamsters, the whole factory and all that went with it was lost.

One of my hopes is to be able to inspire area high-school students, home-schoolers, and homebodies to learn this craft, as we work collaboratively to make things fit better for our community.  For me, it will be the dream life of Sharing Skills in every way possible.  I am ready to burst with excitement yet with a tiny, healthy bit of Dread.  Do I really have the audacity it takes to do this?  I lie awake at night, eyes like tea cups, empty to the ceiling, searching through the roof to the galaxies beyond, Wondering...  What If, in my new shop, the only things people bring me to fix are broken zippers? (Play the scary theme music here.)  I have told myself that I hate zippers, that I am no good at replacing them because I have to do them at least three times per side to get the horizontal lines on the jackets to match up.  I have horrific visions of myself standing at a counter, writing cheques to people whose clothing I have ruined, as I hand them bags full of scraps and apologies…homeschoolers standing by, shaking their heads and tutting… I might be out of business in three weeks. The Dread is like an ice-cold hand gripping my esophagus.  

I am my own victim here. I have nurtured a Limiting Belief within myself about zippers, as if mere mortals like myself can Never Learn the art of replacing a zipper.  This is something only truly Magical people can do. I have been enabled in this belief by a dear, talented lady who was so effortlessly Amazing at replacing zippers that we always gave all the zipper work to her, while I stuck to menswear, beading, and handwork.  She can replace a zipper in a down overcoat the way Sandy Brechin can make playing the accordion sound like music.  The bitter Truth is, as with most things, I just need more Practice!

Another source of anxiety is what to Name my new venture.  Names are SO Important. Some names contain the whole story right in the title. I want a name like that! Helpful Face Book friends made so many brilliant suggestions that in the end my circuits blew and I ate a plate of Christmas cookies instead of deciding… Brendan’s suggestion of “On the Mend” touched me so much I decided that it was a much better name for this Blog, since it more accurately reflects the intertwining physical and metaphysical nature of this work and how I heal my soul in service to your hemlines...  

One of the most important things we can learn, in our journey towards Strength, is where we are Weak.  Learning which muscles need developing is the key to choosing how we work out, where we need to grow, where we need further education or guidance or practice.  The ladies I worked with did not get good at doing zippers by passing them on to others—they suffered through them, one by one, as many times as it took, until twenty-nine-years-in-business later, nothing phased them.   I resist admitting this but I can do that too.  What is Life, if not a series of Zippers?  If I see myself as someone who “Stinks at Zippers,” I am sunk.  If I see myself as “Someone who is damn good at Trying Again,” then I shall only get more successful over time. This is true for any skill in which the hand, eye, and brain have to collaborate—whether it is properly executing an up-driven bow on a Strathspey, or chopping ten pounds of onions without losing a finger.

There are many challenges ahead for us all in 2020.   It’s going to be a BIG ‘UN politically, socially, environmentally, morally, physically, and spiritually. Let us look at where we can Grow, as individuals, as Learners, as communities.  Let us look honestly at where we are weak, that we may get stronger.  Our present circumstances don’t tell us where we must go; they only indicate where we must Start. Let us listen with humility and act with courage.  May we Laugh gently, Love generously, and (God Help Us All) may we get better at Trying Again.

Ahead of us, we have more than just 365 days—we have 365 Chances. Be Brave, my Darlings!  And keep up your Good Work! I love you each sew much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Believe

“Let us bring Him Gold, Frankincense, and Mirth…” –the child singing carols behind me last night

Merry Christmas Dear Ones! 

It’s Christmas Eve…I am heading off to Mass enmasse with my extended family of sisters, parents, children, nieces, nephews…I am the one scurrying to the hastily departing third car in shoes that don’t fit because they are borrowed, with hair that looks like I groomed it by sticking one of my fingers into the nearest electric light socket.  I have a hole in my tights that I have “fixed” by wearing that side of the tights like a candycane, twisting around my leg until the hole winds up hidden in the borrowed shoe, with all the excess fabric stuffed into the toe.  I cannot take my coat off, no matter how hot the church gets because I have a giant hole in the back of my dress that I created by yanking too hard on the zipper.  I am not a good advertisement for my trade.  My clothing is malfunctioning all over the place.  Not to mention, I am covered in dog-hair.

We get there an hour early to hear the children’s choir, dressed as molting angels, with lopsided wings made of spray-paint, cardboard, and patchy feathers singing joyously out of key.  A sheep wanders in, dressed in dried glue and cotton balls and has to be redirected to the nativity scene.  He is not where he is supposed to be. The shepherds, with dishcloths tied on their heads, beckon him vehemently.  All around us is the larger pageantry of restless toddlers, fractious babies, red and green clothing, and parents who are mentally calculating how much Dimetapp they can administer  to their young Believers when they get home and still be legal.  A girl sitting next to me who has never been to church before stares with wide eyes and asks me if it is always like this.  She is both enchanted and confused.   WHAT is this about?  She marvels at the throngs of people standing, the wheelchairs along one side of the aisle, all the people shuffling with hymnals and handbags.  “Does everyone here Believe all this?” She wants to know.  What does it mean to Believe?

For Christians, today BEGINS twelve days of merriment, Yule Rule, partridges in pear trees and whatnot.  Do you hear me, Christians?  Christmas BEGINS today.  I don’t want to see Christmas trees on the sidewalk by tea time. It’s not over. It’s just beginning!

For my beloved Jewish friends, Hanukkah began Sunday December 22nd and Ends Monday, December 30th.  Thanks to the traditions of these two mono-theistic spiritual descendents of Abraham, a lot of homes are getting filled this week with families, food, Light, and yes, presents—though that’s probably where the similarities  around these two holidays end.   Have you read the book of Macabees?  It’s no Christmas story. (To say the least!)  What the Jews commemorate during Hanukkah, as far as I can tell, is the right to Believe and to worship their god as they see fit.  They overthrew their oppressors and rededicated their holy temple with the miracle of oil that managed to burn for eight nights instead of the predicted one.  Their story is about believing in the right to Believe.  Like Christmas, it centers around a Miracle, around wonder, light, and Awe.

The Christian story is also a story of repression, beginning with Roman occupation and the census requirements of an Emperor who needed to know how many subjects he was oppressing.  Central to the plot is the significantly poor planning on the part of the baby’s parents, who had not thought ahead to book an air B&B.  There is also a whole cast of supporting roles from Shepherds, Angels, and my favorite, the sheep.   I absolutely Love how often sheep are mentioned in the Nativity story.   I love that the Christ child was announced first to the shepherds and born in a barn.  I have my theories about how shepherds are generally the most observant, empathic, and receptive people because sheep are incredibly hard stock to “read.” Being prey animals, they don’t show they are injured or sick until they are about to die, so as not to attract too early the attention of potential predators.  So anyone looking after sheep on a regular basis has to have a keen eye.  They know what’s what.  Miracles, like injuries, can be subtly catastrophic things. That the story begins with “shepherds watching their flocks by night” is no accident at all.   Bless those committed shepherds!

Fast forward two thousand years and a Macy’s Parade or two and I have no idea how a jolly, philanthropic, fat man in a red suit got involved in all of this.  He wasn’t a citizen here in the 18th century—the English colonists  thought Christmas day was so inconsequential that, after the Revolution,  Congress held its first session December 25th, 1789. It was just another day.   It was the Dutch colonists in New York who brought their veneration of Saint Nick, or Sinter Klaas.   In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote “Twas the Night Before Chrstmas” for his three daughters, which he was reluctant to publish because it was such a silly and frivolous topic, and set in ink the blueprint of Father Christmas for generations to come.   By the 1840’s Santa Claus was gaining popularity and by the 1890’s the Salvation Army was dressing up homeless men in Santa Claus suits and sending them into the streets of New York to solicit donations which would pay for the free Christmas meals they provided to needy families.  He’s been gaining ground ever since.  Even people who don’t celebrate the freedom of our right to Believe, or the upward mobility of Kings born in Stables, believe in the necessity of having our economies dragged by eight tiny reindeer through the month of December.   All I can think is that people have been hungry for excuses to Believe—to believe in Goodness, in Generosity, in some sort of capitalist-driven antidote to the Darkness that nibbles at the edge of any light.

Who was the real St. Nicholas? It turns out he was an early Christian Bishop of some place near modern-day Turkey during  the Roman Empire, sometime in the 300’s, known for secret works of Good, who is now the patron saint of children, repentant thieves, and prostitutes.  He is the patron saint of prostitutes because he is said to have paid the dowries on three sisters so that they could be married honorably, and not sold into slavery or prostitution by their impoverished parents.   His legend has evolved in the intervening centuries to include all sorts of imaginative additions—snowmen, reindeer, and some rather unfortunate clothing choices which have become his signature “uniform.”   Somewhere along the way, he became master of an overseas sweatshop of tiny beings who make toys and send their representatives to sit on shelves and torment young parents for the twenty-four days preceding Christmas.  I asked a young mother what gave her the most joy last night and she said “Now that damn Elf on the Shelf can go back to the North Pole and stop spying on us!”  Apparently, if we believe we are being WATCHED we all behave better.   Wouldn’t George Orwell love that idea?  Apparently, Santa is only here to reward the GOOD children. Naughty children will be punished.  (Prudence nods approvingly.) But it sounds to me like this modern rendition is a poor copy of the original, who, like the Great Teacher before him, came to serve the sinners, not judge them.  The Good children have no need of a patron saint—especially one with such appalling fashion sense.  It’s the naughty ones, like me, (with our own fashion challenges) who have the most need of Hope.  Hope for Forgiveness, hope for Redemption, hope that I can still fit into my workout gear after I finish all these cookies…

 I heard a lot of parents saying to skeptical middle-schoolers last night “If you Believe, you Receive. Santa doesn’t come if you don’t believe.”  So what does it mean to Believe?  Where do Believing and Pretending intersect? When we are young, we Believe so easily.  We just do. We must.  As life teaches us a thing or two, we reject those beliefs—sometimes appropriately so, sometimes not. Sometimes people lump God and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus all into the same bad acting Company and they say “only the silly, young, or naïve buy into that nonsense.”  It’s simply not for the Educated, Experienced, or Sophisticated to Believe.

In the end they are all just names for the Spirit of Selfless Giving, the Spirit of Love—though in Santa’s case, Clothing definitely makes the man.   Anyone who wears the red suit can be Santa. (Apparently, slender men in drab colors don’t have the same ability to slide down chimneys.)   The Santa my children grew up with was not fond of clothing in general.  He only wore his big red suit and boots to parties in December.  The rest of the time, unbeknownst to the kiddies, this particular Santa was a nudist most of the year.   When we went to visit him at his home, we had to pull into the driveway and honk the horn a few times before ringing the doorbell so he could throw on a robe. On Sundays, grudgingly, because there would be children present, and because hot soup can cause injuries if it falls where it is not supposed to, he would shuffle into a baggy assortment of mismatched clothing and head to town to hear the fiddlers play and drink a pint of that the children called “Black Milk.” He was a regular mug-club member at the pub where their father and I played music every Sunday afternoon.   His beard and twinkling eyes were a straight out of a coca-cola campaign for Kris Kringle and my husband, upon meeting him for the first time, said “Hey Look, kids! It’s Father Christmas! This is where he comes to get away from reindeer games in the off season!” All the regulars roared with laughter but “Santa’s” nickname stuck.  The kids, both curious and cautious, did not know what to think until one year, at one of our Christmas Eve parties, much to our collective shock, there was a knock at the door.  It had begun to snow lightly and Santa, the REAL Santa, from the pub, stood there resplendent in his red velvet coat and shiny black boots.  Our surprise was genuine—the children could tell.   Our friend had told no one he was doing this and he had gone all out. His beard was extra white.  He looked like he had stepped right off of a Christmas Card on the mantle.  We were all in awe.  It was the best Joke ever. 

Only, it turned out not to be a joke.  Something Magic happened that was Real. This man who had no children of his own, who, in fact, never seemed to like them at all, was listening to them and talking to them, letting them sit on his lap for photos, telling them about his reindeer herd, accepting carrots for Rudolph.  When one asked if he was going to give them a present, he said “Aw shit…I forgot the presents…” 

“Well, Santa,” I said hastily, “one of your elves knew you were so busy this year that you might forget so he dropped off a little sack of things earlier.  This is just a little token to remember your special visit.  You can’t leave them any real presents until they are all asleep.”

“Right!” said Santa, winking at me gratefully and wiping the Guiness foam off his mustache,  as I handed him a little bag of party favors I had for each child.  I had crocheted little horse heads that slipped over candy canes so they looked like tiny toy stick horses.  Santa gave one to each child and then told them all to go to sleep early and not give their parents any hassles.   They nodded, silently, eyes wide, as they each reached out and received a bit of Real Christmas into their hands.   Then Santa said he had to get back to the North Pole and he walked out the door and disappeared into the snow. 

At their core, the stories we tell this time of year are as bad and sad as Grimm’s fairy tales but from the Darkness comes great Light.  From the grim fate of the Maccabees, the wretchedness of giving birth in a stable, and a poor monk buying the virtues of girls who would have been sold for sex, we tell the tales and light the Lights that help us reach for Goodness, for Innocence, for Light, and the Right to Believe in the midst of so much darkness.

Please, Believe, my darlings. Believe.  Believe that our Stories have power.  From our stories come our actions, from our actions come our consequences, from our consequences come our future choices, from our choices come our lives…and around the circle goes again.  At the very center of that circle is whether or not we Believe in Everlasting and Infinite Love.  Choosing to Believe is the most important choice we ever make.  None of this is worth a damn if we don’t Believe—if nothing else, in our right to Believe as we choose.

Whatever your blend of hygge, legend, and fruitcake is…  May you believe that YOU are the most precious gift you will ever receive.  You are worthy. You are Loved. You are here to share that Love.  

Wishing you all so much Love & Light, Harmony & Joy, Magic & Miracles…

Merry EVERYTHING!

Yours aye,

Nancy

That's the Spirit!

"Maybe Christmas,” the Grinch thought, “doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." –Dr. Seuss

Greetings Dear Ones!

It’s that frantic week before Christmas when every customer through the door asks the same question, (just before they ask if they can have their items fixed the same day): “So! Are you Ready?”

“For the Holly-daze?” I say, “Oh, yes. I am ready!”

“Got your tree up?”  Well, no… No, I don’t.

“Got your shopping and baking and cards done?” Um… no. Not those either.

“So, what are you Ready for?”

Well… let’s say I’m just Ready.

“Ready for What?”

Ready to get Ready.  Ready NOT to be ready too.   Isn’t that what this whole charade is about? Getting Ready?  Let’s face it; we’ve all done this before.  Has anything ever, in the history of plans, gone precisely According to Plan?  (Not in Nancyland!) Since nothing turns out quite like we expect it to anyway, why not detach early from Outcomes and just persevere until there’s a sense of Delight, then call it a day?  My inner Slacker is overjoyed at the thought of Doing Less and Appreciating  More.  She calls for more eggnog and Hallmark movies as we sit by the fire and spin.

Getting Ready is both the best and worst part of any project.  (Just ask anyone who has ever prepped a room for painting, or removed forty-two yards of beaded lace from the hem of a wedding gown.) You don’t need a front room full of lit-up shrubbery or a smoking oven to be ready.  I can celebrate the Spirit without doing a darn thing.  I’m turning down the static fuzz of hectic hustle-hassles and mentally turning up the volume on everything which feels like Happiness to me.   I’ve lived in Vermont for less than three months now and I’m already more mellow, grounded, and less inclined to go bludgeoning a fellow shopper for the last Blume Doll on the shelf.  (It must be all that vegan Granola I’m eating.)  This year, I’m going to Relax, which I’m pretty sure means “be lax again,” and unhook from all the Senseless Commercialism.  Can you tell I have been doing quite a bit of “Procrasti-knitting?”  Since I am happiest when I am Rationalizing, I’ve already decided that this is going to be my Happiest Winter ever.  I’m Ready.  Now. To hell with the details…  That’s the Spirit!

Unfortunately, Prudence has teamed up with my inner Grinch to remind me why I really should be doing of all the Things I have Decided Not To Do and why I hated doing them in the first place.  My attitude can plummet without warning when I hit a traffic snag by a mall, or see an exhausted looking parent dragging weeping children through the toy aisle.  I have decided to embrace and celebrate this spirit of Darkness too—though it might get me in a wee bit of trouble.

So, I confess I have been actively encouraging people’s bad temper by shouting “That’s the Spirit!” when frustrations mount in the shop.  I know this is very naughty of me, especially at this time of year when we are supposed to be filled with “Holiday Cheer” and “Christmas Spirit” but I cannot help it.  I like a tiny bit of Hum-bug in the mix.  A touch of disaster can be delightful if all turns out well in the end.

By now, you are well aware, in the Secret Life of this Seamstress, that…um… “things Sometimes go Awry.”  Tragedies occur.  People get confused.  Wrong legs get shortened too much on trousers. Needles break; bobbins shatter; and human excrement hits, well, not just fans.  All this you know.  As you might suspect, we don’t always handle this with the dainty grace and full-throated songs of Disney heroines.   (My inner child wishes we did!) Well, we don’t. Behind the scenes, we have been known to Growl and to Grumble and defensively say viciously hilarious things that will never be printed because we cannot afford the legal fees.  To all of them, to each and every grumble, I now shout “That’s the Spirit!”

“My daughter-in-law says I have to wear pink. I HATE pink,” a lady says flatly, with a look that could curdle cream. To which I reply, “That’s the Spirit!”

 A co-worker says “I just got this [expletive] zipper in this [expletive] down jacket—I had to do it three [expletive] times and now the [expletive] pulley has snapped off! Just SHOOT me now!”  To which I reply, “That’s the Spirit!”  

A guy whose eyes say he’s done more learning than winning wants us to cover a leather jacket with motorcycle patches from his club.   We tell him to leave the jacket and return later but he refuses to go.  He cannot let the jacket out of his sight.  These are club regulations.  He must be present with the jacket at all times. (“Does he sleep in the damn thing?” Prudence wants to know.) He takes up residence on the couch while we mutter and growl under our breaths.  We have to behave nicely in front of customers but secretly, we are pissed.  “That’s the Spirit!” I whisper.

My friend says, “The cleaners have sent over ten panels of curtains that are all different lengths and we’re to hem them all ‘eleven inches.’  Are we to assume that the windows all differ by a range of three quarters of an inch? Or are we to take an average and make them all the same length? Grrr… I want to call them back and say we don’t do curtains anymore.”  “That’s the Spirit!” I cry.

My inner Grinch is having a very good time with this.

My inner Sinner starts thinking about things like Redemption, Readiness, and what the Spirit of Christmas is all about, if not for over-eating cookies  then blaming our families?  What is this colossal Hysteria we all buy into that sends us spiraling into bad emotional, spiritual, and financial hang-overs every year?  I think that it is all about Happiness.   Yes, friends. HAPPINESS is what causes us to lose our minds and behave like monsters this time of year.  

We want so much to be able to make someone Happy—to Give each other, and all those we hold so dear, HAPPINESS.  This is a Big Mistake; bless our tiny, human hearts.   We try to buy it, box it, make it, wrap it, cook it, and send it so that we can inflict it on those we love best. Well, guess what?  Happiness is not something we can give away.  It is something we can each only Receive for ourselves.  It is what Hermann Hesse called “the little joys” at the heart of a rich life lived with Presence, not presents.  It is hidden in the simple delights celebrated in a Wendell Berry or Mary Oliver poem.

But try telling that to the woman in the dressing room who is angrily mashing her boobs around like they are made of soft clay she can mold into any shape.  She is treating them like they are small dogs she is trying to make behave, as she muzzles them with a different bra and tries to force them into the front of a gown.  They are unwilling and recalcitrant and keep trying to escape out the back door, under her armpits.   She thinks that if she can make them stay out front, where they belong, she will be Happy.  Right now, her happiness depends on nothing else.  Her satisfaction is Conditional and, sadly, the present conditions are against her.

Too many people are coming into the shop thinking “If I was a size (x) I would be happier.” If I won the Lotto, I would be happier.  A lot of us think if only we were richer, thinner, taller, or could get our hands on a Baby Yoda, we’d be happier. Well, guess what? We wouldn’t be.

According to Harvard’s landmark 75-year study of what makes a Good Life, most “numbers”—such as your cholesterol numbers or your bank account figures—don’t matter as much as the number of warm, genuinely loving hugs you get a week.  They discovered that loneliness can be lethal, that secure and tender relationships are protective.  People who are well-connected socially are happier, physically healthier, and live longer than those who are not.   People who go to Revels or Scottish Fish concerts or Nowell Sing We Clear events are certain to find in shared songs and blended voices a Happiness that cannot be bought in a store.  And though we may buy each other the tickets, we cannot control what our companions may Receive. “The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us,” says Ashley Montagu.  We need to be Ready to be seized. That’s the Spirit!

I’m of the current opinion (since I am still frantically knitting) that gifts, even homemade ones, are some of the Worst things we can give each other.   For one thing, they ask too much of us and our recipients, since gifting is often a subtle form of Asking, or manipulating, and the temptation to be equational, or keep score, is destructive.  A gift is also something that is Complete—fully formed, ready to go.  Most people don’t give away something that is partially complete, that is in a growing phase, or still needs work.  (Although, I did once give my brother-in-law one solitary hand-knit sock, with the promise of another, which he received later in the year as a birthday gift!)  True Happiness is curated over time.  Relationships, which are the secret to Happiness, are sticky and complicated things and require as much effort as a loaf of good French bread or getting all those damn lights on the tree to light up at the same time.  Gifts are just quick fixes—the “once and done” approach.   How much more rewarding to spend Time, rather than money—to replace screen time with people time!  Drag out the playing cards and board games. Get out the photo albums and look at them by the glow of candlelight—trust me, your wrinkles will thank you.  Tell your stories to the little ones; teach them your songs and traditions.  Forget shopping.  That’s the Spirit! 

As existential credibility seems garnered on the basis of how loudly we proclaim our disadvantages, the savouring of Happiness seems countercultural—it is an act of courage and resistance to seek Delight in Little Things, especially if they are free and don’t boost our economy.  So now is the time to go Rebel! Let’s get Feral in our attempts to return to organic forms of Comfort and Joy--Happiness might leap at us from the color purple, red, or green (Probably green!) or from the taste of snowflakes on our tongues; from the sounds of sheep bleating or sweet children singing slightly out of tune; or that satisfying feeling of cutting a strip of fabric with one long swooooosh of the scissors blades in a perfect line.   Listen for those faint chimes the angels ring when True Love is shown.  That’s the Spirit!

Lucille Ball said, “It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.” I stop for a coffee at a friend’s coffee bar and notice a man with a tiny patch on the sleeve of his shirt. The stitches around its edge are so careful and so tidy, done by his darling, caring wife.  They would not think of discarding this shirt. Instead, they repair, reuse, recycle.  The patch makes the shirt look even better than it did when it was new.   I say nothing but smile and feel a tingle of joy at being a silent witness to such lovely handiwork.  And just like that, I hear the Chimes.  I hear them again in the local co-op when I see a grandfather loading his cart with items for the impending visit of his daughter and her family.  He is glowing as he puts three jars of apple sauce and an extra box of Cheerios in his trolley.  The more I look and listen, the more I am able to hear these Chimes. I am getting Ready.

Why wait for Presents when you can have Presence? Receive Now. Happiness is not getting something you don’t have; it’s realizing how much is already here. Happy people plan actions, not results. Are you Ready? Christmas isn’t “coming,” dear ones; it’s Here. This can be an awfully lonely, dark, and troubled time for some. Do something lovely with someone you love, even if it’s just You. That’s the Spirit!

With so much love and warm, spiced cider,

Yours aye,

Nancy

Book Jackets

Greetings Dear Ones!

Ever since I started writing this blog, I have looked at Trouble in a whole new way. What is a story without a central trouble? To this end, every character that enters the shop who provides me with a trouble, also provides me with a story.  I LOVE stories! So, I am starting to appreciate Trouble.  When something “bad” happens to me, I now think “Oh, Goody!  Something to write about.  Something for this Glamorously Heroic Heroine of mine to do battle with, or to feed Prudence as a snack that will upset her stomach…” Sometimes I actually say (if only for a moment) “This [problem] isn’t good enough. How can we make it Worse?” The results are sometimes tragic, sometimes comic, as I set about my days dealing with unforeseen plot twists, seam-rippers, bobbins, menopausal sheep or mis-placed car keys.  I particularly enjoy watching as each character in the shop comes forward to share the back-story of the chapter I will be working on for the next few hours. Unlike some of my colleagues, I love getting the “history” lesson.  I enjoy the long, detailed rambles about how they came to have this or that garment and its challenges.  We are, all of us, story-tellers by nature.  We are Dreamers, Wishers, and Explainers. Some among us explain rather too much. It’s the curse of the novice. It’s Ok.

A Sci-Fi Murder Mystery confused about his plot direction but assuming that most females between the ages of 18-45 want to get between his covers, shows up to have his jacket mended.  He has been lifting weights and burst the center seam between his shoulders in the back.  He flexes his bulging muscles to demonstrate the hulk-like grandeur that overcame the tweed but I demure.  Prudence rolls her eyes heavenward and reaches for her rosary.  We write up the slip as he departs, leering awkwardly at a group of Chick-Lit-Lite that is walking in the door.  They are talking already, asking us if we have heard the news about so-and-so. There is a considerable amount of gossip in a small-town tailoring shop where most of the clients have known each other for generations.   Most of it is what anyone but the Topic of the Conversation herself would insist is “harmless.” It occurs to me that Listening to Gossip is like going with a Critic’s review before we have even read the book ourselves. (Prudence hates the idea of gossip but she cannot help listening!)

In the dressing room, a woman is staring at herself in the mirror.  She is middle-aged but something about the awkwardness of her fawn-like elegance reminds me more of someone very young.  She is alternately frowning and then smiling, playing with her facial expression the way a toddler might to amuse herself.

“A Horrible Thing is happening,” she announces. “I look in the mirror and see my mother.  I am turning into my mother!” Instantly, I think of the Oscar Wilde quote, “Every woman becomes her mother. That's their tragedy. And no man becomes his. That's his tragedy.  I laugh. She smiles at the quote then turns serious again.

“I look in the mirror and I see my mother so much that it is like she is squinting at me from the other side, telling me I am no good. I see the face from my childhood that was never happy when it looked at me.  So!  I remind myself to smile. See?” She smiles with exaggerated force. Through gritted, absurdly grinning teeth she explains, “When I smile, I look nothing like my mother.  My mother never smiled. But as soon as I smile, See? I look like someone completely different. I look like ME.”

After she leaves, I ponder the burdens that we each are carrying in the stories we tell ourselves and the editing we must help each other do.  Some of the strongest characters I know are not people who openly display their strength for all the world and unfortunate tweed jackets to see.  They just smile. Through practice and gritted teeth, they smile. They have won battles we know nothing about.

By all means, we say, “Please don’t judge this book by its cover until I change it out of its pajamas! Or do it Very Kindly. Have you read it yet? It’s a tragic-comedy—don’t the plaid and polka-dots say so? It’s sometimes slapstick, sometimes just plain sticky... Please, please enjoy it.  Tell me it was worth it,” we beg our Fellow Authors who are so busy scribbling they ignore us.

Some books, we cannot wait to read—their covers are so enticing. Some, we come to find out are just part of a series, written by multiple authors under the same Pen name. Some books make us think “ooooh, if I could spend an hour, a weekend or a lifetime reading that book, I would finally understand all the secrets of the Universe, or at least of Love and what it means to truly Cherish. I would really KNOW something after reading that book.”

A Sappy Romance Novel marketing himself as a Thriller comes in to the shop to have his suit tailored.  “I want the jacket to say a few things about the Author,” he tells me. “It should say, ‘this Guy is a Classic, but with a modern twist.  He could be more trendy if he wanted to but he doesn’t need to be.” We agree to shorten the length of the coat and sleeves a little but not take it in too much. Thankfully, the trousers are not pleated so we can update them by simply re-hemming them without cuffs.

Next in is a cheery little Cookbook—the old-fashioned kind with pictures of lattice-work pies, Sugar, Humility, and Gluten—not the Arrogantly Clean & Vegan.  Her shoes, slacks, and coat say “I am a fearless Adventuress--Bargain Shopping Where Others Fear To Tread” but the spaghetti stains on her blouse say “just kidding. We never get out of the kitchen.” Inside her tattered pages, there is much to be discovered, Savoured.  She does not have a very complicated plot but she knows the ancient secrets of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme—of True Love and having the Sunday Roast turn out perfectly every time for forty years in a row until everyone around the table either dies or moves away.  The holidays are coming up and she wants us to make aprons for all of her grandchildren.

A retired couple entitled “War and Not Much Peace Because HE Doesn’t Load the Dishwasher Properly” come in to collect their dry-cleaning and drop off some mending.  It’s clear that theirs is a long and bitter saga, punctuated by fiercely tender paragraphs and glimmers of hopes that were dashed.  They aren’t about to quit co-dependently co-authoring now, since Death and the Final Edit are looming, though both of them kinda, sorta, wish they’d crumpled up the first page years ago and started over then.  But they didn’t want to waste the paper.

Who ever said we were NOT to judge the books by their covers?  Isn’t that what covers are for?  Who DIDN’T look at the cover of their fifth-grade math textbook and see some good-looking multi-ethnic students frolicking happily and think, “hmm… maybe this year math will be fun?”

But we all do it.  Recently, I attended a village contra-dance and overheard a much younger friend of mine telling a novice dancer how to choose his partners.  “While you are learning, you want to dance with people better than you. Look at their feet,” she instructed. “See those shoes?  Those are called ‘character shoes.’ I’m not sure why… But if a woman is wearing those, it’s a pretty good chance that she knows how to dance.  At least she has invested in the right foot gear.  Stay away from anyone in Keds—it’s a crap shoot.  They are either amazing or awful, especially if they are under 25.  Don’t gamble on this. Avoid Wellies like the plague.  No one can dance in Wellington Boots; I don’t care who you are. Stick to middle-aged women in Character Shoes!”

I love that. Stick to middle-aged women in character shoes. Apparently, we are the training wheels of the dance floor! Remind me to put that slogan on a T-shirt and wear it to the next dance.

We judge, we peruse, we collect…Many people don’t even read at all. “Books are awfully decorative,” says the bimbo character “Gloria,” in the film “Auntie Mame.”  It puts me in mind of a dear man I used to know who purchased a bookshelf for his new home.  He wanted to fill it with impressive-looking books.  He went to a used book store and asked them what they had in “Brown Leather.” The shop attendant was confused.  “We have lots of books with leather bindings, Sir,” he said. “What subjects interest you? India? Literature? An anthology concerning the Native Bees of New England?”

“Oh, it doesn’t really matter,” said this dear man, spreading his hands apart to indicate a space of about two feet, “I just need about this much in brown leather!”

Some people are so much of a “series” that to read one is to have read them all.  We meet, we chat…we think, “hmmm, I’ve read this one before.  It had rather a nasty plot twist after the third date.”

Recently, I had coffee with a fabulous new Novel—a “novel” Novel, as it were.  

“There’s a really great book coming out at the moment,” I told her. “It’s fantastic.  You really need to read it.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. Well, so I’ve heard.”

“What?! You haven’t actually read it?”

“Well, no, not really.  I know I am supposed to—trust me, it’s on my list. I wrote the first part myself but then other people took over.”

“Well, that’s not really good enough.”

“I suppose not… But YOU, darling, you must read it! You will love it. I know you will. In fact, you MUST.” At this, she wrinkled her nose and flashed me a look of vexation and sighed.     

“I think I will wait for the Movie version. Or maybe the Spark Notes or Readers’ Digest version.  It looks like rather a BIG book—sort of heavy to carry around.  I am always wary of books in flashy Red covers.  I really wish you would just read it and tell me the basic plot up to the present moment.  I wonder if there is an audio version I could just listen to while I’m doing something else. Maybe I could get someone to read it for me?”

“No, dear, that won’t do.  You need to read the whole thing yourself, cover to cover, correcting or making note of everything you would like to see changed. Haven’t you heard?  The project isn’t finished. You get to be Editor in Charge!” (I once worked at a publishing house where the Editor-in-chief insisted she be called the Editor-in-Charge, and I’ve preferred that title ever since.) “Only you can make it You-nique.” She groaned.

Don’t let your stories tell you who you are, Dear Ones. The stories are not writing you. You are writing them.  Revise as necessary. There is no such thing as a story that has no trouble. What kind of BORING story would that be??  So take it that the troubles you have are a pre-requisite for your eventual triumph or disaster. Embrace them as the literary tools they are. Your story is not about your trouble. The story is about how you RESOLVE or reconcile or forgive or grow or learn or teach by your trials. And don’t think you could never be a best seller.  You already are. You just need to market yourself differently—perhaps a new book jacket?

Let me know if it needs tailoring.  I am at your service. With so much love and gratitude for your Good Work,

Yours aye,

Nancy (a middle-aged woman in character shoes)

Make America Make Again

We don't value craftsmanship anymore! All we value is ruthless efficiency, and I say we deny our own humanity that way! Without appreciation for grace and beauty, there's no pleasure in creating things and no pleasure in having them! Our lives are made drearier, rather than richer! How can a person take pride in his work when skill and care are considered luxuries! We're not machines! We have a human need for craftsmanship!

Bill Watterson, There's Treasure Everywhere

Greetings Dear Ones!

Forgive me but Prudence has been on a total Rip lately… and for once, I am having trouble disagreeing with her.  She is incensed by some of the comments she has been hearing about “immigrants” making a living as seamstresses. I told her she could have some space in this week’s blog to vent her spleen. (She also wants to have a go at Fashion designers, teenagers with no work ethic, and people who eat too much garlic before entering the fitting room but I insisted that this entry has to have a smaller word count than War and Peace…)  I remind her that it is always best to “teach through delight” but she would rather give Certain People lines of Beatitudes to write in cursive until their hands ache.

Basically, a customer came into the shop, heard one of the other seamstresses mention that she was going to retire soon, and protested “But you CAN’T retire!  This is the only place I can go and deal with people who, you know,” she winked conspiratorially, “Speak English.”  That’s nonsense.  All the local seamstresses—not that there are many—speak English.  What she means is “are White.”

“We’re getting on in years…it’s hard to thread the needles, I want to enjoy my Silver years sitting in front election debates while I still can see the screen,” said my friend, laughing.

“Nonsense,” retorted the customer. “Lady So-and-so in the town nearby was still going well into her eighties. My mother went to her until she died. Only death or blindness should cause you to retire.”

“Don’t tempt me!” cried my friend, “I’ll take a seam-ripper to my eyeballs right now!” We all laughed, but the facts are sobering.

It’s true that Americans are not doing as much of their own sewing any more.  It’s true that “foreigners” are taking over the trade. And whose fault is this? Who got rid of Home Ec. in the 1980’s? Was it a Communist plot? No, my darlings, we did this to ourselves.

The Irony (you know, as opposed to the Wrinkly) of the feminist movement which pushed to eradicate Home Economics classes because it objected to the notion of dead-end High School classes “for girls,” where future wife-lings sat hand-stitching little aprons in a home-made-pudding-from-scratch stupor, deprived both genders of valuable skills.  Instead of saying this was “not for girls,” they should have made it mandatory for boys as well.  No doubt, ‘the Powers that Was’ decided that children could learn these things at home from their mothers, like previous generations, while failing realizing that their now-liberated mothers would be running the Company Boardrooms  instead of teaching them to make bone broth or cross-stitch. (Don’t get me wrong—I’m ALL FOR women in Boardrooms! I’m just not for people buying disposable clothing or depending on Drive-thru windows for nourishment.) Home Ec. was “redundant” and competed with the growing need for new technology in Computer science. During the Cold War, schools and universities began defunding Home Ec., in favor of increasing budgets for Math, Science and Technology departments. Additionally, the explosion of convenience foods on the market made cooking from scratch seem irrelevant.  Students could learn the numbers side of “economics” in other classes not necessarily devoted to a concept of “home.”  Had they only known…

As it turns out, Sewing is more Math and Engineering than anything else. (God help me!) Data on the critical and distinctive skills necessary for Tailors, dressmakers, & sewers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that tailors, dressmakers, & sewers need many skills, but most especially: Active Listening, Time Management, and Critical Thinking. The revealed comparative advantage (RCA) shows that Tailors, dressmakers, & sewers need more than the average amount of Operations Analysis, Management of Material Resources, and Operation and Control.  That sounds about right. It also sounds like the basis of a S.T.E.M. class to me! (STEM= Science Technology Engineering Math)

 The purpose of school is purportedly “to provide children with skills and knowledge that will benefit them and the community,” yes, and to give their mothers (and fathers) free babysitting while they are busy running the Boardrooms.  Children often perform better when their tasks have perceived Relevance—when they can appreciate how the skills and knowledge they learn in their academic courses have real life value. We all eat. We all wear clothing. Neither of these shows any signs of stopping.  Why not teach our children how to cook and sew?

We all invest heavily in making our children smarter—there is no end to the number of products, gimmicks, books, and computer games designed to make them excel.  Why not bring back Home Ec. classes? The Waldorfians have the right idea—all children should learn to knit!  Not because we want more mismatched socks in the world, although that would be lovely, but because it turns out knitting and handwork provide a host of neurological and wellbeing benefits to people of all ages. Handwork, like sewing and knitting, provides an essential learning medium—not to mention the irresistible temptation for classmates to poke each other with sharpened sticks. Sewing requires creativity, which improves the brain's ability to grow new brain cells (though not necessarily those that remember where you put the car keys). As mental deterioration is a result of lost connection between neurons, sewing actually promotes mental growth. (Never mind the Ginko and Ginseng! Fetch your thimble and thread!)

Virtually nothing in the commercial world is trying to make children Kinder, despite all the trendy anti-bullying campaigns in schools.  Yet there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that the people who are most successful in this world are those that work well with others.  The charming, the gracious, the generous, the hard working—these, with their higher EQs and the emotional maturity that creates compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, acceptance—these are the ones living lives of Contentment, Productivity, and Prosperity.  Teaching virtues for their own sakes is laudable (Ok, Prudence, easy does it), but they are also profitable! Why are we not teaching these virtues?  Where are Patience, Resilience, and self-sacrifice being taught?  Who gives a damn what a person’s test scores are if she cannot have or be a friend? If he cannot understand and solve problems through collaboration and communication? I am convinced we learn these things first and best by Making and Failing. This is an important aspect of learning any trade or craft.  This is why apprenticeships last seven years.  That’s a lot of mistakes! What happens to people who want to Make Things but they are given messages that “No, it’s not safe to try that. You might not be good at it. It’s not safe to make a mistake. Follow the herd, little one, that’s it, right in the chute towards your local big-box.”  Our capitalism prompts us to Buy rather than Make what we want. What if What We Truly Want is only available through our own imaginations? At what point in our lives do we make that decision to consciously abstain from being Ourselves by denying the intersection of our skills and Desires for the sake of Convenience? It’s one thing to lack the desire. But to lack the skills? Shame on us. Our children need these skills.

The truth is we are facing a trades crisis in this country in everything from finish carpentry to iron work and stone-masonry.  Nowadays, when we say “artisan crafted” we think Beer. According to 2017 estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the number of tailors, dressmakers and custom sewers, excluding self-employed workers, in the United States declined 35% to 20,440 between 2007 and 2017. While our national workforce is projected to grow 7.4% in the next ten years, tailors, dressmakers, and seamstresses face a decline of 10.9% over the same period.  Most Tailors and seamstresses who retire are not being replaced at an equal rate. Many learned their skills from older generations in their families, or like me—“by guess and by golly,” not formal schooling.  If we do not teach ourselves how to sew our own buttons on, and pay ourselves well for doing it, then we inevitably leave a niche market open to enterprising and skilled people willing to labor for the crumbs at the bottom tier of our service industries. And trust me, it’s Crumbs: Those who tailor for clothing stores earn an average hourly wage of $14.38.  Seamstresses who work in the motion picture and video industry are the most highly compensated for their occupation at $19.76 per hour. Those who work at a dry cleaner or for laundry services earn average wages of $11.85 per hour.  (By contrast, hourly pay at McDonald's Restaurants Ltd. ranges from an average of $9.76 to $13.78 an hour.) We are paying menial wages for highly skilled and technical work.  In America, we demand this work, yet we do not Value it.  We would never want our children to do it.  We let other people’s children around the globe do it, while we groom ours for perpetual “education” and therapists’ couches because their creative spirits are thwarted. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey, India, El Salvador, Italy, Syria, Portugal and Argentina are teaching their children better than we are how to do work with their hands. There, the art of tailoring is learned at a very young age, as it should be, to become highly skilled.  We should Welcome these people from other lands and be immensely grateful for their knowledge and efforts until we get our act together and Make America Make again.

And we Must make America make again, or face a grim future: Have you not seen the Science Fiction movies or T.V. shows where technologically advanced People Of The Future parade about in geometric leotards, as if they are all on their way to gravity-free ballet class? It’s because our seamstresses will all be Dead by then and we will have to rely on computer-generated Xerox copies of spandex to clothe our nakedness. God knows what we will eat.  No wonder they are all slim.

The facts are plain. The Average age of a seamstress today is 50. Eighty percent of them are women. The average female salary is $26 an hour, the average male salary is $40, especially if they have beards and Italian accents—you know, the “Rag-a-toui Mafia.” Far from honoring and elevating and empowering “Women” and work, the past four decades of our educational system has churned out a gender-neutral spectrum of increasingly helpless consumers at the mercy of their own fly-buttons and whole generations of children are growing up without realizing the Utter Joy of installing bust pads in a gown and finding out they point the right way! (There is nothing sweeter!)  I love looking at people as if each one is his/her own work of Art.  It grieves me to see that by limiting Domestic Arts in schools, we are giving them fewer options and fewer colors with which to create their own magical and dynamic lives.

Making two-dimensional cloth fit three dimensional bodies can be savage work indeed.  It’s undeniable. Some days we are dehydrated from the sheer amount of Glitter in the shop. Some days we are tempted to name vexing customers after animals, vegetables, or exotic cheeses. Some days are enough to tempt me to run with scissors. But for all its crotch crud, chub rub, and the hot shit we accidentally ironed before we realized someone had crapped his pants, it’s not a bad way to earn a crust. I’m happy to share my crumbs.

I know if you read this blog regularly, you are a Maker, a Doer, and a Believer—or are drawn to such things.  So this rant is not for you personally. The season of gift-giving is coming up.  Please consider giving a gift you make yourself—whatever that might be.  If not, support a local artist. And don’t cough up a hairball at the cost of a hand-woven Alpaca scarf that took a local weaver 30 hours of her one precious life to make. It’s worth it! If you know a craft—share it with someone else! Teach! Give of your Spirit rather than bank account. Help grow those brains around you! And goodness knows, as a nation, we need to grow our brains quite a lot before we must endure yet another election cycle—if for nothing else than to be able to determine when those we admire are talking Rot.

 Be Well, my Darlings! Make Up!  Make Over! Make Out and Make On! Thank you for your Good Work!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Grateful for Gratitude

To Speak Gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven. –Johannes A. Gaertner

Greetings Dear Ones!

Just before closing time, the back doorbell starts to clang with an incessant, irritating jangle that penetrates every nerve of my spine, all the way to my feet, which are now running to make it stop.  I open the door and see the set face and pursed lips of one of our more familiar customers.  She is lithe and spry and perfectly capable of walking to the front door but she insists on leaning against the back buzzer until we come running every time.  She brushes past me, down the corridor, into the work space and announces that “Someone,” her eyes narrow and scan the shop for culprits, has hemmed her jacket sleeves a fraction too much and now she cannot wear the jacket.  She slips it on to show us.  It looks perfect. We all chime in and agree.  What is wrong? We wonder.  She extends her arms forward. “I can see just a little too much wrist when I do this,” she explains. “Hanging by my sides, yes, it looks fine, but out in front, it doesn’t.”

“Yes,” we explain, “but we take the measurement while the arm is hanging at your side.  This is perfect.”

“Well WHO goes around with their arms hanging by their sides all day long? No One!  I drive, I type, I eat… I need my arms out in front to do these things.”

“Fine,” we say. “Of course, we want you to be Happy. Of course we will fix this.  How much lower would you like these?”

“About an eighth of an inch would be perfect,” she says stiffly and turns to leave. This work, naturally, will be at no cost to her, since we “got it wrong” the first time. When she has marched out the back door again and slammed it, I look at the jacket more closely. Shit. Cut buttonholes!  This means the buttons at the wrist are not merely decorative.  They actually work.  This means that redoing this jacket to change it an eighth of an inch means we have to take both sleeves off at the shoulder again and adjust it there; we cannot simply let down a hem at the sleeve’s edge.  What a total pain in the arse… This will be hours of work, rather than minutes. It occurs to me as I hang the jacket on the hanger and put it on the rack of things to do, that I have never once heard this customer say “Thank you.” She has told us we are “The Best.” She has said she “would never consider going anywhere else” (oh, please!!!Why not???) and all sorts of “Compliments” like that over the years.  But I cannot ever once recall being Thanked.  I suppose she thinks we don’t need to be thanked when we are being paid.

I cannot tell you, in a service industry like ours, how Grateful I am for Gratitude.  It’s as good as a tip, to be honest.  Sometimes better.  We have been tipped with such disdain as to make us feel crummy for accepting the money—as if we are colluding in our own degradation.  And we have been thanked so kindly as to feel like we just earned a million bucks.  To see a customer’s eyes warmly alight with pleasure and recognition of a job well-done is one of the things that keeps me doing this sort of work.  Thanking really matters.  

This Thanksgiving week, we pause our hectic lives to take seriously our twin Patriotic Duties: Gluttony and Bargain Hunting. Thursday, we give thanks for all we have.  Friday, we go out and clobber each other in the malls for MORE.  The season of Spending Hysteria commences before the last bite of turkey can be digested.  It makes me wonder, if you aren’t thankful for what you have already, how can you hope to be thankful for what you get?  “It’s not about Getting,” says Prudence. “It’s about Giving!  This begins the Season of Giving.  Giving is what really counts.  You must give and not think of yourself.”   I call BS. The older I get, the more I feel Giving is overdone and overrated. 

Don’t get me wrong. I love it that we as a nation have a holiday just for Giving Thanks.  But Giving is only half of the equation. The circle of Giving requires Receivers.  Too many gifts are wasted because they are not received. What does Thanking mean? To me, it means Receiving. We open our eyes and fully Receive what people are doing for us, with us, because of us.  We taste the Love in the home baking, in the sweet potato casserole, and in your cousin’s willingness to sit at the kid’s table.   We also Receive the beauty of the environment—the frosty dawns and sunsets, the shimmer of fog on the lake, the way trees hold each others’ toes and hands, dancing silently along each side of the road as we drive… Meister Eckhart is quoted as saying “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”  I think this is true.

It’s important to count our blessings.  It’s the first step towards making our blessings count.  Because if you are truly grateful, what do you do? You share! When Giving come from our Gratitude, not in search of it, then we are making our gifts count.

These days, I am Grateful for quite a lot. I’ve been keeping a list, daily, for a long time now.  The list is way too long to post in its entirety, so I will only share a few of the things that stand out as relevant to my secret life as a seamstress. Some of these things, you will note, are rather tiny; others are huge.  I am Grateful for them all:

·        Good lighting

·        Bobbins that last for a whole seam

·        Finding the perfect match of thread color for a chartreuse bridesmaid’s gown

·        Threading a needle on the first try, without magnifying glasses, tweezers, bleeding, or cursing.

·        Discovering that someone ahead of me put all the right colors for my project on the Serger (which has four needles and four threads to change) Ya Beauty!!!

·        People who, when they poop their pants, wash them BEFORE bringing them in for us to fix.

·        People who call ahead and ask us if it is ok to bring in forty-three items on their next visit (it’s really NOT but if you call ahead, we don’t resent you as much as when you just show up and spontaneously announce that we will be spending the rest of the day watching you parade your by-gone-glad-rags…)

·        Anyone who brings us cookies!

·        Prudence is thankful for well-behaved children who honor their mothers and fathers and who don’t stick all the pins from the pin cushions into the waiting area furniture.

·        People who do not use the unventilated dressing room as the location to relieve themselves of the effects of last night’s chili cook-off. (Have I mentioned this room is UN-ventilated! Look at the ceiling, people, before you let go!)

·        When the cutting table has no glitter on it (this is a RARE gift indeed!)

·        Realizing that the whole zipper is not broken, only the pulley is, so I won’t have to be cutting into a down jacket and releasing forty-five pounds of fluff and feathers into the shop afterall!

·        Sober, well-grounded customers who talk neither too little nor too much about how they came to have this particular garment and its problems.

·        People who address (A-dress?) honestly their needs and limitations and agree to work willingly within the parameters of what is Possible.

·        My dearly beloved co-workers who so generously share their tools, skills, and knowledge with me on a daily basis.  They are amazing and inspiring.  I “receive” with respect and admiration all that they have given me of themselves in the past five years.  I could not be luckier to work with such creative and talented ladies!

·        Easy customers with easy problems.

·        Tough customers with tough problems.

Yes, seriously.  I am grateful for the lady with the cut buttonholes and her lack of gratitude.  She is responsible for the expansion of my soul far more than she could ever possibly guess, and far more so than the easily beloved creatures who smile and make every transaction so simple.   I am reminded of the quote that says something like “The people most in need of love are showing it in the most UN-loveable ways…” or something to that effect. I love her crabby attitude because it teaches me something about how loveable each one of us could be if we stopped thinking that the length of our sleeves is what is repellant to others, rather than the sour expression on our faces.  I ponder what would happen if this woman loved Herself—was fully grateful for the Gift of Herself—if all her fussing over her sleeves would matter so much?  If she had an ‘Attitude of Gratitude,’ how could her life transform?  How could mine? How could any of ours?

It sounds odd to say—in the midst of a national conversation about “Narsicism”—that I am profoundly grateful for Myself. I’m glad I’m here.  Having lost dear friends over the years, I know that Tomorrow is not promised.  I’m Lucky. I may not be here for a long time so I have decided to have a Good time, rather than a “perfect” time.  The more I love myself, the less I care what shape or size my bum is, or whether or not my hair looks like an uprooted tree on fire.  I’m beginning to be delighted with All of me—even the bit that totally forgets everything but half the chorus to a song or where I put the wallet and car keys.  Loving others is making it easy to forgive myself for being Me and loving Me is making it way easier for me to forgive others—including those I may have given birth to who have wracked up so many parking fines in Boston that I have had to confiscate the car.  I’m excited to wake up each day and say to myself, “well, my Dear, what are you going to get into today?”  It’s fun to spend a whole day with myself, laughing at my own nonsense.

Loving myself also makes me Most Grateful for you, dear readers, who are willing to go with me on this Journey—to the fellow travelers who listen, read, laugh—who write back to me or share these posts with others who may enjoy them.  About 64% of you actually open your emails each week, to spend a few moments with my nonsense, and I am both surprised and profoundly touched and grateful for that.  I’m grateful that the work of my hands can hang in your closets and that the work of my Spirit can hang in your thoughts.  With great humility, I appreciate so much your willingness to Receive.

Enjoy your feasting,  Dear Ones, wherever you may be.  Know the prayer of my heart is “Thank YOU.” Yes, YOU. Receive that as best you can and remember Oscar Wilde’s wisdom: “After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”

With Hearty Thanks and Much, much joyous Love,

Yours aye,

Nancy

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