Only Temporary

Greetings Dear Ones!

Several of my dear customers have what I consider to be one of the hardest “side jobs” imaginable—the care of their elderly parents.  For a few of them, this is a full-time, round-the-clock, round-the-night, round-the-bend endeavor.   As one so articulately put it, “My biggest problem is that in order to keep up with them, I kind of have to think like them—to anticipate their next need or their next move (or movement)—so I have let a part of my brain turn to mush.  I go at their pace, keep their schedule, talk with their words. To my horror, I notice I am now a fifty-something person behaving as though I am eighty. When I get around my own age group, I no longer switch back!”

Another, rushing back in to collect the shoes that her father had left behind, said “Is it me? Am I insane?  I feel like I am losing not just shoes, but my mind!”

“No,” I tell her honestly. “It’s not you, it’s definitely them.  They look like a lot of work and you are doing it beautifully.  It’s filial piety at its best.  Keep at it and remember to take care of yourself too. It’s a tough job to give all the time without losing yourself as well.”

She melts a little.  I see her shoulders drop.

“Is this what having a baby is like?” she asks. “I never had kids, so I have no idea.  But right now, I think I have two giant toddlers down there, wandering around the parking lot, arguing with each other and trying to get into a car that is not theirs, while here I am with the keys.”

“No,” I say. “Taking care of aging parents is not at all like having a baby.  The chores are similar but the emotions are not at all.  A child falling over as she figures out how to take her first steps is a joy; having a mother pretending she hasn’t pooped in her pants is not.  Both require all the love and grit and patience you can muster.  I’ll bet you feel absolutely wrecked at the end of each day.”

Her eyes fill with tears she brushes quickly away.  “The saddest part is that I know this is only temporary and I don’t want it to end.”

On another day, a man slips a piece of paper across my table as I write up the instructions to my future self on how to mend his father’s clothing.  I open it after they depart.  It says “Thank you for treating Dad like a person.” Now I’m the one weeping…

I transition, as I must, to wedding gowns, sport coats, and hemming navy trousers.  One school boy has eight pair.  His mother is clever.  She knows (as did Ringo Star) that from September until June, there are “eight days a week.”   I turn up huge, three-and-a-half-inch hems and stitch them lightly with large, easy to remove stitches.  This job is only temporary.  This boy is of an age where he will eat the contents of the fridge on a daily basis and need everything let down again by December.

On the farm, the chickens are starting to molt and look ratty; they toss their knickers all over the coop.  Their clothing  transitions are as unflattering as mine, as we scramble into warmer gear that doesn’t fit yet. The Autumn Equinox is upon us and the encroaching darkness is an invitation to hurry at the chores. Due to a broken toe, I’ve been struggling to work the steers. I tie them up and groom them instead.  When I finally get them back out on the road, I can barely stuff Gus’s chubby neck into his wooden bow.  He has been eating like a schoolboy and his collar is tight.  Still hungry, he and Otis keep bending down to lick the driveway.  I find myself irritated by this constant distraction of theirs.  What are they trying to eat? Leaves??? Where did all these leaves come from? I had not noticed until now that small black cherry leaves are leaving their summer hang—the first to begin the fall flutter.  They are all over the driveway.  I am asking these boys to walk over and ignore a delicious snack. They can’t manage it.

Suddenly, Change seems to be everywhere.

I look around at all the cow candy still on the trees. The Oaks and Maples are holding firm but blanching slightly.  There is no “color” yet—except green. I pause and stare up at the tower of bark and branches above us.  I am amazed to think of such a vast organism nourished by such individually insignificant things.  One by one, they are nothing.  Collectively, they have fed a giant, like so many individual cheerios going into a teenager.   So it is with our tiny daily habits, our routines, our simple, unconscious choices that create a Life.   

On the days when I wake up more than usually fizzled and frazzled, in a new season that is changeable, fitful, maddening as I am myself, when the days are choked with too many demands –I feel like a tiny leaf consumed by curious, unthinking cows.  I wonder what is The Point in all this over-busy-fied, eternally temporary, Overwhelming Smallness that just leads to death and pooped undies?  

Somewhere, at some cellular level, I understand that the very ordinary, mundane, small, and boring experiences are the gateway to what is Holy. But I need to remind myself, again.  I pick up a single leaf and hold it up to the light.  Gus sticks out his tongue, as if to receive Communion.   In this final exhale of a single leaf, I behold what it means to belong to family, to community, to Decency and democracy.  Everything is Connected.  This is US, each of us—caring for our parents and children and oxen and friends, doing our little bits to be kind, to be civil and respectful, to remind each other that we are human, making sugar from sunlight to nourish and support a greater Whole, without which we would cease to be.

A woman comes in to have her coat sleeves hemmed.  She’s not sure if she will even keep the coat or donate it to a local charity shop. I turn up the excess and leave it under the lining.  It lends stability to the cuff, and maybe the next owner will be grateful.  When possible, I do not make the changes permanent.   How can we change if our choices have been cut?

Transitions are tricky. Sometimes we must endure hard phases of loss and growth.  Sometimes we get choices, often we don’t. Nothing in this world is permanent—not monarchs, not parents or presidents, especially not seasons.  Like hemlines and coat cuffs, we are designed for change.  Ideals don’t.  Value doesn’t.  Kindness, steadfastness, humility and gentleness, Small Persistence over time—these are always the answers.  Turbulence, Transitions, Violence—these are only ever questions. What will we do next?

My birthday is coming up.  I am embracing the passage of Time, even though I know it might lead one day to my doing things that amuse, embarrass, or exhaust my children.  (I can’t wait to get back at them for once telling a cashier ‘”Mummy gets to wear fancy Big-Girl pants because she does all her poops in the potty!”’)  For now, I am going to live each day like it’s a chance to be a Summer leaf about to soar.  I’m choosing a new Theme Song, a new slogan, and a new secret nickname for myself.  I’m going to keep Mending.  I might even Get Organized.  (Ha! If I do, it will only be Temporary!)

Keep up your Good Work, Dear Ones!  Nothing you do is too small. Thank you for reading, sharing, subscribing.  I love you sew much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Eggstra

“Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find—Nothing.” –Aesop, “The Goose with the Golden Eggs”

Greetings Dear Ones!

Me and zippers are at it again.  One customer alone dropped four anoraks on me this week—all of which need new zippers.  If there’s one thing I have learned about zippers, it’s that when someone comes in and tells you one is broken, they are almost always Right.  But when they tell you how to fix it, they are almost always Wrong.  People have no idea how to fix zippers but they will stand there and tell you what they think you should do—something I find hilarious, vexing, and endearing. “Why don’t you try this at home? Why drag it here if you know so much?” Prudence wants to know.  She should talk.  She’s a fine one for telling other people how to fix everything.  She knows exactly how other people should conduct themselves—how they should eat, how they should drink (they shouldn’t!), and how they should never dance the tango at a bus stop.

One man was so intent on watching me replace a pulley that I had to be careful not to snip off his nose with my pliers as he hovered inches above the coat.  He was dictating as he was observing, as if he were leaving some sort of audio memo to his future self from the part of himself that already knew how to fix the problem.

This is a Thing I have been noticing a lot lately—that we are so often Correct about something being Wrong but we are stymied by how to fix things.  Sometimes things are going wrong so slowly that we don’t even have any idea they are running amok. One day, we wake up far off course, bewildered by the state of chaos in which we find ourselves. Sometimes, things are going wrong for the “best” of reasons…

Take the Egg Lady.  She is a sweet soul who adores chickens and wanted to have a whole flock of twenty-four heritage breed birds.  A few years ago, she built nesting boxes and an avian palace and fussed over her hatchlings.

“Why have so many for just one person?” friends asked her.

“Everything on my little farm must earn its keep,” she said.  “These chicks will produce enough eggs to pay for their own food with the money they earn. And I will get to eat the leftovers for free!”

It seemed like a charming plan.  In no time, the chicks became pullets and began to lay.  The egg lady had no trouble finding customers who signed up for “egg-scriptions.” They adored having fresh eggs delivered to their doorsteps. The chickens earned plenty of money for treats as well as sacks of grain. Everyone thrived. The customers were so happy they told others, who asked if they could sign up for fresh eggs too. The egg lady had just enough eggs each week for all the new customers but that meant she could no longer eat them herself.  That’s Ok, she thought.  She could eat oatmeal for breakfast. She likes oatmeal.

Then a few chickens went missing—perhaps a hawk strike, perhaps a fox.  One died of a mysterious illness and had to be buried in the garden near some rhubarb.  The hours of sunlight in the day began to fade as autumn came on so the chickens no longer laid as many eggs.  (Chickens lay according to the light cycle.) The day came when the egg lady was busy filling her cartons with eggs and she came up short.   

“Oh NO!” she thought.  “My poor customers! What shall I do?  I know… I’ll stop at the co-op on my way to deliver the eggs and just buy what I need to fill out the cartons.”  She only needed three eggs and she knew the co-op sold eggs singly.  On the way to her deliveries, she stopped at the co-op and the smell of breakfast sandwiches grabbed her by the nose and led her to the heat lamps where wonderful vegetarian breakfast burritos were sunning themselves like plump (vegetarian) seals on a beach.  She had not had time to make oatmeal that morning, so she bought herself a burrito. With the Egg money.  It was delicious. She had forgotten how amazing scrambled eggs with cheese and onions and peppers could be.

That week, she had to buy three eggs.  She put one store-bought egg in each of three of her cartons—of course they were free-range and local and of the highest quality, just like hers, so she didn’t mention it to her customers. The next week it was five.  Soon, she was having to buy a dozen. The daylight dwindled, her own chickens were going into rest mode and she was now hooked on weekly breakfast burritos from the co-op.

Unfortunately, with a bird flu raging in other parts of the country, the price of eggs skyrocketed, meaning that the eggs from the co-op then cost more per dozen than she was charging for “her” eggs so she began operating at a loss.  While she couldn’t afford to eat the eggs from her own chickens, she was ever so happy to continue pounding down the local burritos. Yes, at an ever-increasing loss.

“What if I take this to its logical extreme and come to a point where I have no eggs at all? I tell no one; I just drive to the local co-op, buy dozens of eggs, hand deliver them to my egg people, pass them off as my eggs yet charge them LESS money than I pay, and then wind up destitute over this enterprise? Do I need to get a side hustle to pay for this side hustle? How will I feed the chickens?” she wondered frantically. “Surely this is not a good business model…”

But how to fix it? Does she raise her prices? Does she confess the truth? Does she cancel everything and let people go back to buying their own damn eggs wherever they choose?  She agrees that the situation has become unsustainable, not to mention absurd. The egg lady is in a quandary because she hates “disappointing” people. (And chickens.) So she chickens out. She buys eggs on the sly, and eats store-bought burritos with money she doesn’t have.  

I love this Egg Lady.  

There is a part of her in every Artist I have ever known.  This is the part filled with old mis-beliefs that if we tell the real truth, the thing we most need or want to say… that we might hurt someone. (This is assuming that we “know” what might cause hurt. We actually don’t.) We try to “magic” our way out of things, even though that magic puts us in hoc. We take on too much, spread ourselves too thin, and then refuse to admit what is truly going on.  What does it take to trust that when we are fully honest, we are also our Kindest?  It does our fellow humans a grave disservice to think that they will not believe Science—that chickens do not lay all year unless you mess with their lighting.  All Natural things cycle: flowers bud, bloom, fruit, then go dormant—and only in that order. When we live close to the land, we live according to Nature’s Laws.  We are NOT a grocery store.  “Instruct the Ignorant!” brays Prudence. “Teaching farm truths to city folks is not just showing them respect it is a spiritual work of mercy.”  

She is disgusted with the egg lady.

When pressed, the Egg Lady feels both accountable and resentful in twisty ways that are complicated by her refusal to face Truth. She thinks she is doing the best “for her customers,” but IS she??? I have my doubts.  I think she is just trying to Look Good, which is just a way of disguising shame.  At their best, these eggs are wholesome farm-fresh eggs, but at their worst, they are just Lies, destined to be hard boiled or fried. Prudence makes haste to “Counsel the Doubtful and Admonish the Sinners.”  (Her Spiritual works of Mercy contain no actual mercy.) She is so invested in being Good that she becomes monstrous, bitter, and cruel.  (Then she can never apologize because she cannot acknowledge that she has not been Good.)  Ironically, she keeps trying to be Good in the same misguided way the egg lady does—both of them without actual reverence for What Is or genuine mercy for those they purport to love. 

With her mouth full of breakfast burritos she should not be buying, the Egg lady tries to tell us that she is ok with her “funny little sacrifices.” She was raised to be “Unselfish.”  Like Prudence, incandescent selflessness is her gold standard.  I rebel.  I think incandescent “self-less-ness” is one of the most selfish things we can impose on others or ourselves.  It bleeds us dry in the end.  If we have no “self” then we become reliant on others to supply whatever “us” they permit to exist and it’s usually not much, unless we rob them. This is nonsense. What is the good of counterfeit selflessness that, taken to extreme, causes one to lose the farm? Who says that her customers deserve her eggs more than she does?  I want to bop this lady over the head and hug her all at the same time.

Pleasing people can become a trap. I say this as a member of the service/artist/artisan world whose livelihood depends on customer satisfaction. I say this as one who is similarly addicted to pleasing and over-giving.  I have observed that many of our fellow “Creatives” feel an intense sense of noblesse oblige to share their gifts, their joys, their talents relentlessly—to the point of accidental depletion, exhaustion, and poverty of every kind—including the poverty of ideas.   Worst of all, they don’t find their gifts worthy of protection from other distractions.  It’s not wolves but well-meaning “customers” we let in to rob the hen house.  There is a woman whose novel I cannot wait to read but it does not get written because she is over-busy-fied with a myriad of community-building hobbies and distractions taking her off course. These are “worthy things” yet that make her operate at a loss.  And until we get that novel out of her, we ALL lose.  We lose the best of HER. Likewise, there is a musician whose rough tracks I have been listening to with breathless awe for ten years now.  He still doesn’t have a CD out yet.  He fritters his eggs away by laying down back-up tracks for other musicians.

Sometimes the act of “becoming” begins with the act of “overcoming.” Saying NO is a form of saying Yes.  Sometimes we need to hold on to a few of our precious eggs to nourish our own spirits. They cannot be for sale, especially if we don’t have them!  Thinking we are blessing people with sacrifices they never asked us to make is just plain silly. But we all do it.  And “giving” to them deprives us all of something Greater.

As we Mend, may we remember to nourish ourselves. May we give, yes, but Self-fully rather than Self-less-than-ly.  May we not sell out on what is most precious to us. If we are to be true Piece-makers and Make-Peacers, restorers, healers, sewists, storytellers, and lovers of every kind, may we remember to be humane—both to our chickens and ourselves as members of the Natural World.  It is unnatural to bloom incessantly without rest.  Fall is coming.  The harvest has been great but so is being fallow, getting small, returning to the earth to rot a little and renew.

Now, Dear Ones, how would you like your eggs—scrambled? Fried? Boiled?

Or… GOLDEN?

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy

Character

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. —Jane Goodall

Greetings Dear Ones!

The wretched state of our national politics has me spending a lot of time considering old-fashioned notions of Character.  What IS character anyway? Is it not required in politics? In Media?  Are we currently a weaker, more deplorable cast of creatures than at any other point in our history?  Does Character matter anymore?  From a moral as well as literary perspective, my little window-seat next to the world has provided some fine views of Characters, as well as valuable opportunities for me to work on my own.  Built of “crooked timber” myself, I have many, many of these valuable opportunities to look in the mirror—not just to realize I put my shirt on inside-out—but to enter the Fitting Room of Humility in the hopes of emerging… well, Mended.  My challenge these days is not to see myself as a sinner, but rather a joyful warrior—a mirthful, even zestful combatant-in-training alongside my fellow humans in our local Virtue Gym.  (Some of us are doing too much burping and not enough burpees. )  

For a start, any writing 101 class or tailoring shop will reveal many types of characters:  Some are static (all manner of lint, cat hair, and stray threads will stick to them), some are flat (these will require bust pads in their prom gowns), some are round (these will need the waist let out and the ankles tapers on their trousers), and some are stock (off the rack fits them just fine; they don’t even know why they came in here in the first place.)  My favorites, of course, are the Dynamic ones.  These are usually the Main Characters in their own storytelling—protagonists, if you will. (This does NOT mean they like tags.  Most of them ask me to remove them, as they scratch the necks of sensitive people already embroiled in personal drama.)  These people are going through a major change or journey, learning a Valuable Life Lesson (such as you should have ordered this gown two years ago, before you had even met your betrothed!)  These people are energetic, powerful, active, progressive, productive, vibrant and kinetic—especially if they are leaving for college in a week and just realized their pants don’t fit.  The word dynamic comes to us from the Greek dunamis, which means “power” and is pronounced like a person from New Jersey saying “do not miss” with a mouthful of pizza.  “Does Not Miss” is a pretty good way of describing  Power.  

There are some simple ways to asses character: Is the person honest? Are they reliable? Are they competent? Kind? Compassionate?  Are they capable of taking the blame and making amends when necessary? Are they able to persevere through challenges?  Are they modest and humble, or boastfully grandiose?  Are they pacific  (i.e. from California or Oregon)? Seriously, can they modulate their personal anger to keep interactions civil, serene, or professional? (as well as be groovy and hang 10 in good surf?)

Here are just two of the Characters I met this week:

A flirtatious philosopher comes shuffling into the shop with a big smile on his face. “How old do you think I am?” he says, grinning.

“Sixty-two” is my pert reply.  He laughs and gestures with his thumb for me to go “up.”

“Sixty-three?”  His thumb: “higher.”

“Seventy-three?”  His thumb: “higher.”

“Eighty-three?”

 “Almost,” he says, “but I’ll take it.”

“Well, Sir,” I say, “you don’t look a day over sixty two.”

“Go ahead and kick me in the shin!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Go ahead.  It won’t hurt me.”

He proceeds to lift up his pant leg and reveal a prosthetic limb.

“You can’t even tell, can you?!” he announces with glee, “And I can run like a son-of-a-bitch.  I just made it up all those stairs.”  

“How did you lose your leg?” I ask tentatively, uncertain if that is ok for me to do. His face flickers and then reassembles the smile.

“Lost it in a bet,” he says laughing and slapping his thigh.  He pauses for effect and looks deep into my eyes. “Young lady, you gotta live every day. One day, it ain’t gonna happen anymore.  I only retired ten years ago because my leg kept falling off when I had to kneel down to work.  I was in [a trade] so now I have to find other ways to amuse myself.” He winks. “I keep busy!”  We both laugh—me weakly, him uproariously.  He launches into a series of pretty awful jokes.

Apparently he is here to have some pants hemmed and to do a full, stand-up, one-man comedy routine sharing his robust world view with an audience of one haggard seamstress with too much to do. I grit my teeth and play the laugh track in all the right places.  Prudence is rapping my knuckles and hissing “Honor thy father! This man is an elder; he deserves Respect. Besides, he has only one leg! Show mercy! Show some strength of character! ” I try.   I pull through, barely.  He is alternately hilarious, boorish, and invasive.  Mainly, he’s lonely and needs love.  Who doesn’t?  When he starts telling me he lost his hair because he did too many high speed u-turns under the sheets, I decide to get the shepherd’s crook and haul him off stage.  It’s time for him to go.

“Well, Hon,” he says winking at me as he is leaving, “you got my number there.  If you ever get in trouble, call me—if I can’t help you, I’d love to join you!”

The next young man, though appearing reserved, courteous, and cheerful, in is in a panic.  He has driven an hour to get to the shop because I told him over the phone that I could get his wedding suit altered before his own wedding this Saturday. He’s a sweet guy in his very early thirties with intense brown eyes and a kind face.  He ordered this suit six months ago but when it came in, it was not the right suit.  The sales clerk took it back, ordered another one, and it has just come in today.  Only, instead of it being a 42 Regular, they have sent him a 44 Long. The wedding is four days away.   The pants have a 38 waist and need to come in 5 inches, which is an impossible feat, given that the back pockets will overlap if we do that.  The coat I can alter but the pants are a deal breaker.  On closer inspection, they are not even made correctly.  One pocket is already only one inch from the center seam and the other is three inches.   There is something seriously wrong with these pants.   They cannot be done.  He looks stricken.

“Deep breaths,” I say.  “The good news is that you can get married in your underwear and the wedding will still be legitimate.  You’re marrying the love of your life and that is what counts.  This is just nonsense.  We’ll sort it out.  First things first, take a picture of my tape measure next to these pants and tell the store where you bought them that these are coming back.”

He calls the store.  They refuse to acknowledge that anything is improper with the suit other than that it is unfortunately too long.  Their sense of “customer service” is to deny any wrong-doing on their part and insist “a decent seamstress should be able to fix that for you.” 

I laugh, not politely.  This is the best joke I have heard all day.

“Our in-house person could have done it,” they maintain.   

“Maybe their magic wand is more magical than mine,” I say dryly. “Unfortunately, my magic needs to obey the laws of physics. I should definitely go there and take some lessons!”

The Groom-to-be asks to speak to the manager.  Eventually, he gets in touch with the owner of the store, who refuses to acknowledge that the photo of the pants with my tape measure is correct. 

“I’ll have to see them in person before I can authorize a return,” he snipes.  There is no apology and no compensation for the fact that they have messed up this man’s order not once, but twice.  This young man bears it all patiently, stoically.  His only concern is disappointing his bride, should he have to show up to the event in his pajamas.   I ask him what he does for work.  It’s grueling work—work that takes incredible study, skill, personal fortitude, and deals with the general public in a venue where mistakes are potentially fatal and simply not allowed.

I am humbled by his dogged imperturbability.  He shrugs.  He’s used to dealing with people, with disasters.  He possesses an impressive inner cohesion.  There is no “temper” in his temperament.  He is not blown off course by storms.  He sets off for a town thirty miles away to see if a Bridal shop there has a suit he can use by Saturday. 

“Honestly, I don’t give [some poo] about wearing a suit.  But I really want [my bride] to have the day of her dreams.  I want all the photos for years to come to look good. I’m going to do what it takes to make that happen for her.” 

I feel so lucky to come across these Characters in my daily work.  I am blessed and buoyed by those who face both silly and serious challenges in their lives with such cheerful courage.   Sometimes, we might not notice these people—especially those who are ordinarily reserved and dignified (and not inviting you to kick them in the shins).   As I continue my own Mending, I begin to see that what hurts us gives us  opportunities to forgive or learn compassion.  What exercises power over us teaches us how to take our power back.  What we fear comes to teach us courage.  The things we cannot control give us opportunities to choose—do we Let Go? Or do we drive on, in blind faith that we can overcome any challenge? Until we do.  (When this young man says “I do,” we know for damn sure… He DOES.)

That’s an awesome thing for a humble little seamstress—one who is flat, static, round, and dynamic to the point of scattershot—to witness on her Journey to the cutting table.  I love these Characters who lead me to Love.  The best Love of all is that which shows me how to be a better person without changing me into someone other than myself.  I do believe we are all here to help each other Mend.  As my new one-legged pal says “And You gotta laugh! Cause one day, you’re gonna wake up and it ain’t going to happen anymore.”

Happy Mending, Dear Ones!  Thank you for your Good Work! 

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy

An Inside Job

“The one thing you cannot take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

—Victor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning

Greetings Dear Ones!

I’ve been asked to do a lot of Inner Work recently—replacing bombed out linings on jackets, cloaks, and vintage dresses.  The outer layers still look good, especially in the case of one woman’s much-beloved beloved leather jacket, but the linings are shot, with insides hanging in vertical tatters.   What goes up against our skins is generally not as robust as the outer fabric.  It tends to be something softer, silkier, able to deal with friction.   Because it is more fragile it wears out faster. One man wants me to replace the lining in his sleeves with the same warm woolen I am using on the body of his winter coat.  “I can’t,” I say, “You would never get your arm in and out easily.  Sleeves must be slippery.”  Friction on the inside creates a lot of unnecessary wear and tear—on both people and garments.

A person brings in a costume for some Great Event that needs to be altered.  Being a “costume” and not a regular garment, the inside is just hacked and patched together with big stitches.  It looks great on the outside (apart from the fact that it does not fit) but inside, it looks as though it was assembled in a blender.  How many of us are in that kind of shape right now?  I know I am having days like that!  Are you?  My inner linings are ready for the rag bag.

It’s the dog days of summer and I am wanting to lie panting in the grass under the coolness of a fully-leafed Oak, digesting the latest sweet corn bones I have been gnawing on.  I want to swing in a hammock and ride the puffy white clouds with my eyes, dreaming wide awake.  I resent the fact that I have to deal with a mountain of thigh-sized zucchini that seem to have appeared in the garden without me noticing.  I’m not kidding.  They were all hiding under very big leaves, silently plotting their invasion. Who did this to me? Who planted all this stuff?  I have cucumbers the size of shoes.  Spring Nancy (that meddlesome cow!) “wanted a garden.”  She planted a ton of stuff, piled a bunch of composted poopy on it, and then disappeared, leaving me, months later, to deal with this bionic  explosion.  Pumpkin and squash vines have escaped their fenced area and are now roaming the earth like a teenager’s closet full of clothes throwing up all over the floor.  

August Nancy does not want this garden.  She is sick of laboring-- first over coats, pants, and wedding gowns, then over mountains of garden produce.   A blueberry patch is a relentless mistress.   The tomatoes are an impenetrable  jungle. We haven’t even started on the orchard yet.  Apples, peaches, and pears are hanging like sweet time bombs on every branch.   The steer are standing on tiptoes, leaning as far over the fence as they can manage, hoping for “drops.” Fall.  Fall is coming.  And all this work is “Summer.”

A woman comes in with a bridesmaid gown.  It’s burgundy. This is for a wedding in October, which seems to be sometime next week.  She wants me to hem it and cut the strings off at the back of her neck.  The dress plunges to her navel in the front and to her thong the back.  She has to use body tape to keep her breasts covered. These “strings” are ties that hold the shoulders together.  If I cut them off, there will be nothing to hold this dress up.  The sides will fall asunder like a freshly cleaved zucchini.   I explain that I cannot cut them.  She does not understand why the dress will not stay up without these ties.  I can tell she thinks I am being stubborn.  She bites her lip and looks down and sideways at the mirror.

I have a similar conversation with a bride who wants all the boning removed from her strapless gown.  “It digs in,” she grumbles. “It makes the dress feel way too tight.”  I tell her I can let the dress out but I cannot remove the boning, at least not all of it.  “You need internal structure.  We build a strapless gown upward by balancing it all off the hip.  It must be tight and it must have boning or it won’t support you.” She looks sad.  Internal structure does not seem to be her thing.  She wants a wedding gown that feels like her yoga pants. I get it.  I am in the mood to rebel against all Imperatives.

Things that look effortless on the outside often take a lot of work on the inside.  We need structure. What the world sees is not what we live with on the inside.  I think often about the quote from William Arthur Ward: “Happiness is an inside job.”  (Sometimes, I interpret that as “happiness is getting to work indoors during a heat wave, especially when you can avoid looking at zucchini.”)  I sit indoors on bright, cloudless days—days I want to spend swimming in a waterfall—with my needle and thread, picking through and mending the inner workings of people’s garments and think about Inner Work.  It’s definitely time to do some.

Inner Work is savage stuff. 

But we need it.  We need an inside to comfort and support the outside just as much as we need a Left to support a Right (and all rights!) and vice versa.  We need what comes close to us to be soft, resilient, supple, and supportive.  The inner work is what holds it all together smoothly.  Just ask any woman who has forced her torso into some excruciating version of gut-be-gone “foundation wear.”

I think about how we torture ourselves with thoughts and undergarments…how we compare ourselves to Others instead of who we used to be or might be yet.  Happiness is not in the having or not having of zucchini but in how we accept responsibility for our own experience.  We can pause and notice what is magical all around us—how a few seeds and dried cow poop can create so much nourishment in just one season.   And we can choose to share, rather than grumble.

A new acquaintance asked me recently “Do you ever think you actually Change? Or do you just remain the “You” you always were?” I think seasons change, gardens grow, and the fruits of our dreams and labor develop.  As people, we are a mix of all—seasons, dreams, growth, development, and also the shear wear and tear of Time.  Courage enables us to reveal and mend what it is we hide within.  It brings me back to linings.  What do we carrying next to our skin, where only a seamstress can see it?  Are we like medieval saints with hair shirts on beneath our summer frocks? Are we giving off the aroma of freshly-roasted martyrs?

I realize I have been creating too much drama around all the “work” I have to do.  Work is just a nasty word for stuff you have to do anyway, but without the joy of it. When I accept who I am and The Way Things Are—I accept the things that are out of my control, the Things I Cannot Change, I get a tiny bit happier.  This (current stress) is not all MY fault. (Let’s blame Former Nancy.  That little trollop was a Nice Person who said “yes” to way too much and thought the back yard might look nice slip-covered in pumpkins.)

When I need to make a lining fit—I measure it against itself.  I take out the old lining and use it as a pattern.  I don’t just randomly make a new lining that has no context to the former.  The other thing that is important about linings is that they need to have “give.”  They need to allow for ease of movement.  Often, they are looser, designed to float and adapt within the main outer shell (unless that outer shell happens to be strapless. See above).  We need things just a little bigger on the inside than the outside.

Likewise, we need to upgrade ourselves by comparing ourselves to who we were yesterday, not anything (or anyone) else.   Otherwise, we won’t get a precise fit, tailored properly to our own unique proportions.   The more desperately we try to be “something else” the more uncomfortable and unworthy we will feel.  The more we try to force ourselves to be what we are not, the lonelier life becomes.   When we say “I want to be exactly as I am, only better,” that’s like getting a brand new inner lining that feels good next to our private tenderness, without changing what others may see.  We are just quietly, secretly, lovingly, gratefully Happier.   That’s the most rewarding kind of Inner Work of all.

After all these soothing thoughts and insights, yesterday, after a long hot day in the shop, I came out to my car and just about split my pants. There, on my car…you guessed it…a ZUCCHINI!  Someone at the mill had put one on every windshield in the parking lot.  Talk about letting our Good Intentions (and zucchinis) get so out of control we feel compelled to inflict them on others.  Yikes! I had to drive the whole way home with that thing taunting me.

Well, I guess it’s time to close this off for now.  I need to do battle with at least twelve zucchini.  If you don’t hear from me next week, they won.

Keep up your Good Work! May your inner linings be Soft, Supportive, Gentle, Free, Joyful…

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy

Overheated...

Greetings Dear Ones!

The good news about having a vocation that requires one to labor over a steam iron during a heat wave is that pretty much anything else feels cooler when you are done.   It’s been a second week of grumpishness from out-of-state customers personally incensed that I do not have air-conditioning in the second-story sauna I call my shop.  When I point out that the windows are nine feet high and sealed in with screens that do not open, they just stand there pop-eyed, gaping like airless fish flopping on a boat deck.  The work space is the size of a galley kitchen; it’s not like a floor unit would work.  “You should get one anyway and mount it high on the wall and let the cold air cascade down all over you,” says one who fancies himself an engineer. “Cold air sinks, you know.”

Between my farm and my “shop-auna” Prudence has been gloating about all the money I save not having a gym/spa membership. Who needs it?  I’ve been opening my pores and enjoying all the delightful health benefits of mud baths and sweat lodges that my dear Finnish friend used to extol so highly.   She’s the one who insisted it is pronounced “sow-nah” not “saw-naw.” Unfortunately, my “sow-nah” is not conveniently located near a dunking pond and my attempts to run naked down the hall and plunge into the nearest body of water, in this case a standard bathroom sink, were not met with kindness from the building management.  I have had to resort to misting myself gently with the plant mister I use to dampen stubborn collars.  Then I stand in front of a fan.  Sometimes I wear a wet kerchief around my neck.  It’s not quite the same as having a summer home on a lake but it will do.

Some customers resign themselves heroically to the heat with the typical stoicism of New Englanders, (who have learned their stoicism in bitter cold). They confide ingenious tips for cooling the room: “Open the windows all night and run the fans so that you get the room filled with Night Air.  Then close it all up in the morning; trap that air and draw the shades.  If you keep things dark, it will feel cooler.  Try not to move around too much.”

Bless them; they are so kind!  I just smile and refrain from mentioning that I am a Seamtress—a hot iron and plenty of daylight are non-negotiable in my line of work.  Pretending to be nocturnal would just tempt me to read, eat cheerios, and sleep. Moving fast, however, is always strictly optional (unless of course one has inadvertently seared a bit of menopausal belly flab that somehow flopped out onto the ironing board).

“It’s not the heat, anyway,” the New Englanders sigh; “It’s the humidity.”  They look upon me with sympathy and pity, which my inner damsel-in-distress relishes—she loves looking heroic and pathetic in the eyes of others, even if she has to look like something a cat spit out to do it.  In the narrowed eyes of Prudence, she is a true slacker.  (Prudence is the wet blanket that does not cool.)

“You would never have burned your stomach like that if it hadn’t been hanging out in the first place,” she snaps.  “Let’s get back to work. Stop whimpering.” 

Despite the heat, the brides keep coming for their fittings.  One poor gal, whose dress has a corset back, had to endure being laced up while I watched small dots of sweat connect with larger dots and eventually become a trickle down the riverbed of her spine, the way one watches raindrops on a windshield.  “Well,” she says once she is all trussed up, “I hope the wedding day is cooler.  But even if it isn’t, I guess I have to take what comes from that day forward, right?”

“In sickness and in health… for richer and poorer… in heat AND humidity…” We laugh.  She has a beautiful smile.   She’s marrying a farmer so we chat about hay and whether or not their recently rescued donkeys would be a nice addition to her wedding festivities.  “My idea is that they could wear wreaths of flowers around their necks,” she says innocently.  “My idea is that they will stand around munching each other’s decorations,” I say.

It’s Hay Season. I spent the weekend chucking hay around in the barn, getting the first cutting of orchard grass stacked up for winter.  Like firewood, hay warms you every time you move it.  A ten-year-old, who was visiting the neighbor next door, helped me stack it.  She’s from New Jersey.  When I ask her if she wants to come stack hay, she wrinkles her nose and says, “what’s hay?”  She sees the loaded truck and brightens visibly. “Oh! I recognize this stuff!  This is like the benches we sat on when we went to a show to hear country music!”  I show her how to make stairs out of it so that we can stack it to the rafters.  I show her how to make a hay fort using bales like building bricks.  Hay forts are one of the best things about summer as a kid.  She is all charmed up about it until she realized there are spiders in the barn.  Apparently, spiders are a deal breaker.  I tell her she must read Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.  All of the spiders here are Charlotte’s great-grandchildren.

I’ve been catching up on summer reading I should have done a long time ago, certainly before investing in cattle! There has been another young visitor to the farm recently—a six-year-old so dear to my heart! In anticipation of his coming, I bought several children’s books about life on a farm.  The best one, of course, the one that interests us both immediately, is the one about “Poop on the Potato Farm—a story about using tractors, poop spreaders, semi trucks, and other farm equipment  to turn poop into money.”  It’s a very informative book with great pictures of machines, animals, and of course, poop. We read until page twelve, when I suddenly feel the need to pass out.  Page twelve says “cows poop fifteen times a day! Just ONE cow—and I want to be clear—poops 65 pounds a DAY.  That’s 12 tons a year!”  Oh, dear God…  there are not one but TWO of these blessed creatures in the barn.  Horrified, I turn to my wee companion  and say “Sixty-five pounds a day? Twelve tons a year?!?! Gus and Otie are  going to bury this place in their poop! What are we going to do?” He cannot stop laughing.  He thinks this is hilarious.  Oh!  The things we can learn from books! Who knew?  We take a walk down to the barn and see the steers in their paddock, smiling, happy to see us.  Within minutes, they each do one of their fifteen daily dumps. 

From forty-pound bales, to fifty-pound sacks of feed, it’s staggering to realize the amount of weight-lifting the average farmer does on a daily basis, even before mucking out a hundred and twenty pounds of excrement.  My eighty-one-year-old farming friend gets a call from her health care provider, who speaks to her in a very condescending tone. “Tell me, what you can do, Hon—can you climb stairs?”

“Yes,” says my friend confidently.

“Can you scrub a floor?”

“No!” barks my friend.

“Why?” asks the health care person, “Are you out of breath? No energy? Sore limbs?”

“No!” she says impatiently, “I don’t have time. I don’t give a shit about the floor.  I’m a farmer, taking care of my flock of sheep.  I walk two miles and do chores twice a day.”

“Oh,” says the health care person.

When my friend recounts the story to me, she says “farming is the secret to a long, strong life.  Well, physically, that is.  If you want to survive anything else, you need to stay in Amusement.”

Stay in Amusement.

That seems like the BEST ADVICE ever, whether one  is considering having donkeys as wedding guests, suffering though hay season in a heat wave, or just finding out that your beloved “Oxy-morons” will grow up to generate nearly 24 tons of fecal matter annually.

Staying in amusement is easy when one is lucky enough to be a seamstress with fabulous customers who generate Delight faster than a bovine can turn orchard grass into fertilizer.  Why, just yesterday, a man arrived in a three piece suit to have it altered.   

“With this heat, I figured it was best if I changed at home,” he explains.  I nod.  We go into the dressing room together to look in the mirrors and do the pinning.  When we are done, I say “I notice you didn’t bring any hangers. Don’t worry; just leave the suit on the chair and I’ll hang it up for you.”

“What???” he looks at me strangely.

“Just leave the suit on the chair,” I repeat.

His eyes dart from side to side, then roll upwards, towards his scalp, with a sigh of exasperation.  The blank face slowly crumbles. Understanding dawns.  “You didn’t bring clothes to change into, did you?” I say as gently as possible.  Mutely, he shakes his head.

“Oh dear... The heat is baking all of our brains! I get it. But I need to leave the suit with me, if you want me to fix it,” I say. “It’s after five thirty and I need to get home to do chores.  Can you wear it home without disturbing the pins and bring it in tomorrow morning, first thing?” He shakes his head.  He can’t. He has a business meeting early in the morning.  He needs the suit in three days because he is traveling for a wedding this weekend.  He’s desperate.

Scene cuts to middle-aged-man sprinting to his car in his boxer shorts!

Stay in Amusement, Dear Ones!  This heat will not last as long as the laughter.  Thank you for your Good Work!

With SEW much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy

Adapting

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw

Greetings Dear Ones,

I am seriously considering doing a long-range field study of brides, tracking the duration of their marriages based on observations accumulated during the process of altering their wedding gowns.  I am curious about who stays together longer: Does fate favor the meepy ones who look in the mirror and shrug helplessly? They don’t know what they want so they take what they get… Or those who confidently command that absolutely everything about a perfectly well-fitting dress must be altered to suit them? (If it has sleeves, chop them off. If it is strapless, make some sleeves. If it has Bling, remove it. If Bling is absent, by golly, add as much as you can jam under a presser foot.)  These Born Designers—will their spouses and children become life-long projects they keep trying to perfect?  What happens to those who come in a year in advance and never gain or lose an ounce? Or those who stress eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in the car on the way in, apologize, then insist the dress not be let out to fit, since they are definitely going to lose weight (for sure, this time) before the wedding, even if the wedding is next week.  Once they stop being “managed” by their zealous bridesmaids and mothers, what happens to these brides? Who does better-- Adapters or Planners?   

I’m not sure what kind of crazy energy was at play in the shop this week but Planners have been thin on the ground.  I had not one, but TWO brides come in with gowns that did not fit.  Now, there’s nothing unusual about that, given that I rarely see brides coming in with gowns that DO fit (except for one last week, but that’s a different story!) The thing that was incredible about both of these brides is that their weddings are THIS SATURDAY.  It’s rare to have them come in at such a last minute (granted, it happens) but to have TWO in the same week, in addition to all the usual groomsmen/bridesmaids “who suddenly realized” their outfits don’t fit, felt like the planet was going through some version of white water rapids.  One night I got so anxious about all the deadlines I couldn’t sleep.  To calm myself, I went outside at two a.m., filled up the outdoor tub and lay in warm water, watching the stars.  It was heavenly to remember what a spec I am in the grand scheme of things.  Weddings can make us forget where the sun is…like the whole world revolves around them, instead of the other way around.

“I’ll pay anything,” the Disorganized say with hopeful exuberance, “just help me!”  I shake my head.

“I’ll help you,” I promise, picking up my thimble and magic wand, “but I don’t exhort extra money from those who are late, lost, unprepared or Desperate. Online measurement charts are confusing. Postal deliveries get delayed.  Global supply chains get gummy. Shit happens.  I get it.” They nod gratefully but panic.  They think if they offer extra money I might work faster.  Now they don’t know what might happen.  Some think waving money is an air-freshener. It’s not.  

I try not to judge harshly the ones who say “My mother told me weeks ago I should probably get this done…” or joke “guzzling craft beer was my Covid hobby.”  But Prudence does.  She thinks the Magic Wand should be a Bride-swatter.

Despite the pressure they put on me, I love these Slackers.  These are my people. I am them.  It feels good to be on their team.  

One bride brought in two dresses.  One was far too big; it needed to be remade about four inches smaller all around.  The other was too small; it needed to be let out everywhere as much as possible, including at the zipper to add four inches.  There was no Goldilocks option. “I don’t care which one I wear,” she said, “just go with the one that will be faster.”  I study them carefully.  They are not even close to being the same design.  One is a simple frock with an off-the-shoulder ruffle; the other is a giant lemon meringue pie of a thing with yards of crinoline and lace overlay.

“You tell me,” I insist.  “I can force either one of these suckers to fit you. Don’t let the amount of work be the deciding factor.  Which one of these dresses is the love of your heart?”

She points to the simple one.  I agree.  She doesn’t look like the lemon meringue type. But I know, perhaps better than most (I, who was a peace-keeping lemon meringue pie myself, back in the day) why she chose it as an alternative: because she is still Young.  She could be anything. Her heart calls her to be Simple but there is an irresistible lure that “fussy” has that dazzles and her heart is still gaining the strength it needs to defend its private choices against an onslaught of outside pressures.  She definitely has it in her to Dazzle.  Her scope is wide, her potential endless.  She is an Adapter.

I have to do the dress all in one afternoon, given my other pending obligations, so she hangs out with me in the shop for multiple fittings until I find the four inches we need.  It is a treasure hunt of opening darts, seam allowances, linings and the gold mine of an entire inch at the zipper.   Somehow, magically, there is an extra four inches hidden all over this dress.  We both scream with triumph and high-five each other when it finally zips all the way up and hangs smoothly.

While I work, we chat.  She is bright, happy, vivacious—an excellent listener and conversationalist.  It is a joy to have her lighting up the shop with stories of her life experiences.  She is a warm, loving, special education teacher.  We talk about parenting, “studenting,” teaching, and training.  I tell her that I thought being a teacher would have made me a better parent than I was; that parenting should have made me a better ox trainer.  I realize now that I probably should have trained the oxen first.  My life choices would have been so much cleaner.  Training oxen makes one think carefully about Teamwork, discipline, and pulling together.  One must be flexible AND clear…

“Tell me about your partner,” I say.  “Are you marrying a Planner?”

She giggles abruptly at the insinuation. She is not disorganized in general, she insists—just unlucky in postal delivery schedules.

“What are the things you love most about your partner that make this person someone you want to cherish for the rest of your time on earth? How are you going to be the co-guardian of the gifts within each other? How will you share and serve each other’s mission in this life? How are you going to seek each other’s growth and joy? How will you find that balance between Planning and Adapting as you see each other along the trail of memories yet to be? How do you source your clarity when you get confused? What will you accept? What are potential deal-breakers? What do you want the journey to look like, when you look back from the other side?

She is the type of spirit-daughter of whom I can ask all these questions.  As she talks, I feel a swelling sense of Gratitude that there are young people in the world like her.  My inner twenty-five-year-old Lemon Meringue Pie listens with awe and humble self-forgiveness.  She did not know what this modern bride knows.  She did her best, but there is greater wisdom now. Perhaps her “failures” have been a gift towards that wisdom.

I love how this modern bride adapts to challenges.  Her laughter bubbles easily. She knows a dress is just a dress and a day is just a day. I see and love her idealism, her charisma, her Faith that All is Always well, and the Curiosity that shines from her as she speaks.  She is an Adapter on the precipice of so many Possibilities.  If I were her partner, I would want to guard that.  

As a storyteller, I know that the difference between a comedy and a tragedy boils down to one thing—is the protagonist capable of Change? It is our ability to roll with Change that makes our individual dramas comic or tragic.  To hold with love the simultaneous visions of What Is and What Isn’t and bridge the gap is the essence of Progress, not to mention Good Sewing.   

There is nothing so cosmically insignificant as a wedding dress that does not fit and nothing more precious than a soul finding a new way to Mend.  

Keep up the Good Work, Dear Ones.  I love you Sew Much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Blueberry Make Believe

“It’s really splendid to imagine you are a queen. You have all the fun of it without any of the inconveniences and you can stop being queen whenever you want to, which you couldn’t in real life.” –L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

Greetings Dear Ones!

It’s blueberry season here.  The ancient ruins of the “Blueberry Cathedral” are a-squirm and a-flutter with all manner of rogues and thieves, including myself, trying to rob Summer of these tart tiny tongue bombs. I tried to cover a few of the bushes with netting but it just caused more trouble than it is worth.  I got all tangled up, stepped on a rake, and then couldn’t reach any of the berries I managed to get under cover. I have decided to thieve what I can in open competition with the birds and let Nature take her tithe.

“It’s only fair,” says a friend who manages her own patch, “that we share the harvest.  Get out early and pick the ripe ones every twelve hours and the birds will get what you miss. It all works out in the end.”

The clusters of blueberries do not ripen all at once.  It takes days, nearly weeks, of sunlight stroking the outermost berries to coax them from immature green to violet. The best plan is to be vigilant yet relaxed. Believe in Abundance but show up regularly.  Remember that this, all this, is merely ours to Share.

This year, the harvest is going to be BIG.  Two years of weeding, pruning, mulching and these bushes are finally back in business. Some of them needed serious life support when I moved here. The grounds were so swallowed up with multi-flora rose, Virginia Creeper, Buckthorn, Bittersweet and Wild grape that I didn’t even know there was a blueberry patch on site! I made a circlet of vines, crowned myself “Lady Bittersweet” and ripped the dusty roots until my hands were swollen.  It’s a deeply satisfying Joy to see these bushes thrive again, to see thin, tanned hands reaching for berries the color of bruises healing.  Someday, I will rebuild the cathedral, with its sagging buttresses and collapsed roof. For now, it keeps the sheep out, which is all that matters.   

Last Sunday, another vibrant young woman with a fairytale life came to the realm to learn to spin.  She had just acquired her very first spinning wheel the night before and trundled it north, to the Land of Lost Plots, to begin a lifetime of spinning on my back porch. (Well, three hours of it anyway; she did go home in the end. Presumably, what remains of her lifetime will be spent somewhere else.)  I gave her a bag of roving from the very sheep who were attempting to get up on the deck and rob us of our biscuits and berries.  I tried not to take it personally that she learned so much faster than I did thirty years ago.  Not for her, the cursing, the gnashing of teeth or stamping of feet as the leader yarn tore and shot into the bobbin over and over again, only to be fished out through the orifice with a mangled paper clip.  Nope. This lass took to spinning like sheep take to unguarded saltines.

“You aren’t learning this at all, are you?” I observed with a mixture of envy and amazement. “No, you’re remembering at a deep soul level that this is who you are.  You were meant to do this.  You’ve just collected another piece of yourself that you could feel you were missing.”

Her sweetheart, sitting nearby, nodded at her with adoring eyes.  

“She’s very talented,” he said.  She just sat there, smiling at the wool, which was aligning itself effortlessly into smooth yarn beneath her fingertips, before it slipped compliantly onto the whirring bobbin.  Her foot kept time perfectly.  All around her shone an aura of summer sunshine that I believed was actually emanating from within her. Her happiness lit up the entire cloudless afternoon.

I sat next to her, spinning on my own wheel, marveling at Fate.  This spirit daughter/sister/soul-pod-member was technically a stranger to me.  We had met in May, in Historic Deerfield, where I was doing spinning demonstrations for a springtime wool festival.  She had seen advertisements on a billboard out of town and felt and immense tug in her heart to go there.  “I’ve always wanted to learn about sheep and spinning,” she said.  Her ever-supportive sweetheart had directed the car there immediately, abandoning the rest of their plans for the day.  I could tell by the hunger in her eyes as she watched me, that she was not an innocent bystander. When she came back to hear the same presentation for a second time, I invited her on stage with me to learn right there and then.

“This… is possible???” she said, incredulously, after spinning a precious, tiny hank of hairy lumps.

“Well, I certainly wasn’t born knowing how to spin!  Somehow, we learn these things. Now it’s your turn. You know the basics. Buy a wheel.  Send me photos and I’ll tell you if it will work and if it’s a good deal.  Then just start.  Make a whole bunch of shitty yarn and go for it!  Within two weeks, you’ll be champion.”   The sweetheart, standing by, looked at me with a face alive with loving wisdom and understanding.  He took on the mission at once.

They sent me photos and he bought her a very good wheel for her birthday.  They arranged to come visit so she could get another “lesson.”  We sat, wheels turning, held together in a humming bittersweet circle of a summer afternoon, fed by berries, hopes, laughs and memories, and bathed in that vast, quiet, universal and timeless Intelligence that flows forward from our ancestors,  causing us each to ripen in our time.

We shared stories of our childhoods and how we each had been great “Make Believers.” Though nearly thirty years separates our ages, we both had doll houses whose occupants “came to life” at night.   We saw the world in ways shaped by these dollhouse people—that a toothpaste cap could be a wonderful planter, or cheerios with nail polish on them, donuts.  They roared with laughter at my frustration that blankets crocheted with dental floss did not have the correct “drape” and stuck out too stiffly on the beds.  Thanks to dolls and dollhouses, we swirled in worlds of Possibilities unpolluted by marketing campaigns from Mattel or Hasbro.  We made everything ourselves and the Making of it made Us.

It’s the most delicious thing I can think of—to talk of blueberries and Making and Believing on a languid Sabbath afternoon.  Evening fell softer than unwaxed dental floss as the novitiate packed her wheel back into the car and headed towards the future. 

Another Learner has crossed the threshold from Longing to Doing!  The celebration of this feeds my spirit every time I think of it. We have these dreams, ALL of us, of spinning wheels and blueberries, of dance shoes or banjos, pickles or pottery...  Thriving, Producing—these take the work of someone lovingly helping to tear away all that holds us back, even if that person needs to be ourselves. With aching hands, we rip and reach. We make a mess and try again.  We rebuild and remember.  Those who truly love us are the ones who help us get what we need.  They help us follow the Signs and possibilities that lead us home to the selves we know we Are…  

Keep Mending, Dear Ones!  Sometimes, it’s too easy to get discouraged—especially when we find ourselves in fields of weeds, with nary a blueberry in sight.  Things that have taken time to run amok will take the same amount of time to straighten out.  Don’t quit before the miracles happen!

I love you Sew Much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Hanging Together

“We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” –Benjamin Franklin, upon the signing of the Declaration of Independence

Greetings Dear Ones,

The other night, just as I closed the door to my shop, I heard whispers, soft whispers, such as the sound cloth makes when it rubs together.  I peeked back at the orderly rows of clothes hanging in the softening evening light---one bar waiting to be done, another bar of completed items ready to be picked up. On the waiting-to-be-done bar: A pair of grubby, jam-stained fairy wings await new elastics in their shoulder straps so that the four-year-old Tinker-Bell-in-training can resume her magnificent leaps from the coffee table to the couch.  With new elastics, she might just be able to soar up above the lamps, through the open windows, and out into the blue beyond her busy suburban neighborhood. Then she could dance from cloud to cloud, bouncing on pile after pile of sheep fleece sprinkled with star dust.   Next to the wings hangs a pair of uniform trousers that belong to a police officer; next is a nine-hundred-dollar suit that was handmade in Italy; followed by some Carhartt work pants that are bombed out at the crotch (a common breaking point), and a summer calico “maxi” dress that looks like it should be worn with a straw bonnet in the dry high tide of a summer wheat field.  There are bags of mending on the table whose contents are neatly folded and labeled, with painter’s tape at each moth hole, so that I can find them better.  The work of an artist who loves purple occupies several hangers at the back, next to some circus pants and an anorak that needs a new zipper before August or the snow flies, whichever comes first.

This familiar scene at the end of the day—assessing today’s progress and tomorrow’s priorities—never fails to warm my heart.  I gaze at a completed bridal gown with complicated beading with the proprietary fondness of James Herriot beholding a suckling calf after a difficult delivery.  I sigh and make sure the iron is not just off but also unplugged.  All the machines are off, the scissors collected and put away.  “Everyone, Behave!” I admonish gently, as I softly close the door for the night.

This night, I can hear snickering.  I crack the door a tiny bit and breathe so silently, all I can feel is my ribcage softly rising.  As suspected, the clothes are beginning to wiggle. Have I left the window open? No. What the…?

“I thought she would NEVER leave,” say the wings, brightly.  “I have been dying to flap around that fourteen foot ceiling all day!”

“You know you can’t really fly, right?” says the maxi dress in a voice that sounds vaguely irritated.

“Of COURSE I can,” reply the wings, hotly.

“It must be nice to relax and have fun like that,” say the uniform pants bluntly. “No one ever looks at me and smiles, the way they look at you.  They see you and go all silly.”

“Somehow I help them remember that they once could fly, a long time ago, before they were told to forget,” say the wings primly, almost self-righteously.

“Well, I seem to bring out the worst in people,” says the pants sagging.  “I feel so sorry for the young guy who wears me.  He has a terrible time. With all the bad publicity in the media these days, this guy gets people giving him the finger and cussing at him when he wears me. People hate to see me coming.  Apparently, I escalate the tension. This guy decided to be a cop around the time he was little enough to wear wings and think he would grow up and help keep people safe. He’s trying to be one of the Good Guys but people can’t tell that from looking at him.”

“People LOVE to see me coming,” bray the circus pants.  “I’m ALL about FUN!”

“Yes,” says the maxi dress huffily, “but absolutely no one takes you seriously. You are ridiculous.”

“Keeping my guy’s butt covered when he’s swinging from a trapeze is completely serious.  I can’t think of anything more so…”

“Well, I did my best to do that for years,” sigh the Carhartts.  “But it’s tough.  They just break you in the end.  My person bends at weird angles all day long with a tool belt dragging me too low on his hips.  Then he crouches down to look under a cabinet and pop! Bang! I’m done for. He works so hard.  I don’t know how many jobs this guy has and in his time off, everyone wants him to fix something—his wife, his sister, his dad… It never ends.  I don’t think this guy ever got to wear wings as a little boy.  But I know he’ll get a pair in the next life.  This guy ain’t nothin’ but weary. The day this crotch ripped was the first day he got to go home early in a long while.  He just couldn’t keep working with his dingus about to fall out the back side.”  

“Oh, Pul-eese…” says the Maxi dress. “Don’t talk to me about tired.  We all are.”

The Italian suit says nothing.  I’m not sure if this is because he is shy, or snobby, or both.  Perhaps there is a language barrier.  Not all Europeans speak English, though it often seems that way.

The clothes continue to natter and chatter.

“It’s fun to hang out together, isn’t it?” They all agree.

“When would we ever come across each other in real life?” they wonder.  “What would our people have to say to each other if they could?”

“I think they’d all want us to be nicer to each other,” say the Wings.

“What a childlike thought,” says the Maxi dress.

“But I like it.  I like it a lot,” say the work pants gratefully.

“Me too,” says the uniform.

From the crack in the door, I smile at them all fondly—these outer husks of embodied spirits currently walking the planet elsewhere—and think, not for the first time, how much of a “Sewcialist” I am.  I sew for Everyone.  In my shop, at any given time, you can find formal wear for celebrations and traditions in every faith, every creed, every religion and even slightly dubious made-up rituals involving compost.  You can find the coverings of those who have been maimed either literally or spiritually, as well as those at the fiercely magnificent margins of what should never have been called “standard.”  It’s all here. Every part of the curves finds this Bell.  And they are Loved, loved, loved each the same.

I embrace the invitation to get inside these clothes, right up next to where raw skin goes. I love having permission to mend or heal the tiny defects in my tiny world, where I find them. I’m grateful to be able to work as I wish in this “land of the Free” (where I am probably more free than most…)

A shaman who visited recently instructed me to perform a protection charm from the “energies” that these clothings contain.  They hold stories and “vibes” that are palpable to those who are energy-sensitive. But I love the stories.   I don’t want to protect myself from the sadness, the rawness of being Human. (Though I do draw the line at crotch dander! But in such cases, masking tape does the trick as well as any spell would.)  I know my customers, Dear Ones, are hurting and some don’t feel at all united, even on a day like today, when we celebrate the founding of our country and what it means to be American.  A friend posted on Facebook, “On Saint Patrick’s Day, we all act Irish…. why can’t we all act like Americans today?”  (Firstly, I must retort that NO, we do NOT act like the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.  We act like bloomin’ idiots.)  Another friend commented dryly “and just how DO American’s behave?”  I look at what is hanging together in my shop, and ponder…

THIS, this is the Fabric (literally) of our community, our society, our country, hanging here in tatters yet together.  We are a people of hopes, of work, of beauty, of thrills, and most importantly, of Laws.  We need to nourish, delight, and protect each other through these difficult times. 

So many of our people do not feel hopeful.  They have soured on magic of any kind, even fairy wings.  It’s so hard to feel hopeful when we feel exhausted, unheard, overwhelmed, or shut down.  I know. The weights we carry make us move heavily, rip our pants, and feel more exposed and powerless with each step.  We neglect to remind ourselves of the value of Hardships—that they hone us, they hollow us, they toughen and prepare us for deeper union with our inner calling and our Gifts, gifts we are meant to share with one another.

To those who say these messages of Work and Love are silly, weak, insipid I say this:  We don’t need more hate right now.   Blessed are we who seek, who strive, who keep on Mending the wings of those who will soar tomorrow.  Blessed are our truth tellers. Blessed are our workers, our doers, our Dreamers.  Blessed are those who go on rampages of Kindness and spontaneous generosity. The real Tough Ones are not the ones who threaten violence, but we who Consistently Persist.   Those who want Change don’t just turn the other cheek, especially if it is hanging out of a ripped pair of Carhartts—we Mend that fabric of society one bloody stitch at a time.

Anything helps. Make a difference to someone. Nothing is too small. Like it or not, we’re all Hanging Together—it’s the only way democracy can work.  It turns out that Democracy is a nasty, ugly business. It’s the worst thing in the world, except for…well, anything else.

I love you Sew much,

Yours aye,

Nancy

More Beautiful Still

“Outer beauty attracts but inner beauty captivates.” –Kate Angell

Greetings Dear Ones!

You know when I miss a week or two of blogging that it’s never that I didn’t have something about which to write—it’s that all the things I will one day write about were busy stinging me, running me over, needing to be shorn, escaping their fencing, needing fifty yards of glitter hemmed on a machine whose needles keep breaking… you know the deal! Or, perhaps I was just on all fours, kneeling in the spinach patch, eating it as fast as it can grow out of the garden (it’s that good!).  Life gets hectic; stories come faster than pens and a gal’s gotta eat!

Last week an absolutely gorgeous woman came into the shop and gave me full permission to quote her here.  She is exactly the kind of septuagenarian I hope to be one day.  She has wickedly merry eyes and a smile that is like a twenty percent tip—you instantly feel richer just to see it.   She was getting a dress altered for her grandson’s upcoming wedding. 

“Do you think I look too much like a hippy if I don’t wear a bra?” she asked, clutching at the front of her gown.  “I fell and cracked a rib last week and it’s right where my bra strap goes so the doctor told me not to wear a bra for six weeks, or until it stops hurting.”

I’m not entirely sure what her definition of “hippy” looks like these days.  She had no flowers braided in her short bob of hair; she was wearing sensible, laced, orthodic shoes; and there were no acoustic guitars present. I assured her that she looked fine and proceeded with the fitting. She remained focused on her chest. 

“I just don’t know what I am supposed to do with my boobs for the next six weeks!” she said with an air of bemused vexation. “I feel like I am hanging out all over the place.  What? Am I supposed to throw them over my shoulder?”

“Like a continental soldier…” hummed Prudence privately to herself.

 “Tuck them in my waistband?”  The lady gave a snort that almost became a laugh and then pressed her hand to her side and winced.  Cracked ribs are no fun. 

Our bodies get used to clothing for support. I remember a woman a few years back who was unable to wear her customary girdle, who felt like her organs were falling out.  She could hardly bear the sensation.  The woman went on, talking about her breasts: 

“I suppose I shouldn’t complain about them.  They did help me find a good man and feed seven of his children.”

The part of me that remains Curious was suddenly at attention.  WHAaat? How?  How, that part wanted to know, did you use boobs to find a good man?  Do yours have a special light-up feature that enables one to search darkened caves for good men? (I assume that is where they hide.) Are they like flares you send up by the side of the road?  One might consider that if you are using standard-issue boobs to find men, you might not find the Right Sort of men. Much better to try Wit, or hand-knit woolens to lure them… (The Good Ones always appreciate the value of homemade socks with well-turned heels.) I don’t know why, but this puts me in mind of my friend who was trying to trap whatever was killing her chickens.  She kept (humanely) trapping her own cats until the day she used peanut butter sandwiches for bait and caught three adult raccoons.   Suddenly, I am imagining my dear customer, somewhere in the jungles of Borneo, setting her boobs in a trap (Wait! I’m pretty sure that is the living definition of a Bra, is it not?) so that she can hunt and capture a Good Man (as opposed to a cat).(Though there are definitely those who might prefer a cat! In which case, skip the peanut butter.)

To find a Good Man who happened to have seven children with him, now that’s a lucky find! Did he have more than seven? Did she roll those boobs out like a fire-hose and could only reach the first seven? Usually, when one meets a Good Man with seven children, one has more need of an acoustic guitar, clothing made from draperies, and a working knowledge of Solfege than mammary glands, but who am I to question her? There was so much that Curious Me wanted to ask but Wise Me didn’t.  “Too bad she’s no longer lactating,” thought Curious Me, “We sure could have used her super powers during the baby formula shortage!”

I thought about breasts a lot this week, especially after yet another customer came in after undergoing a double mastectomy.  She is healing from cancer treatments and doing incredibly well, though none of her summer dresses fit her quite the way her old clothes did.  She is wisely “fixing what she can” and letting the rest go.  The courage of these women never fails to inspire me—sometimes to tears.  We all get used to ourselves in certain ways—the challenge of reorienting ourselves in differently modeled bodies after age or trauma has ravaged the original, gets to the heart of insecurities some of us have carried all our lives about our bodies and what it means to be beautiful. 

I’m pretty sure that what makes these women I love beautiful is NOT the fact that there are two lumps of adipose, saline, silicone, or rubberized foam affixed to the front of their bodies.  It’s the way their eyes shine when they talk about the things they love to do, the way they glow a little brighter when they talk about those they love, and the way they radiate humor and resilience despite what comes.  As a seamster, I can tell you--Bust pads change the way dresses behave, not people.  

A person who has raised seven children, a woman who has triumphed in the fight for her life—these are Mighty Women of tremendous inner Beauty, Strength, and Power.  They, who have nurtured so many, often at the expense of themselves, deserve every tenderness and dignity we can show them.   They are Gorgeous—no matter where their lumps are (or aren’t). To me, they are More Beautiful Still.

That’s all I have to say about that.  There are heaps of greasy, raw wool to sort and the bald little sheep in the barn need to be let out to gnaw the dewy morning grass like a middle-aged fool whose spinach is in season.

Be well, my Darlings!  I love you SEW much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

How long will this take?

Greetings Dear Ones,

My office manager, who is a stickler for temporal hygiene (and absolutely no other kind), reminds me every day precisely at 1:20 pm that it is time for our daily walk through the graveyard.  Why he has chosen the time 1:20 is anybody’s guess but he is nothing if not punctual and adheres to his routines with the relentless devotion of a Jesuit.  No matter what else I might be up against or underneath or getting on top of, suddenly there he is, at my side, requiring my obedience.  Immediately.  I never have any idea that 1:20 is approaching, and he doesn’t even own a wristwatch, so his punctuality is impressive.  I’ve stopped asking him “How long will this take?” because it just doesn’t matter.  We set off, wordless, at a brisk clip to do our usual loop.  Discreetly, I carry a small compostable bag in my pocket just in case he decides to defile one of the graves.    

The graveyard is particularly gorgeous this time of year.  We cut through the back of our parking lot to access the maple-lined trails of peace.  The headstones are hot in the sun but the paths around them are shady and cool.  Ever since a friend turned us on to these trails, we have found it a mid-day blessing to walk silently among the dead and literally “take a breath” from Life.  It is here, during this daily memento mori that I embrace the absurdity of my rushings and doings and return to my hemming and mending soberly relaxed and refreshed.  I used to muscle through a whole day in one big hairy gulp but this office manager (who, no doubt, will sleep the rest of the afternoon curled up under the serger table) has shown me that breaking the day into smaller bites actually makes it easier to chew and swallow.  Smaller bites are easier to savor.  As I pass by in the cool shadows around the graves, I wonder what these people were good at?  What occupied their days?  What hot thoughts blistered their brains with anxiety? What cooled and soothed them? Who loved them? Who were they before they were empty seeds planted in rows in this vast garden of stones?

How many times did they wonder “How long will this take?”

So often I am rushing to catch up to a Time that seems to have left without me.  What a cool and pleasant blessing it is to Let it Pass in the presence of Eternity.  During Prom Season, I have felt like Lucille Ball in that episode where she and Ethel work at the chocolate factory.  The prom gowns kept coming faster and faster than I could stuff them anywhere.  (I even thought about eating some of them.) I worked nights and weekends and still the shop was a forest of fabric dangling from every possible hook, hanger, and peg.   Finally, the last gown left on Monday.  With a huge sigh of relief tinged with mourning I see that season close out.  Time has passed again.  All those “How-long-will-this-takes?” have been answered.

It’s sheep season now! During the month of May, I’ve been spinning wool and telling stories at the Historic Deerfield sheep festival and helping a friend show her sheep at the Massachusetts sheep and wool show.  This weekend, I’ll get around to shearing mine.  I’ve been honing the blades in the cellar.  The sheep are ready.  On hot days, they stagger panting into any shady place.  Waiting.  How long? They wonder.

The three days I spent demonstrating in Deerfield were really fun.  I love spinning and I love teaching—so to get to sit still and do both at the same time is Pure Delight.  But the question I got asked the most often is one of my least favorite, that haunting: “How long does this take?”  Some were people who wanted to learn how to spin themselves and were worried that there wasn’t enough Time in their lifetimes to manage it.  Does one have to spin for fifty years to see progress?  Does one have to spin for hours a day to get enough yarn for a mitten? What happens if we prick our fingers and fall asleep for a hundred years?

I don’t know what it is that irritates me about this particular question. It has pungent whiffs of urgency, exasperation, and defeat emanating from its very pores.  Perhaps it is that it comes as some sort of “bargain” motivated by some inherent, invisible, but palpable sense of capitalism.  “Time,” they say, “is money.”  No one wants to waste it. Someone wants to know if her investment in a new skill will be “worth it.”  Worth it to whom? I wonder.  What are you normally doing that is more important than honing a new skill?  (These are usually people Prudence assumes watch too much T.V.) Ask yourself who you will become if you learn this new thing?  Who will you be if you do not?

Essentially, they want to know “how long it takes to be GOOD,” as if the being ‘good’ part is the only thing that matters, utterly divorced from tactile pleasure or kinesthetic connection to history.  “You are literally asking me ‘how long is a piece of string?’” I tell them.  “You are going to spin a certain length of terrible yarn and that is a necessary fact you must deal with.  It could take you anywhere from six weeks to six years to complete your first skein.  It depends on how much you work at it. One thing I know for sure—To make Good yarn, you must make some bad.  To make Good music, you must make some terrible.  (Ok, quite a LOT of terrible.) The only way anyone ever improves anything is to practice mindfully, noticing everything Good and doing more of that and noticing everything bad and repeating it less often in the future.”

“What if I never make good yarn—er, the yarn I want to make?”  asks a nervous young woman who has just graduated from college.

“Well, I think the yarn authorities come and confiscate your spinning wheel and Rumplestiltskin shames you in the town square and you are forced to eat nettles without boiling them first.  I’m not really sure.  It’s actually never happened…” I say.

She looks first alarmed, then relieved.

“You have no idea how proud you will be of your first yarn—it will be filled with lumps and snaggles and underspun wool fluffing out next to wool that is overspun to the point of snapping.  But it will be YOURS and you cannot imagine the thrill of observing yourself “getting it” by and by.  One day, your spinning will be so even that you will miss the lumpy yarn and not be able to reproduce it, no matter how you try.” 

Her eyes are shining as if I am describing a mythical place where she wants to buy a timeshare.  I invite her to try my wheel.  I guide her hands, I manage her feet.  She is like a puppet I am trying to get to make her own strings.  She has good hand coordination and does well with the wool.  Her feet, on the other hand, (ha!) will take some time.  Often, the hardest thing about spinning is getting the foot to treadle slowly enough and still keep the wheel going in the same direction.

“You know how difficult it is to write your name with your non-dominant hand?” I ask her.  She nods. “Well, my left foot cannot spin.  Only my right foot can.  If my right foot gets tired, my left foot goes next to it to help but it cannot do it alone.  I practiced so much with one foot, my brain wired that foot only.  Brains are efficient, i.e. lazy; they only do what is necessary or demanded.  To learn these skills, we literally rewire our nervous system.  How fast you learn is partly dependent on how fast you can strengthen the message relay races running around your body—from eye to brain, brain to hand, brain to foot.  This is the stuff of months, not days. Years, not weeks.  You need to start TODAY, right NOW.”

She laughs and nods vigorously.  She is so much the “me” I once was too, before I learned to spin, that I want to hug her.

Everything we do or learn changes us--neurologically, physically, mentally, spiritually. The other truth is that NOT doing things changes us too.  Feeling our way out of the bodies we built in the past and into skills we want for the future takes a lot of patience and persistence.  But it’s the most exciting work we could possibly do.  We don’t have to be who we have always been.  We can reach for possibilities instead of limitations.  We don’t have to lament “How long will it take.” Instead, we can simply bend our heads and focus on doing more of what is getting us Good Results and less on what is getting us the bad ones.  Go for what’s possible and seek to improve that.  It’s the same for yarn as it is for racial equity and sensible gun legislation. It’s true that what stands between us and the Quality we seek is not just time but Devotion as well.  And we cannot worry about how long that takes.  We aren’t deciding what to make as much as deciding Who We Are and what we make always reflects that.

True Quality is Timeless. So is Love.  I send you all the love in my heart, Dear Ones.  Keep up the Good Mending!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Thorny Questions

“What one approves, another scorns

And thus his nature each discloses:

You find the rosebush full of thorns,

I find the thornbush full of roses.” –Arthur Guiterman

Greetings Dear Ones!

Last night, I spent a few extra hours just pottering in the barn.  The evening air was sweet and chewy with the scent of lilacs and apple blossoms. The bugs had all gone to bed early so the animals were relaxed.  After feeding time, their tummies were pleasantly full and their heads were pleasantly empty, which is the essence of Contentment for some.   I, hungry and anxious, lingered in the deep Peacefulness that is a barn at twilight.  I needed a visit with the sheep.

“I was not a very nice person today,” I confessed.

“We love you anyway,” they said.

“Don’t you want to know what I did?” I asked.

“We really don’t care,” they said, burping, bending their knees, and settling down for the night.

“Well, I was pretty crabby with someone who, it turns out, really just needed love.”

“Tell me anything you want, as long as you keep scratching my head like that,” said Little Prim.  She is called little Miss Prim because of the way she purses her lips together and always has such a sweet yet sassy look on her face.

“Well, I was annoyed before I even met this customer.  During the initial phone call, I had decided I didn’t like him because of the way he kept using my name over and over in every sentence, as if he was trying to sell me something.  No one close to me uses my given name—pretty much anyone who knows me uses a variety of silly nicknames.”

“Yes,” they agreed. “Some call you Alfer, one calls you Prance, one calls you Moo… To us you are simply SHE (which is the first half of the word ‘sheep’) who calls ‘Hey Baaaahs’ in a voice that means FOOD.”

“Well, this guy was using my name in every sentence, as if it was a chain he was jerking to get my attention.  He must have found that technique in some shoddy self-help-for-hucksters seminar.  It was damn tedious pretty quickly.  I don’t like being talked AT.  I prefer being spoken WITH.”

“We all do,” said the sheep.  

“He kept telling me how easy his repair was going to be for me, that his granny could have done it in no time, had she still been around. (There’s nothing I like better than knowing I am up against someone’s more talented deceased granny—who was undoubtedly faster, better, and Free.)  Twenty minutes later, he shows up at the door and I look at the repair and, dagnabbit, he’s right.  It is an easy repair.  Since his item is large, and I don’t have enough room on the rack, I decide to do it immediately, while he waits.  He stands around, commenting in what teachers call his ‘playground voice’ instead of his ‘classroom voice’ on how peaceful my space is (utterly destroying the tranquility) and how nice it must be to ‘just sit there and help people’ all day.  He made assumptions about my life and business as if he were staring at a wall rather than peering through a window.”

 “That’s too bad,” says Prim, angling her head to get scratched in a new spot.

“I just gritted my teeth and felt the hackles on my neck, and tried not to turn into a she-wolf and bite him.”

“You can turn into a Wolf????” said Prim, backing away in horror.

“Oh, I can turn into all sorts of horrible things,” I admitted.  Her eyes widened.  Chip suddenly looked more interested; his main ambition these days is to turn into a Horrible Thing.

“I got on with his job, coldly and pointedly ignoring his babble, and as soon as it was done, I handed it to him and he could not remember which side of the garment had needed mending.  He’d forgotten. ‘Well Nancy, if I can’t find the problem, it must be fixed all right! Har har har!’ The next thing he said was ‘Hey, Nancy, I think I forgot to bring any money with me.  I’m gonna owe you some money, right Nancy? Work like this doesn’t come free, like Grandma’s house, does it, Nancy?  How much do I owe you? Nancy, can you take a credit card?’  Prudence had had enough.  She wanted to charge him five dollars for the labor and five dollars for every time he said the word Nancy.”

“What did you do next?” Prim wanted to know. 

“Well, savagely, I just wanted to get him out the door.  I didn’t want to charge him five dollars on his credit card because we would take a big hit for that in terms of transaction fees, so it wasn’t even worth it.   I didn’t even want to make three bucks off this guy.  I said “Never mind about the money.  Why don’t you pay it forward and just give your next waitress an extra five dollar tip.  Or leave a donation for a homeless shelter or something like that….’  ‘Wait a minute,’ says he, ‘You were only going to charge me five dollars for this?’  ‘Yep, five minutes, is five dollars,’ I said. ‘That’s crazy, Nancy.  Nancy, I’m from [a very big city]. Work like this is worth a lot more than five dollars.’  ‘Well, this is Vermont,’ I told him in an uncaring, off-hand way. ‘I say five dollars. Just take it and pay it forward. Be a gracious receiver.’ ”

“Did he take it and go away?” Wally asked.

“No.” I said. “He looked at me long and hard then burst into tears.”

“Because you were so mean to him?” asked Chip.

“No, Dear,” I said. “It’s worse than that.  It’s because I was so NICE to him.”

“Nice to him? But you didn’t even feed him cookies or scratch the itchy spots on his back that he can’t reach!” said Wally.

“I know,” I said, hanging my head. “and there I was being almost rude.  I just wanted him to go away and stop talking at me in such a loud voice.  I just wanted him to leave. ”

“It doesn’t sound like you were very nice in your heart but you were sort of nice in your actions,” said Prim. “Which one is more important?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I think they go together.  When our hearts and actions are aligned, it makes us feel great. But I sure have felt crummy ever since.  I can’t stop thinking about it. It was the most powerful exchange.  It’s really shaken up my whole day.  I want to be a good person, doing kind things, but I was sort of a bit of a jerk to him. And it was the nicest anyone had been to him for a long time.  How sad is that?”

“Pretty Sad,” they all agreed.  “What happened next?  Did he stop crying?”

“No.” I said.  “He stayed and cried for a long time.  He said God had brought him to me for a reason and now he knew what it was, to experience the kindness of a stranger in Vermont.  (Ugh! Talk about the guilt!)  His nose started leaking and he wiped it on the work I had just done.  I handed him a box of tissues and he opened his heart and told me a lot of things about how his god had Big Plans for him, how he was just an ordinary guy but he was being tested by lots of things so that he could be made stronger to do God’s amazing work.”

“What kind of work is that?” asked Chip.

“He isn’t sure.  He is young and very strong, like Gus and Otie, with huge neck and heart muscles, but he is still basically just crashing into peach trees.”

“Ouch,” said Wally and Prim together.  They’ve seen Gus and Otie yoked together hitting a peach tree.

“He has no idea what God wants him to do, but he knows it’s going to involve a Terrible Sacrifice. He’s trying to be brave about it but he looks exhausted.”

“Well, his god sounds tough,” said Prim, self-righteously.  “I’m so glad our god calls us lambs and says stuff about Green Pastures and lying down in them and whatnot… We are just here to love and be loved.”

“Hey, he calls us lambs because we ARE lambs,” insisted Chip belligerently.

“I think that boy was frightened,” said Water Lily from her corner, “that’s why he talked so big.”

“He sounds like the mind coyotes are after him all the time,” said Prim, shuddering.

“Yes, I think so too,” I said. “I wish I noticed it sooner. I feel so terrible.”

“And does that make you feel nicer to him now?” they wanted to know.

“Yes.  Only, I worry that it’s too late. He kept saying that he was just an ordinary person being called to do an extra-ordinary job. But he said it like he was overwhelmed and not up for any kind of toil. He just needed a bit of kindness. ”

“What was your advice?” asked Prim.  “Could you mend his thoughts or just his clothes?”

“I tried,” I said. “I said ‘Young Man, you need to flip your story. You are not an epic character from the Book of Job.  God did send you to me to hear this. It’s a very vital message. Are you ready?  His eyes brightened.  He looked at me as though I was flaming shrubbery speaking to him.”

“Didn’t he know that is just the Henna in your hair, making you look like a cactus in fire?” asked Chip, butting Wally playfully.

 “Knock it off, boys! Behave yourselves,” hushed Willow.

“I told him, ‘Young Man, you are NOT just an ordinary person. You are AMAZING. You are EXTRA-ordinary, Magnificent even.  Try doing Easy things, Ordinary things. Just do them well and chill.”

“Wow,” said the younger sheep. “Good job.  Did he understand?”

“Of course not,” interrupted Willow. “People never do.”

“She’s right,” I admitted. “This confused him greatly.  He really wanted to be Up Against It, Thwarted, Alone, Misunderstood, HEROIC even… After all, he is very Young and very Strong.”

“The worst combination…” sighed Weak Old Willow.  

“He wanted to know What To Do Next so I said ‘I’m a storyteller. To live a Good Story, you must do three things.  (Things always come in threes in stories.) But relax! You have the whole rest of your life to do them.’”

“What are the three things?  Eat, Drink, Sleep?” yawned Prim. I shook my head.

 “Dream, Dance, Dare?”

“Eat, Pray, Love?”

“Poop, poop, and poop?” said Chip, mischievously.  Prim shot him a dark look.

“No,” said Willow wisely. “Humans need to Hurt, Heal, and Help.  For some reason, they all collect a bunch of pains along the way, the way we drag clumps of thorns behind us after being in the briars.  Before they can be much good to each other, they need to pause and feel that pain, ask it what it needs.”

“What it needs is a kind Shepherd to step on that thorn branch and hold it down while they walk away,” said Prim knowingly. “It happens to me all the time.”   

Willow continued. “Once they know what their pain needs they can start to heal.  They can tell they have healed enough when someone else who is hurting comes along and they know how to help.  Then they can be Really Happy.  Then, they find that they can just be Ordinary and that that is Good Enough. People want to be Magnificent and Tragic, instead of Curious, and Open.  She-Who-Sounds-Like-Food, perhaps you weren’t your Best today but you were probably just Good Enough and that’s ok. ”

Suddenly, I felt like someone had just stepped on my branch of thorns and allowed me to move forward.

“THAT, Dear Willow, is JUST what I needed to hear. Thank you.”

I left them then, all snug in their individual nests of hay. Humble and Forgiven, I made my way up the hill beneath a blanket of stars, into a night of Good Dreams.  I hope you will too.

Peace, Dear Ones. Keep Mending.  Good Enough is Good Enough. Tomorrow is a New Day.

With sew much love,

Yours Aye,

(Alfer, Auntie, Fancy, Prancy, Nan, Nanoo, She-who-sounds-like-Food, or Moo)