For the Fathers...

“The nature of impending fatherhood is that you are doing something that you’re unqualified to do, and then you become qualified while doing it.”—John Green

Greetings Dear Ones!

I’ve spent the crisp dawn hours this morning cuddled in a blanket on the porch, holding a warm mug of tea, and snuggling a small, hairy mammal of the doggish variety.  I say “doggish” because our relationship is complicated (and he’s reading this over my shoulder). For twelve years, he’s been hell bent on convincing me he is not a dog (and therefore should not be expected to dine on anything but “people food” or sleep anywhere but smack in the center of a king-sized bed).  He’s more of a pocket-sized Zen master with the breath of rotting snails. In our current charade, he plays the cheesy “spiritual” guide surreptitiously keeping his eye on the profit margin while I’m the naïve and wealthy client he manipulates  for his own interests. He knows I have fully bought in to the cult of Him—No vet bill is too high; No treats too indulgent.  He is happy to tolerate my lifestyle choices and ridiculous “hooey-pooey” rituals as long as all of his needs are met, which they are, of course they are.  Avidly, he watches the clock so that mealtimes are strictly observed. Guardian, companion, supervisor—he’s in the shop, the garden, the barn—never lifting a paw to help but making things just a little sweeter by his Presence and his selfish demands  reminding us both that we are Alive—physical beings who need touch, affection, exercise, fresh water, treats, and potty breaks. 

“I’m not here for a long time; I’m here for a Good Time,” warns this guru in fur pajamas, hopping and begging for his meat-flavoured heart medication tablets which cost forty dollars a month.

“You have NO idea how good you have it,” I whisper into the fur on his neck. “I will love and serve you all of your days.”  He stares back at me with silver cataract eyes that look like twin moons.

“I See You,” he says returning my blind adoration.

What could possibly feel more like Love than that? 

I will do anything for Love, though the price is often way steeper than a mere forty dollars a month. 

Currently I am facing the immanent loss of a dear friend who is home on hospice care, in a hospital bed in what was once a front parlor. (I skipped last week’s blog to stay overnight with her and help shear her sheep.)  I have been co-supporting other friends in this deep crisis that Grace and Grief brings us.  Sometimes, what Love asks of us is to Let Go of those we love and the ideas we have about how we should love them.  This feels unacceptable.  This feels like the opposite of Love—like we will be plunged into a world of UN-seeing all that is so dear to us.  We are visually specific and tactile creatures.  We want THIS fur, we want THAT smile.  We are unwilling to trade. Anything else feels cheap and treasonous.

I tell my dying friend (who has been a little frustrated with those of us trying to help her) that she will have to settle for Imperfect Love from me.  I’m not good at letting go.  And it’s abundantly clear that I’m not always going to say or do the things she wants me to do.  

“I truly believe we all have come from Perfect Love and no doubt shall return to it, but being Perfect while we’re here doesn’t seem to be part of The Plan,” I tell her.

“You’ve got that right!” pipes in Prudence, the Critical Inner Voice, torn between acknowledging my truth and accusing me of simply copping out.  My dear friend sighs in pain-filled agreement.

“You’re going to have to accept our Love, as it is, in all its optimistic brokenness , with all it’s rough edges and sharp places, in all its well-meaning Failure.  We simply can’t do any better, though we certainly wish we could.  But, honestly, I’m not sure we are meant to.  I think this pain is here to teach us all a little humility, to lend us the opportunities for Grace and forgiveness.  The shattered cracks are where the light comes in, where the humor defies and defiles the fear and makes it ridiculous.”

She nods.  Her face softens. We both take a much needed and precious breath.  I have spent two days designing and constructing a new form of seamless shirt that she can put over her head and tie around her waist so that she will not have to put excruciating limbs riddled with bone tumor into sleeves. Everyone is delighted with the plan, especially her boobs, which insist on sneaking sideways into a gap, coming out to join the bedside party.  They refuse to stay where they are supposed to.  My deeply modest friend is mortified.  We all feel vexation and shame, though for different reasons.  She resents feeling exposed. I resent not being able to fix things perfectly for her.

“I think Anger gets a seat at this table and can be welcomed into this process.  We are all grieving in our own ways and Anger is an important stage. It’s actually a Good Thing that fuses get short, that nerves get shot. It means we are Human and Human is what we came here to be. Somehow, we must make space for this,” I say.

Defeat leads to Acceptance. Eventually, we are both able to toss two day’s worth of wasted work on the floor and laugh.  I am no better than a field mouse with my “best laid plans” against disobedient boobs.  Impatient, inconvenient, incomplete, incompetent, “Gang a-gley” Love for the Win.

For some reason, these current thoughts of Love make me think of Fatherhood and how we attempt to shepherd the souls in our care.   Father’s day is tomorrow.  My son’s birthday is Today!  On this day, twenty four years ago, (which was his own father’s birthday and Father’s Day that year) his father became a father for the second time.  

As a seamstress, I get to observe fatherhood up close more than one might think.  As Jerry Seinfeld pointed out, “You can tell what was the best year of your father’s life, because they seem to freeze that clothing style and ride it out.” But sometimes they need to make a change. There are all the fathers of brides—sent by wives and daughters or other female “management personnel”—to get their suits tailored.  They don’t know how things are supposed to fit.  They trust me (merely because I am a woman) to make them look the way their women require them to look for this occasion.  They have no other thoughts on the subject. Then there’s the guy who took his daughter shopping in a big city for her dream prom gown only to have the ex-wife bring it into the shop with another three yards of a complimentary fabric. He’d bought a size so far off the mark we had to start over and make a whole new dress from salvaged parts and new fabric.  “What do you expect from a guy who thinks this is nine inches?” asks his former bride sarcastically extending her thumb and forefinger to span three.   There’s the man who takes his disabled son everywhere in a wheelchair who has me modify winter zippers  so his son can use them more easily.  There’s the fellow with a soft, wistful light in his eye every time he speaks about his adult son (a mutual friend of ours) living in a far off land.  There’s the freshly-minted grandfather pacing in the hall, holding his teenage daughter’s mewling newborn while she gets fitted for a wedding gown.  There’s another young man who wears his baby in a carrier on his chest as he tries on pants to get them hemmed.  There’s the single father of three who gives his children a snack while they wait patiently for him to get fitted.  I notice they are eating homemade bread and carrots that could only have been peeled at home.  Grocery stores don’t sell whole, peeled carrots like that.  His children sit obediently, silently munching like bunnies, until he exits the dressing room.

I love watching dads being dads.  I love them as they surrender, as they modify, as they construct and reconstruct themselves and their roles within the expectations set upon them.  They are just different versions of a seamster, trying to use their ingenuity to solve problems to make life fit better for those in their care.  Often, they are surprised by the sudden demands put upon them, the failures they fear, and the unexpected waywardness of troublesome boobs.   

My own father always says “A father has two jobs—to fund the bliss and take the blame.” Like all great jokes, it’s mostly true.  (That man takes a lot of blame!)  He’s also funded a lot of bliss—including five college educations and many years of graduate degrees.  After he worked his own way through college—by working three jobs, nights and weekends, he made it so that my siblings and I would not have to do the same.  He prizes hard work, strong ethics, and education.  He generously provided a standard of living he had not known as a child, only to discover he was raising the equivalent of a litter of Jack Russell zen masters who had never known want or poverty, whose ambient level of gratitude was entitled Acceptance.  How could we appreciate what he never had when we had always had it?  It’s not until we all become fathers ourselves that we begin to understand what our fathers have given us.

Some men fund the bliss better than others; some take more blame than they should.  Some fathers do well as Management, others do better as Consultants. Their roles evolve over time.  A lot of them are, like any good Mender, just trying to do the best they can with the materials at hand.  The modern identity issues are intense.  They are supposed to be Stern, yet tender, Disciplined, yet forgiving, Stoic, yet comforting, Manly, yet nurturing…  Masculine but feminine.  It’s a LOT.  And they fail.  In EPIC proportions.  Every time.  As, I believe, we are all supposed to do in our Loving Journeys.  Perfection has so little to teach us (though try explaining this to a Jack Russell whose meal is late!) Mending is for those of us who are imperfect but still willing to try our hands at Love—with hearts, threads, and thimbles, with hands, pens, or pincushions, with victoriously peeled carrots or service that winds up on the floor.  Let us Mend, amend, and keep Mending.

I celebrate this!  I celebrate Love that is never “enough” and yet is the best there is. I love that fathers can be anything from slobs who say “pull my finger” to the dignified guy in a starched collar, leaking a secret tear as he walks you down the aisle, or salutes you as you leave to fight your own battles.   They are our champions and our losers, our teachers and our students, our coaches and our teammates, our financial advisors and our debtors.  They’ll get a lot of ugly ties, golf shirts, power tools and blame tomorrow.  I hope they also get HEAPS of lovely Love—in all its raw, naked, unfinished, resentful, brittle, imperfect, Hopeful Glory. 

To all the dads out there—especially my two favorites: the amazing father of my beloved children, and my own dear Old Dad, I See you. THANK YOU. And I love you SEW MUCH!!!!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Hope For The Graduates

Hope is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words—

And never stops—at all—

--Emily  Dickinson

Greetings Dear Ones!

A man came into the shop recently, asking to have his daughter’s dress hemmed for graduation.  It turns out he works for an organization that is the parent company managing the building where I rent space for my wee shop.  He asks how the organization might help me. “We want to support small businesses in town, especially those devoted to services like yours. We need you.  How can we help you? What would make a difference to your business?”

I stare at him in surprise for several moments then look around the shop slowly, as if seeing it for the first time in a while—the way one looks at a room one is about to clean and suddenly realize it looks like there’s been an FBI search only you hadn’t noticed until now.

“You look busy; do you need to hire someone?” he asks.

“There’s no space to have another worker in here.  It’s too tight.” I say. (The place is like a galley kitchen with huge windows.)

“Would you like more space?” he asks quickly. “We have bigger studios upstairs…”

I shake my head No. “I can’t afford more space—you guys have jacked the rent again and my dear customers would struggle even more if there were more stairs.  Some of them struggle as it is.  Those stairs are steep for those with bad hips or knees.”

He nods thoughtfully.

After several minutes of silence during which I am thinking, he finally says “Do you even know what you need?”

“I do need support,” I say. “I need a peer group of fellow solo-entrepreneurs, especially women who deal with the general public.  I need people with whom we can co-affirm our worth so that when some jerk forgets to pick up his own damn pants and comes in here yelling at me, I have the guts to make him pay for the pants, instead of guiltily letting him take them for free because he had to buy a new pair of pants when he got to Miami for the destination wedding he didn’t even want to attend. He had three weeks to pick up his clothes and he didn’t, so why did I feel like I owed him something just because he was mad? I can’t imagine him treating a male tailor that way, or even behaving that way in front of a another witness.”

“I was thinking maybe you want to tune up your website,” says the man, shifting uncomfortably. “We just got a grant to help new businesses with websites.”

“No, thank you,” I say suddenly feeling slightly irritated and defensive. “My website is the best thing about this whole operation.  My friend set it up for me.  I like how folks are able to schedule their own appointments online.  It’s simple and works great.”

“How about advertising?” he asks. “Do you need help advertising?”

“What? So I can get more work?” I ask incredulously. “The racks are full. I can barely keep up as it is.  I’m at Capacity. But I can’t hire anyone; I can’t afford to pay anyone; I can’t afford more space. I am literally hanging by a thread.  People are delighted to find me, delighted to have me do their work, NOT delighted to pay as much as a hamburger to have a gown altered.  People literally come in here every day, put on an outfit, ask how much it will cost to change, then decide it’s too much and leave. Often, the next person in tells me I’m way under-priced.  It’s hard to know what to charge. I suspect this is true for most solo female artisans.  Customers are all very nice about it but the fact is clothing is cheap; labor isn’t.  They don’t understand that I can’t stay here, helping all the people who need help, if my work is not genuinely valued. I will go under and yet another small business will fold.  It’s not that I need a better website or more advertising, I need help charging what it REALLY takes to pay the rent and buy my own groceries.  I’m NOT their kindly aunt or mother they don’t value enough. I’m a working woman. This is why, as so many people say, ‘No one does this any more…’  A lot of people assume that women do this work as a side-hustle, as a second income in a home where another bread-winner is supporting us.  This is not true! Their grannies and mothers did it “for nothing,” I can’t!  

He sighs, looked defeated, and turns to go. I tell him his daughter’s dress will be ready the next day.  

Teaching solo female entrepreneurs to value themselves, to give them the emotional resilience to deal with rejection and to persist in their dreams is not something that is taught in most business schools, if anywhere at all.  The only time you hear about it is in four minutes of a graduation speech. LIVING those ideas for the rest of your life takes courage, perseverance, and the ability to manage adult beverages responsibly.  And if you need courage to do what you are doing, chances are parts of it are not fun, possibly even dangerous.  It’s really fun to put twenty-five hours into making a wedding dress someone’s dream come true.  It’s really scary to charge them five hundred dollars at the end. But it shouldn’t be. Sometimes us little Hermit-granny types like me gotta be Fierce!  Our hearts pound like we have loose mice in our bras.  We are not responsible for other people’s bad choices.  We must claim our value.

Everyone needs Courage to stay in business. 

We all need Hope to stay in Love.

I think about Hope—that thing with feathers—and take a visit to the Hope Coop in my heart.  Some of the birds are looking kind of ratty, like they are going through molt.  There’s the hope that my dog would live another year—she’s looking better than she did last time I checked. The Hope that Otie’s scratched cornea heals quickly is also looking sleek and plump.  (He’s doing much better, though keeping the bra-pads on his eye got to be an enormous challenge as the week progressed.)

“Hey!” I say suddenly, looking around, “Where’s the Hope that I would have a beach body by summer?”

“Oh, she died,” croaks one of the bedraggled Hopes at the bottom of the coop, “almost immediately, as soon as you put her in here.”

“Which one are you?” I ask.

“I’m the Hope that your car makes it to December.”

“You don’t look so good,” I say.

“Well, have you heard that funny rattle under the hood?”

“Yes,” I say.  The little Hope turns a shade grayer and coughs a tiny cough for emphasis.

“How about the Hopes for World Peace?” I shout. “For Isreal? For Palestine? For the Release of the Hostages? For all children to have full tummies? For Justice? For Democracy? For Clean Elections that are respected by all parties?”  A bedraggled band of inmates shuffles forth from the shadows.  They are smaller than hummingbirds. 

“We’re still here,” they say quietly. “We’re not dead yet… We could use some Good News and maybe a little mending.”

I gather them up and hold them in hands shaped like a nest of twig digits, skin, and bones.  These heavy hands have work to do and the Hopes feel so frail and downy light.

“Please don’t leave,” I whisper. “I need you.”  

I think about the Greek Myth about Pandora’s Box.  All the evils are loose in the world.  We cannot lose Hope.  She is the thing that remains, that helps us Continue—when the sewing machine breaks, when the car won’t start, when your own hair looks like feathers rubbed backwards, when you shouldn’t have eaten so much emotional support cabbage if you wanted to fit into a swimsuit before October, when the news pundits have nothing but fear to sell, when the bills need to be paid, when you feel depressed, alone, and up against it all…

Hope sings: “Tomorrow is a new day!”  To Commence is to Begin.  There are fresh, sleek and sassy Hopes to gather.  The community we need most is within our own hearts, telling us “What you Do MATTERS.  It has value.  DO IT. COMMIT. It’s worth it in the end.  Just because some crabby, disorganized bloke yells at you, it’s not the end of the world.  It’s the Beginning.”

A new generation of graduates is taking its place beside us to help us continue The Great Work.  Some will want to Farm, or Sing, or Sew.  We must welcome them all and teach them their Value. This is what Hope is for.

Keep mending my darlings!  Feed the Hopes!  Keep them alive and singing in your soul.

I love you Sew Much,

Yours aye,

Nancy

Divisions

Greetings Dear Ones!

Well, it’s been quite a morning! I’ve made an eye patch out of an old bra cup and sewn it onto a steer’s head, rounded up the neighbor’s escaped dog, built a section of split-rail fence, vaccinated the herd, and learned that a sheep I have owned for seven years has no butt hole. (Yes, you read that correctly. No Butt Hole. More on this later.)  If I hadn’t already missed you last week, I might be content to flop down under the faded blossoms on the apple tree and stare into the deep blue above until the stench of my own underarms prompts me to move upwind of myself…  There’s no point in showering: It’s projected to be near ninety degrees Fahrenheit and today is the day I have picked to shear the sheep.  A friend is coming to help, I’ve taken the day off from the shop and we cannot turn back now.

Last week, I started writing an “All-is-well-Ain’t-life-Grand” sort of blog celebrating the joys of Spring only to get interrupted by the discovery that I had a sick sheep on my hands. Beloved Old Mr. Willoughby, who had just turned ten and who had the best fleece in my entire flock had separated himself from the herd and was acting “weird,” which in sheep parlance is “I’m planning to die.”

“Please don’t die,” I begged him, when he staggered into the barn with a faintly “neurologic” tremor in his limbs.

“I must,” he said. “It’s been the plan all along.”

“I hate that plan,” I said. “I don’t want to lose you! I will miss you.”

“I will just stop being here and be Everywhere instead,” he said. “It’s a decent plan.”

“No!” I insist. “We will mend you! What’s wrong with you? You are not skinny, you have no fever, no diarrhea, no bloat, no cough, no injury…your eyelids are pink, you have all your teeth… What’s up? Did you have a stroke? Are you just old?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” he mumbled wearily. “I’m just Very Tired.  It’s time for me to go home.”

I called the clinic and a vet agreed to come by the end of day.

I gave him apples and probiotics (Willoughby, that is, not the vet) which he ate politely but he never got up again.  He went Home before the vet could come.

The next day, our beloved Hermit of Hermit Hollow used the backhoe on his tractor to dig a fresh grave beneath the maple tree where his mother is buried.  (Willoughby’s mother, not the Hermit’s)  

My heart aches at these transitions.  I would make a terrible Buddhist! I suffer easily and often.  I am Attached to everything.  Any form of division feels hurt-filled.  I am doing mental wrestling with the idea that some divisions are necessary.   

I am, however, delighted to be putting some distance between myself and Glitter.  Prom Season is over!  The shop now faces impending glitter withdrawal.  I am considering opening a local recovery program for people whose lives have become unmanageable due to glitter. “Is glitter ruining your life?  Are you obsessed with thoughts of glitter?  Do you struggle to hide the amount of glitter you have?  When you are in the presence of friends, do you wonder why they have no “sparkles”? Do you need help learning to nourish yourself with food that does not contain trace amounts of glitter? Are you worried about the amount of glitter secretly making its way into your septic system? Are you powerless to change the amount of vacuuming you must do just to keep functioning?”  

In the woods, I am dividing the land—fencing off an area of underbrush for the cattle to clear. Their sandpaper tongues seem to have no problem with invasive roses and buckthorn bushes tangled together with ropes of poison ivy, wild grape, and Virginia Creeper.  There are several acres of tree-choking despair rivaling the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride. The plan is to have the boys, who use their horns like salad forks, clear a bit at a time and restore some space and health to the area so that it can be a forest again instead of something that kept charming princes away from Sleeping Beauty for a hundred years.   The trick is to move the fence before they begin to snack on the trees. (The cattle, that is, not the charming princes.) 

Beneath a struggling Beech tree, I find some little beauties: a clump of Lily of the Valley—“white choral bells, upon a slender stalk…”  I had wanted to put some in the raised garden beds by the front door but had decided against ordering them from a seed catalogue last fall during one of my “credit card austerity” campaigns.  And here they are! Knowing the boys will just devour them (and they are toxic), I immediately stop what I am doing to dig them up carefully and install them in a raised bed by the front door of the house.  They transplant beautifully and look happy in their new spot.  I divide them along their rhizomes, the underground stems which put out the lateral shoots at intervals connecting sister plants.  The little families are snuggled into fresh earth in rows of cousins, with room to spread out. Every morning, I sing an old nursery round to them:

White choral bells, upon a slender stalk

Lily-of-the-Valley lines my garden walk.

Oh how I wish that you could hear them ring

but that will only happen when the faeries sing!” 

So far, no ringing or singing.  Other gardeners warn me about how invasive they can be but they are in a solid bed with nowhere else to go so they will fill in over time and crowd each other (the lilies, that is, not the old-time gardeners) until further divisions can be made. They are a lovely (free!!!) gift from the forest. We have each spared each other. There is joy in this “division.”  

By now, Dear One, you probably want to get back to that butt hole situation, though you were certainly too polite to say so.

“Rubbish!” insists Prudence, appalled. “Skip it. No one wants to hear about such a vile topic.”

“But this is a blog about every kind of Mending—fences, garments, hearts, and maybe bodies too…”

“This is ridiculous!” mutters Prudence, “Utter tosh!”

“Or…tush… in this case,” says my inner fifth-grader, smirking.

 It all started when Otie came into the barn with tears pouring out of one eye.  He and Gus had been happily munching their way through their new jungle of thorns but a stick must have poked Otie in the eye.  The poor fellow was very weepy and unhappy so I again called the vet.  She agreed to meet me at 8:30 this morning to check him. “Why don’t we vaccinate all the sheep since I’ll be there anyway?  We can do wellness checks and see how the flock is doing.”

Now, I don’t know what kind of rough ceremonies happen at your doctor visits, but a sheep “wellness” check involves being grabbed head and tail and wrestled into a corner unless one manages to drag the doctor and shepherdess around the pen three times first.  Then you get two injections—CDT and rabies—one in the neck, one in the back leg, then we pull down an eyelid to see how pink it is.  Pale eyelids mean anemia, probably due to a high parasite load.  Then we “score” the body flesh by feeling the spine and pelvis to determine the animal’s conditioning. (It’s hard to do this by sight, given all their wool.)  Everybody had good eye color but one ewe was a little pale and not as well conditioned as the others. “Let’s get a fecal sample from that one,” said the Vet.

In animal medicine, we don’t ask the patient to go into a private bathroom and poop into a little cup. Nor can we collect a sample from the barn floor, as it could be anybody’s.  The only way to assure you have a sample from the correct individual is, yes, you guessed it—put on the gloves and go in after it.  This is when we discovered that Miss Molly has no butt hole.

Yep! Weird. I had no idea!  It’s called atresia ani vaginalis and it happens in about 1% of lambs.  Male lambs born with no anus usually die without surgery because there is nowhere for the poop to go.  In female lambs, their bodies sometimes force a compromise so that the poop can find an exit through the vagina.  Her body figured it out without medical intervention and she’s been alive for seven years with no problems, pooping through her vulva the entire time.

“What does one do if a sheep needs a complete asshole?” I wonder aloud. “Do we just go to Congress and grab one of the many belligerent delegates? It seems like there are some Perfect specimens there!”

Otie had his eye checked and did indeed have a scratched cornea, as suspected. We all decided he would be happier wearing a bra on his head for the next two days. (Who wouldn’t be?) We filled his eyelid with soothing antibiotic ointment and I sewed a bust pad in place using strips of linen anchored to his horns.  He submitted gratefully. The bra cup fits perfectly (his eye is a 34A) and helps keep the lids closed, which feels much better for him, and stops the flies from bothering it.  Twice a day, he will get warm compresses, fresh ointment, and vintage Victoria’s Secret strapped to his head. He is On The Mend!

 As I think about Divisions, Separations, Distinctions… I see that some are absolutely vital.  Having an anus separate from a vagina is a major convenience. Having an eye on each side of the face helps us have depth perspective. Having one view only is extremely unbalancing and dangerous, for a working steer or a voter.  Having a working democracy where the two sides to every story can get debated and discussed Respectfully so that compromises can be reached…well, that’s still the Dream, isn’t it? We hear a lot about “United we stand; divided we fall” and I believe that in a larger sense, especially if we unite around the ideals of Democracy and Decency.  But in small ways, Divisions—used appropriately—give us room, invite us to grow, expand, learn, and ultimately make us stronger.  To mend our social fabric is to accept (and choose not to discard) What Is, while still choosing to evolve.

 Sometimes Nature makes some interesting “mistakes” yet always, she finds a way to Mend—including in Death, the ultimate transformation.  Mending means embracing Workable Possibilities so that Shit Gets Done!

Amen.

Keep mending my Darlings!

I love you Sew Much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

P.S. The shearing went great!  The sheep are naked and happy now! 

P.P.S. A big thanks to dear Katie K. from “The Artichoke Temple,” who shares this to FB, since I am no longer there, and to anyone else who takes the time to share or comment! Thank you!

Trials

“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a [person] perfected without trials.”—Seneca

Greetings Dear Ones!

The Witnesses are lining up and testifying one by one: first the snow drops, then the daffodils and hyacinths, now the tulips and peach blossoms—each with scents and blazes of color to be inhaled and entered into the record of Evidence. The pears are next and the apples buds, like siblings with a secret, are bursting to tell.  Beauty, in a crisp new suit, argues for Life! I leave the jury box to sprinkle azalea food on blueberry roots, utterly Complicit.

The trials of Life continue.  Seasonal circles carve their turns.  A robin has made a cozy round nest in the evergreen wreath that has been hanging by the back door since December. Winter is the home for Spring.  A fresh egg is laid in the tiny cup of Death.

The outdoor bathing season has begun, which is a darn Good Thing!  After grooming the boys at the hitching post and taking Gus & Otis for a yoked evening stroll, I am covered head to toe in downy cattle fur.  They are shedding like mad.  I could be mistaken for a yeti. Twilight deepens as I fill the buckets.  The evening chores are almost done.  One sheep refuses to enter the barn.  The grass outside is too green.  Like me, he just wants to live outside all the time now. After letting them all in and back out several times, enticing them with three dinner’s worth of grain, I simply cannot bribe them any more without the risk of giving them tummy aches. In frustration, I leave the rebel outside, hoping he will get lonesome, regret his choice, and want to come in later.  The rest of the flock beds down for the night. I trudge—sweaty, furry, furious, and stinky to the cast iron tub behind the house and fill it with the garden hose that runs from the hot tap in the basement.  Soon, I am immersed in Epsom salts and bubbles, listening to Barred Owls claim their real estate and watching the stars appear one by one.  

It’s heavenly to listen, darkly anonymous in my tub on the hill, to the owls and the peepers and the distant traffic from the highway two miles away which provides a vaguely “planetary” soundtrack to the night sky.  The drivers have no idea that frogs and owls and a middle-aged woman like a soft-shelled crab in a cast iron shell are above, on a hillside they pass without thinking.  They are rushing somewhere else.  We are Here. Listening.   The sounds tell us a lot about each other—who is horny, who is boasting, who is warning intruders away from their patch.  There is a balance to be struck between announcing “we are here!” and accidentally inviting our own tragedy in the form of advertising hot supper to a predator.  It reminds me of a story my dad used to tell:

“Once upon a time, a kindly woodsman came upon a little song bird who was severely chilled in early spring.  The bird lay like dead on the path.  The kindly woodsman picked it up and realized it was still alive but just needed to get warmer, so he found a relatively fresh cow turd and tucked the bird into the steamy center.  After a while, the bird felt a bit better and began to sing.  That’s when a coyote found him and ate him.”  

For such a short story, it had a lot of morals, which my father loved to expound upon:  Firstly, that those who get you into deep shit are not necessarily your enemies.  Secondly, those that get you out are not necessarily your friends. And finally, perhaps most importantly, when you find yourself up to your neck in ca-ca, DON’T sing about it!!

As I lie there quietly, thinking of all the parts of my day I am not going to sing about, I become aware of a large presence near the tub.  A dark head, eyes gleaming with worry, appears.  It’s the sheep.  He’s found me. He puts his head over the edge of the tub and begins to take a long, slurping drink of the bubbly water.  I splash. He spooks.  Soon, he is back.  He’s lonesome, afraid of the dark, and hovers near the tub like the regrets I am trying to dissolve with Epsom salts. 

I finish my scrubbing and think about how I long to return to my high school and give a commencement speech, if only to speak to my former self who wanted to be a veterinarian.   They always ask Important People with Distinguished Careers and Achievements so the chances of them inviting an exhausted, naked (but Clean!), rural seamstress who has sheep drinking out of her bathwater are slim.  Nevertheless, I start rehearsing, preparing my case. I want to tell them that Unexpected Things will happen to them—Life is a bigger trial that they think.  Not many of them will get to be veterinarians.  In fact, very few will wind up where they think they want to go but unanswered prayers are often big blessings in disguise—like not having a working bathtub in the house.  The Good News is that everyone has a gift or a skill they can hone.  And hone they must! We need those skills!  They will need to do some mending of hearts, minds, fences, and britches in their time. Skills come in damn handy for that.   

I’ve taken to giving little speeches to the prom girls, especially the seniors, who are heading off to college.  I wish I could tell them the bird story but I don’t.  I tell them that life is a trial.  (Trials seem to be an especially relevant metaphor at the moment.)  Sometimes you get to be the defendant, sometimes the witness, sometimes the jury.  Be aware.  Get your facts straight.  Sometimes you’re just a middle-aged woman who discovers how deafening it is pass gas under water in a cast iron tub. (Talk about confusing the night birds!) Try not to Judge.  You will discover that most people running around hooting and screeching and humming and buzzing are about as innocent as fifth-graders and as territorial as owls.  We are all, as my son once said, “just trying to get over what happened to us in Middle School.”   

To one girl worried that she wouldn’t measure up in “the Real World,” I admitted, “We aren’t expecting as much from you as you think.  Adults can be a bunch of jerks.  You think we would be Responsible by now.  Most of us aren’t.  Show up on time. Do what you say you will do.  Enjoy the little things. These are the Big things.  Be radically Honest and your Good will be plenty Good Enough. ” She was shocked.  No one had ever told her this before.  “Do you watch the news at all?” I ask. “No,” she admits, “I play hockey.”  “That’s pretty much the same thing,” I say. “No matter what, you are Needed, Wanted, Loved. You’re part of this Team.”  She laughs and asks if she can give me a hug as she leaves.

It’s still prom season (last one is May 18th!) but I’m not going to sing about the glitter or the rack sagging under stuff that needs to be done.  I’m warm and cozy under this pile of work.  I hope you are too.

Keep Mending, Dear Ones! 

With Sew Much Love,

Yours aye,

Nancy

P.S. The sheep followed me back to the barn and went peaceably to bed with the flock.  He is safe; all is well.

It's May!

It's May, the lusty month of May
That darling month when everyone throws self-control away
It's time to do a wretched thing or two
And try to make each precious day, one you'll always rue
--Camelot

Greetings Dear Ones!

Tra la, it's May, the lusty month of May! And plenty is going blissfully astray here at the land of Lost Plots.  Prom season rolls on.  This Friday is when almost everything in the shop is due, even if it arrived in the shop yesterday. (Some is arriving tomorrow (aagh!) thanks to a Senior who could not miss a sporting event in order to attend her fitting Monday. She blew it off and assumed that 24 hours was plenty for me to remake her bodice. She’ll be in Thursday afternoon.) Though “tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear”—thoughts that involve changing my phone number and moving to Bora Bora.  I keep repeating the Serenity Prayer and vacuuming glitter three times a day until the thoughts pass.  There ARE things to celebrate: I managed to clean a large ink blot out of a garment, after leaving an uncapped pen on the cutting table by mistake. Luckily, it was not a Sharpie. Luckily, it was water based. Luckily you cannot tell at all. Prayers DO work.

A customer came in recently and commented “You don’t look like the picture on your blog.”

“It’s true,” I chirp. “It’s May, it’s May--I’ve thrown self control away. And…That photo was taken six years ago.  I need to update it!”  I pause to look in the mirror. I’m gray and fuzzy now, like something left too long at the back of the fridge.  

“Yes,” says Prudence sniffily, “You might have been A Tasty Dish once upon a time but you look a little past your “sell by” date—funky, possibly dangerous, definitely Bitter.  You smell like you belong on the compost pile.”

“Well, that’s either armpit stress sweat from dealing with the ink blob, or I need to stop eating emotional support cabbage for lunch,” I say.

“It’s not like you had any self-control in April either,” mutters Prudence. 

I DO look (and smell) different these days.  I should! Six years ago, I wasn’t running my own sheep farm or owning my business. Hell, I wasn’t even minding my own business.  There was plenty to laugh at and the whole rich buffet of human foibles to add piquant relish to my rather bland cheesiness.  I had three times as many dogs, my children lived at home, I had a series of rent-free lodgers with severe emotional problems, and I had twice as many vehicles breaking down by the side of the road.  Now I have to supply all that chaos myself.  If it weren’t for things like prom season, septic systems, jumping worms, and social media, I actually might have “spare” time, not that I would waste it on combing or coloring my hair. In my current pastoral setting, I might be an enigmatic hermitess, reading nineteenth century poetry in flowing calico, dabbling half-heartedly in needle work and gentle local gossip. I might write with a fountain pen (at home only! Not in the shop!!) I might nap.

But No…

It’s time to do a wretched thing or two

Instead, I discover to my horror that more than fifty percent of the worms I wrote about last week are in fact the dreaded jumping worms. This entire area of Vermont is being ravaged by these hideous wee beasties.  This is the first I have seen them on my farm, though a neighbor complained of them last year.  As juveniles, they look quite similar to normal European earthworms, hence my brief joy. (Yes, like most of us, even our earthworms are descended from immigrants!) But when you hold them in your palm, they writhe and squirm like fifth-graders who’ve been told there is no recess (the worms that is, not the immigrants).  They twitch and twist themselves into a blur of numerals—sixes, eights, sevens, and zeros.  As adults, they resemble small, irritable snakes.  They destroy soil.  No one seems to know what to do about them yet.  Research teams are researching but so far the results are not encouraging. They are an invasive species that is threatening our entire forest ecosystem (the worms that is, not the researchers).   They reproduce like crazy, not much wants to eat them, and any poison that might kill them will also kill all that’s Good in this world and pollute the waterways. The suggested method of destruction is to drag them one by one to the nearest gravel pit and shoot them, which is how strong, rural women solve all their problems apparently.  Just kidding. We’ve been instructed to put our hyperactive problem species into plastic bags and leave them to die in the sun.  Talk about wretched things to do!  As someone who finds it nauseating to harm any living thing, I’m not sure how I will manage this. I look at the trees and just feel like weeping.  None of this is doing any good for the smell of my armpits or my need for emotional support cabbage.

 It's May, it's May, the month of yes you may
The time for every frivolous whim, proper or im-
It's wild, it's gay, a blot in every way

The birds and bees with all of their vast amorous past
Gaze at the human race aghast.

I know how the birds and bees feel. I too gaze aghast at the human race. In my own small ways, I am responsible for my share of the chaos and destruction.  But we are here to focus on Mending, Dear Ones, so here are some things that might gladden your heart: 

A few weeks ago, a young woman came into the shop with a torn gown she had bought at a thrift store.  It needed a lot of alterations and she needed them done by the next day so that she could compete in a beauty pageant.  The dress turned out beautifully and she is now officially Miss Vermont!

Also…

The rhubarb is up in the garden.  Friends are making pies and jams.  The daffodils look like a silent brass section in the Orchestra of the bulbs.  The peach trees are in full blossom. There is a robin nesting in the old wreath on the back door. The way the sun paints everything with gold at the end of the day takes my breath away.  One by one, the stars come out and show us our place in this vast, amazing, complex, aching world.  There is beauty both where we expect and least expect it.  Maybe with a little rest, we can get up tomorrow and keep doing All That Needs To Be Done.

Peace, Dear Ones!  I love you sew much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Mirror, Mirror

“When something fits you, there’s no reason to consult the mirror.  You only need to look in the mirror when something does not fit.” –The Hermit of Hermit Hollow

 Greetings Dear Ones!

It’s still warm and bright out at the end of a work day in the shop--plenty of time to garden, exclaim over the beauty of the jonquils in bloom, roam the shipwreck of winter sticks strewn about the pastures and survey downed limbs and trees that need to be dragged up to the logging station by the blueberry patch and butchered into tidy packages to stack and serve as meals for the belly of the wood stove. Perhaps the ox-lings Gus and Otie, who will be age three soon, will be able to pull the logs. The bleeding heart has emerged from the soil by the garden spigot.  A frost threatens.  I’ve brought some prom gowns home to hem in the evening once twilight forces me indoors. The days and words and lists of chores are expanding outwards in every direction.  Nighttime retreats, deserting small embarrassed shadows who hide behind upright trees standing bravely in new light.

It’s Spring.  In Vermont, that means pretty much anything can happen.  Spring and Fall are verbs here.  They wear muddy boots on soggy mornings and make a lot of sweet and sweeping promises about preparing, repairing, recovering, collecting, tidying, transitioning so that we can give Change a great big hug when she arrives.  (There is endless raking to do.)  Lady Change is an imperial visitor here at the Land of Lost Plots.  Her carriage arrives without warning. Sometimes she brings treats.  Sometimes she doesn’t.  I am the resident tenant tending the manor; she is the Landlord—a temperamental transient whose arrival I prepare for warily.

In the paddock mud near the barn, Gus and Otie smile happily, their jaws grinding steadily.  There’s no grass to speak of so their mouths are full of fresh money.  The prom girls hand me grubby twenties, which I revive with the steam iron into crisp rectangles.  I store them in an envelope and hand them to a local farmer who delivers vast, round, white bales of haylage—the bovine version of sauerkraut made from orchard grass.   We are all part of the circle of glitter to grit—from nubile maidens with well-groomed eyebrows thirsting for Beauty and Experience (to be clear, it’s the maidens, not the eyebrows that are thirsting) unwittingly funding the fodder and follies of their exhausted, weather-weary elders who have had all the Experiences they can handle (and the ragged eyes and eyebrows to prove it).  Cash is the translation.  Some of these young ladies are the daughters of farmers. And so it goes…

A little dog trots by my side and I feel happier today than I have in a while.  My taxes are paid. I love my customers, my community, my country, despite its political divisions and cultural chaos.  There is a deep contentment I receive from my participation in the faithful circles of Hope and Crisis.  Humans keep humaning: a man has misplaced his pants; a woman has lost her purse; a bride is getting married Saturday and just bought her gown last night; a boy needs a suit for his uncle’s funeral.  For an entire afternoon, I evaluate my need for emotional support potatoes.  Eventually, I breathe and remind myself how lucky I am to shake hands with both prom girls and farmers—to live so close to the Mirror.

I plant a bed of spinach then begin the Seventh Year of this Blog! I told myself six years ago that if I stuck with this for seven years, I might learn a thing or two.  Here’s a summary thus far:

 Looking in the mirror is the circular process of transmitting and receiving.  Flaws and beauty are reflected and magnified.  Some people stand in front of it picking, picking, sighing and picking at their clothing, their skin, their spirits, awash in Dissatisfaction. Others are grateful, Delighted, smoothing rather than picking.  Some folks are pickers, some smoothers. There is always a choice to see in a mirror.

Writing is a form of mirror.  

ANYTHING can be a mirror.

Dreams DO come true…but in ways that make us realize that we need to keep on dreaming.  (Sometimes this just means we really need a nap!)

We have to keep looking in the mirror.

“Is this your dream life?” asks a loving friend who comes to visit, surveying the muddy cattle, the muddy field, the muddy mud.  She is smiling in a celebratory way.  She doesn’t see the mud.

“Yes…” I admit slowly.  “I just wish I had dreamed of a barn that wasn’t ten inches lower on one side and a roof that didn’t leak.  I wish I had dreamed of good fencing before cattle.  Having horned creatures weighing over a thousand pounds each who wish to visit you in your house is NOT a dream; it’s a Nightmare!  I definitely didn’t dream up all this MUD and I don’t believe I wished for quite so many brambles…” We laugh. Then I realize I am “picking.”  My inner Smoother looks again into the mirror around me.  There is a wheelbarrow overturned on a tidy mountain of dung.  Black and silver ashes mark the former site of the burn pile where recently stood a tower of brush and rotten logs and unusable wood scraps and broken furniture pieces left in the attic by the former owner.  Shit IS happening but we are dealing with it.  Happy animals are Home in a place where they are cherished and tended daily with the best that the farmer-prom-girl circle can provide.  Things are getting greener, cleaner, clearer.  The forest is starting to breathe.  Chlorophyll is coating the land with usable sugar.  Something (and Someone) here is Working…  

We are all Mending.

The Dream, I realize, is not about achieving a Great Good Thing or things, but being part of the process of transformation.   It’s in the Mending. It’s in taking What Is, accepting it, and then adding some muscle towards making it Better, whether it’s a ripped pair of jeans, a savage curry, or a heart.  It’s about being fierce when one is handling a bramble and tender when one is handling a teenager. (And being able to tell the difference!) 

We all think that Thing we dream is going to be THE BEST THING EVER.  And then we live into it as hard as we can.  And it is. But it isn’t.  Picking and Smoothing, we seek greater Satisfaction as seasons, blogs, farms, glitter,  gowns, wedding rings, and rainstorms… around and around they go—the wheels on Lady Change’s great carriage, taking us forward into the Next Dream we dare to Dream.

WHAT A BLESSING!

Keep mending, Dear Ones!  Thank you for the wonderful work you are doing. Thank you for becoming the hands and eyes, the touch and vision capable of making things better for others and yourself.  Thank you for your kindness to strangers. Thank you for having the courage to look into the Mirror and love all that you see. Carry on!

With Sew Much Love,

Nancy

Company

Greetings Dear Ones!

Well, it’s been a busy couple a weeks in Vermont!  Since I last wrote, we’ve had another Nor’ Easter dump a foot of snow, New England had a 4.8 earth quake, and there was this Thing happening with the moon… (Perhaps you have heard about it?) Oh, and Prom Season has started!  With five encrusted gowns on the rack, that slow choking death Death By Glitter—for sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, and seamstresses alike—has begun.

Everyone I know has been having Company. For a region with a strong streak of Hermit in it, it’s been an exciting and exhausting challenge.  I’ve gotten a pretty good view of the wider implications of the recent solar eclipse from inside my shop windows, from the few people who could make time to come in and pick up their completed garments.

“I’d love to come in, but I have company arriving any minute,” said one customer after another in the days preceding April 8th.  

“Traffic is going to be ridiculous,” advised a State Trooper whose uniform I mended.  “Leave the highways for the tourists.  Locals should stick to back roads.”  The back roads in Vermont are like the secret passageways in grand manor houses that allow the servants to be discreetly mobile without interfering with the gentry they serve.

“They’ve closed a lot of trails to keep both the people and the wildlife safe,” said the game warden, who is having me sew an enormous bug net for a research project.

The eclipse was a Really Big Deal here. The last time Vermont was in the path of totality was 1932.  Nearly 160,000 people traveled to the state to view this 2024 Eclipse.  An estimated 50,000 people went to “The People’s Republic of Burlington,” which normally has a population of 44,595.  Though accustomed to welcoming over 13 million tourists a year, we aren’t used to having 160,000 in a day! Friends were staying “with friends,” every bed and breakfast and air B&B was totally booked.  Even ski lodges that normally close for the season were open and filled. Vermont suddenly felt like that hostess (me) who doesn’t want to turn anyone away and yet panics about where everyone is going to sleep, what they are going to eat, and most importantly, where they are going to relieve themselves of the byproducts of the digestion of all that locally brewed craft beer and artisanal cheese.  “Please feel welcome to pee outside,” I tell my guests.   Vermont tops the national chart as the state with the most septic systems—more than 55 percent of households.   They don’t call it The Brave Little State for nothing!

As expected, Traffic was the biggest issue, which is inevitable in a tiny state with only two major highways and where more than 50 percent of the smaller roads are unpaved. (Have I mentioned it’s mud season and there is still snow on the ground?) Needless to say, the thousands of incoming people clogging the roadways deeply resented the other incoming thousands with whom they had chosen to “share” this momentous event.  The troopers who came in to have their trousers hemmed told me that the traffic was bumper to bumper down Rt 91 until well past two in the morning.  Folks ran out of gas.  Gas stations ran out of gas. People used the road shoulders as a restroom.

I had eight people staying with me for the Eclipse.  Since I live in southern Vermont and the path of totality was further north, they were on the road before dawn to get to a good viewing site.  It took them three hours to get there and more than five hours to get back.  They drove a total of eight hours for an experience that took less than four minutes.

“Was it worth it?” mutters Prudence in a way that indicates she doesn’t think so.  She decided that we should stay home, on the farm, to make sure that the chores got done and animals taken care of on time.  “A 97 percent eclipse is plenty,” she persuaded, “Someone needs to make dinner—for all Creatures great and small.” She thinks an awful lot about food for one who thinks we all should be fasting more. 

Some of my returning guests said that four minutes was the best four minutes of their lives. Others thought differently.  Rating life in four-minute chunks is not something I have done before so it is taking me a while to decide what my best four minutes have been. (I’ll get back to you on this.)

Last Monday afternoon, I spent a lot of minutes sitting quietly in the center of a golden moment, in shirt sleeves for the first time, enjoying the warmth of a day without glitter, peering occasionally through the cardboard safety glasses directly at the light bulb overhead.  My beloved fellow hermit was the only other human with me at the stone fairy tea table in the garden.  The sheep lay flopped around the pasture, cudding and snoozing.  On the other side of the driveway, the ox-lings lay in the sun.  My friend’s dog was locked in the barn, per her orders. “Please keep her confined for the entire eclipse,” she said. “I don’t want her to look at the sun and hurt her eyes.” 

I asked the sheep if they wanted to share my eclipse glasses.

“No way,” they said. “Yours is the only species dumb enough to stare directly at the sun.  We’re just going to keep our heads down and gobble green stuff like we always do.”

Not one of the animals looked up the entire time.  They just lazed around, chewing. Had I not had the special glasses to help me see the black circle slowly crossing the sun, I would have had no idea something was happening.  Meaning is something we find and assign through use of specialized vision.

The sky was blue and bright—only random wooly wisps of white here and there—as if someone up there were spinning and discarding sneds of fiber as she went.  After a while, the light changed. It wasn’t dramatic—more like the way one changes the filter on a photo taken with a cell phone.  The world went from “Lark” to “Gingham” then “Reyes.”  It felt exactly like a storm coming on, with darkness, a chill, a breeze and the hush of all the birds and insects.  And then, after a bit, it was warm and chirp-buzzing again.

My guests and friends were sending me photos of the scenes where they were—in crowds of people up mountain tops, some by water, some in fields… and I felt that initial rush of JOMO I usually feel when everyone else is doing something and I am not.   (If FOMO is the “fear of missing out,” JOMO is the JOY of missing out!) Being around the energy of a crowd feels exhausting to me.  But then niggling thoughts of missing out on Totality creep in. Should I have gone?  A “Once in a lifetime” experience was only a few hours away.  Why hadn’t I bothered? Why do I consistently settle for less than 100 percent of anything?

“You’ve experienced crowds of people before,” reminds Prudence. “And you will never know what you missed so it won’t matter.”

“Think of the animals,” says my inner Farmer, gazing fondly at her flock.

“But we aren’t getting something we might have really wanted,” pouts the inner child, feeling left out. “Everyone else is getting it. Why aren’t we?”

“Come on, how can you truly miss something you have never experienced?” says someone logical.

“People do it all the time, every day, with True Love,” murmurs the Angel within.  “They don’t know what they are missing but they know they are missing it, bless them.”

“You are Disconnected,” whispers the inner demon. “You don’t Belong and you never will.  You are Alone and ever more shall be so.”

“Rubbish!” I say, stroking the tiny, aged dog on my lap.

“Everyone looking at the sun right now is Together!” I announce. “Whether we climbed a mountain to see it or sat in our own front yard, or see it on a news screen from another part of the world.  Some of them know it, some of them don’t.  That doesn’t change a thing.  We are all experiencing it Together.”

“Honey, EVERYONE is together, whether they see the sun or not,” says the Angel. “Nothing is the Same and yet it is all One, whether you stayed home to tend the pot roast or climbed the hill in wet sneakers to get a better look at your nearest star.”

So it is with Faith and Life and Mending.  The Eclipse is just another Prom or Blog entry. We gather for “an Experience” and we each have one individually together.  We try to tell each other what we saw, what we felt, how we tore our pants and why there is still some toilet paper stuck to our shoe.  For some, our sense of isolation becomes heightened; for some our sense of connection is strengthened.  Presence is the gift of being able to see ourselves seeing.  Humans, like any other herd or pack animal, have a deep longing for connection—in our intimate relationships, in our communities, with strangers, and with some Deeper Truth about our existence.  Both the Faithful and the Cynical yearn for Meaning.  Every one of us is lonely and trying to put that loneliness into perspective.

Speaking of uniquely lonely yet communal…Today is the SIX year anniversary of this Blog! I gave myself a deadline of “seven years” weekly apprenticeship to this craft. I’m proving to myself I can stick with things (mostly).  It’s not going well. I have one more year to get my act together.  Writing is the hardest thing I have ever done—mainly because it’s impossible to notice improvement. (“You got that right,” yips Prudence.) Even the act of plowing the driveway with a tractor is less frustrating.  Success is measurable when one plows a driveway.  

All I really have learned is that this hellish little discipline is part of the best four minutes of my life each week and I cherish the connections it forges with all you dear, Dear Ones.  For me, there is a deep comfort in being able to share, to prove to myself that I am not looking at the sun or that prom gown alone.  We’re on this amazing, ridiculous celestial Ferris wheel together.  Thanks for keeping me company!

True Mending does not happen without the touch of the hands—whether by needle and thread, a gentle caress, the stirring of a spoon, or calloused fingertips dancing on a keyboard.  Percentages be damned: Whatever you are doing to remind yourself that Everything Matters—especially YOU, keep doing it! We aren’t alone. We ARE capable of making things Better.  Let the Mending Continue!

With Sew Much Love,

Yours Aye,

Nancy

Lamb cake

You can’t have your cake and eat it too!—English Proverb

Greetings Dear Ones!

I’m getting a late start on the blog because I had to rush to town early to gather enough handwork from the shop to keep me going through this storm.  (Apparently, Yester-Nancy thought it would be Sunshine ever more and didn’t plan ahead.) These “April Showers” are bringing a wintry mix of snow and hail, sleet and sheets of water like the Big Dog in the sky is shaking his fur after a trip through the garden hose.  And later, to cap it all, there might be as much as fourteen inches of let’s-wreck-the-driveway-again to plow with the tractor.

I apologize to the tulips, working like athletes to get their slender torsos out of the mud.  They are the little miracles I have been seeking in the garden each morning, thanks to poet Mary Oliver.  I have been cheering them on, coaxing and inviting them. Now, these guests are arriving too soon to the spring picnic and will have to stand around awkwardly with nothing to do, while their slacker of a hostess panics. Nearby daffodil blossoms bow their heads and keep their mouths closed. I rush by with a tarp and twine. I’m embarrassed.  “I thought we would be ready for you by now,” I say hastily, tossing a light cover of moldy hay around their shoulders to keep them warm.  Everywhere, green fingertips reach…seeking…reaching upwards through the darkness, feeling for the Light, only to be burned by ice.  I curl my hands within my gloves and hurry.

I’ve battened the hatches and covered the enormous round bales of hay with the tarp.  The pasture snack shack is closed.  The sheep retreat to the barn, grumbling.

“We hail from the Shetland Isles,” they moan. “What is wind and rain to us?”

“When you are out, you beg to come in. When you are in, you beg to go out. There’s no dealing with you,” I say.

“But the Ox-lings are allowed in and out whenever they want…why not us?” they cry.

“One reason,” I say. “Coyotes.  You look like delicious mutton morsels to them. Who doesn’t want hot shepherd’s pie on a grizzly day like this?” They shudder.

Otis, the stouter of the steers, swaggers up to his door and hangs his head into the aisle to listen.  His nosiness goes beyond polite sociability.  He wants to know if we are going to work today.

“Not today,” I say.  He hangs his head.  I’ve managed to get him and Gus hitched and pulling three times in the last few weeks.  Now he thinks it should be every day.  He’s a jock desperate to grow his muscles at the gym.  Meanwhile, Gus loiters at the all-you-can-eat hay buffet, smiling—desperate to grow his belly not his biceps.

“Tell us something Good,” say the sheep. “We need some cheering up!”

I snuggle into a corner of their pen and they immediately crowd around me, looking for treats.  I don’t want to tell them there is the lamb cake from Easter up in the house that I brought back with me from Pennsylvania and forgot to give them.  It tasted so awful, everyone agreed I should take it home and feed it to the sheep and chickens instead of humans. It’s basically a stale, dry pound cake in the shape of my grandmother’s lamb mold with out-of-date unsweetened coconut fur that has all the desiccated delicacy of a bag of toenail clippings.  I added extra flour in order to help the batter support the dowel that is baked into the neck to hold up the head.  Be extremely careful attempting to chew the ear of this lamb! There’s a toothpick in it.  

One of our most cherished family Easter traditions is to make an ugly, unpleasant-tasting cake in the shape of a lamb and then grouch because no one wants to eat it.  It’s Tradition. The end result was just as awful as it always is; which satisfies those who believe Things Can Never Change and disappoints those who always hope otherwise.  It’s enough to make some of us believe Certain People have dowels baked into their necks too.

“Easter was good,” I tell the sheep.  “My family laughs a lot, at each other, at ourselves, at The Situation (there’s ALWAYS a Situation) and especially at the raisins the grandchildren have piled near the rear end of the lamb cake.” Even now, I giggle.

“What’s a lamb cake?” they all want to know.  I roll my eyes. I forgot I wasn’t going to tell them about the lamb cake.

“It’s a cake in the shape of a Lamb,” I tell them. “Lambs are a very special theme at Eastertide.   They symbolize New Life, Innocence, Obedience.”

“Obedience???? WHAT???” They are aghast.

“I know, I don’t get it either. I’ve never met an obedient lamb in my life.  Perhaps Obedient means Trusting.”

“I don’t trust Nobody,” says Waterlily, muscling her way to the manger and bashing her own daughter out of the way.

“Well, I think we can all agree that lambs are beautiful.  Christians use the Lamb to symbolize Christ as both sacrificial and triumphant. He is called ‘The Lamb of God.”

“We are ALL Lambs of God,” says Prim primly.

“Yes, YOU are,” I say, indicating all the sheep with a sweep of my hand. “It goes without saying.”

“The rest of us have to do a bit of sacrificing,” says Prudence (the inner critic in nun’s garb) elbowing me in the ribs.

“Is that where the cake comes in?” asks Willoughby.

“Ah, yes,” I nod. “It all makes sense now. Thank you.”

“What else do you do at Easter?” they want to know.

“Well, we go to church as a family.  We take up a whole pew, sometimes two. We pray. We sing. I try very hard not to get distracted by mismatched seams on men’s sports jackets a few seats in front of me. Then we go home and eat.  We eat like farmhands at a big table, as if we’ve been chopping wood or stacking hay for days.  We eat in total Silence, no conversation, just quiet smacking of lips, forks clicking plates, reverent satisfied gruntles of delight.  I tried to light a small conversation but it smoked out like a match on damp wood. They looked at me as if I was talking out loud at a concert. So I closed my mouth and chewed, letting the flavors become a melody. After everyone had finished, then we sat around the table and talked. I had forgotten how we do this.”

The sheep have flopped around me, quietly present, chewing thoughtfully, like family members.

“What did you talk about?” asked Prim.

“Some people griped about politics, others grumbled about the youth of today and how odd people can be.  My siblings work with a lot of interesting people and do very interesting things. I told a weird but true story with a happy ending about one of my dear customers.”

“Tell us the story!” shout the lambs. “We love weird stories with happy endings!”

“Well, a lady came in who had a beautiful coat that she had bought at a thrift store. She loved the coat but it didn’t fit her quite right and it was way too long.”

“So you mended it,” says Prim.

“Yes,” I say. “It took a couple of weeks for our schedules to align so that she could come in and try it on. When she did, she loved it. It was exactly what she wanted. She went home with her new coat and was happy.”

“This does NOT sound like a weird story,” interrupts Fergus, clearly getting bored.

“It gets weird later.  She starts to email me about something that confuses me.  She wants to know what I have done with the lining of her coat. I didn’t touch the lining of her coat except to hem it. (It looks damn weird when you hem the outer coat six inches and don’t hem the lining too.) Well, she wants those lining scraps back. She wants ALL the scraps back.  She feels like I have stolen something from her by removing the excess pieces of her coat. She says it’s like taking a ring to a jeweler and getting a fake stone back.”

“But if you don’t remove them, isn’t the coat way too lumpy?” asks Fern.

“Indeed! Well done, little Fern!” I praise. “So I agree to mail her all the scraps. ‘what have you done with my fabric?’ she demands in an email.  I don’t want to tell her I have thrown those “precious” scraps away, so I don’t answer that email. I dig all the scraps I can find out of the trash.  I have to wash some of them because I have dumped the floor sweepings in on top of them.  I send them to her in a priority envelope and she receives them in two days.”

“This is still a boring story,” says Fergus, yawning.

“Not to me,” I say, continuing. “THEN…then…the next thing I know, she’s leaving a one-star review on Google, saying how disappointed she is with my service.  She left a coat with a cashmere lining with me and when she got it back, I had removed the entire lining and replaced it with a cheap nylon one.”

“Is that TRUE?” asked Prim, horrified.

“Absolutely not. No Way. First of all, I would never do that, for any reason. I would never steal from anyone, never mind a dear customer! The last thing I stole was a bag of pennies from my next door neighbor when I was five years old.  My mother marched me over there and made me return them and apologize.  I cried so hard nearly vomited. So I have never stolen again.  But really, this woman’s assumed ambition for me is, well, frankly, it’s hilarious.  I am far too lazy to succumb to such a scheme, even if I hadn’t had good morals beaten into me early in life.  She has no idea how much work it is to take out a coat lining, deal with the inevitable blizzard of body dander hidden in the seams, then fashion a replica pattern, make it out of cheap nylon—presuming I have bought some cheap nylon… Good Heavens! It would take me most of a day to do all that.  For what? So I can have an old, purloined lining with no coat that goes to it? It’s marvelous. Simply Marvelous.  It’s the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a long time, bless her heart.  It actually filled me with a strange joy to know that I was so clearly right and she so clearly wrong. I actually didn’t care at all what lies she spread.”

“This is getting interesting,” admits Fergus. “What if people don’t like you? What if they believe her, not you?”

“Ain’t nuthin’ I can do about dat,” I say in my silliest cartoon voice.  “Sometimes, you just gotta take the hit!” The sheep stop looking like a coyote is at the gate and go back to cudding.  The sheep don’t like “hits” but it soothes them to think I can take it.  It soothes me to think they think I am a grown-up. Hits don’t seem to hurt Grown-ups.

“So then what happened?” asks Prim.

“Well, the Easter Message got through. I decided to receive fear with Love. I decided to turn the other cheek, and NO, Fergus, NOT a bum cheek. A real cheek. Real Love.  Just because someone wrongs us does not mean we are a victim. This poor lady was just plain wrong and obviously sad.  She was missing something I could not give her. I decided to be nice to her and to smile and remember that I had done Good Work for her. If she wants to sue me later, let her.  I’m clean.”

“And then, she did an AMAZING THING. She wrote and apologized! She took down the bad review! She admitted that it had taken us both so long to get her coat back to her she had forgotten what she had bought at the thrift store. It was not the lining she remembered. I’m so excited by this change! I admire her courage.  It takes a lot to admit we are wrong.  I feel the Hope that those who bake the Lamb Cakes feel—This Time It Will Be Better. The tulips cannot be stopped by snow.  This lovely woman restores my faith and hope, which are the rewards for Love.  Not all of us are baked with a stick in our necks.  Some people can be reasoned with. And even while they are Unreasonable, they can still be loved.  I’m profoundly grateful for this customer and this lesson.  

Keep Mending, Dear Ones! Let’s keep disappointing those who think Things Can Never Change. Thank you for your Good Work filled with Love that is Sacrificial AND Triumphant.

With Sew Much Love,

Yours Aye,

Nancy

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Do it Anyway

“In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” Do it Anyway —Mother Theresa

Greetings Dear Ones!

Normally, if I want to embrace Humility, I just sit down with my fiddle and attempt to play tunes in the key of F major without actually knowing ahead of time that they are in F major.  But this week I have had a variety of other ways to supplement my spiritual growth.  Humility—that which returns us to the hummus—(you know, that yummy stuff made of chick peas, tahini, and guilt) or maybe Latin for “earth.”  It’s a return to the ground, a fall of sorts.  My inner Snacker, who loves hummus, pauses with the loaded carrots half way to her lips.

“Wait,” she says uncomprehendingly, “We’re falling?”

“Yep!” shouts Prudence, petticoats tumbling as she goes arse over tea kettle, “Someone thinks she can handle a bunch of stuff she can’t handle.”

Things I thought I could handle this week:

a.)    Using the front bucket of the tractor to plow the driveway after we got over 12 inches of heavy snow.  (In addition to having several temper tantrums over my inability to know “up” from “down” on the tractor levers, because the subsurface was soft March mud, I have unintentionally relocated much of the surface of my driveway into the front pasture.) 

b.)    Spending $1800 on car repairs only to discover that my vehicle it is still not road-worthy. (Apparently driving it twenty miles to the repair shop with the front tires pointing in opposite directions means I am now required to purchase four new tires.)

c.)     At a “Celtic Bells” school show, standing up in front of 175 Boston-area kindergarteners and singing “Charlie on the MTA.”  (I completely blanked, couldn’t source the first note, word, or chord, while it dawned on me that the guitar was in Drop-D tuning instead of standard.  Thankfully, my brilliant music partner saved the day with a blistering fiddle solo that had all the kids clapping and cheering while I frantically re-tuned to Standard and concentrated on not doing a tiny poo in my pants.)

“Don’t forget to mention the scamming,” says Prudence, from her jumble of tangled undergarments. “That’s the best of them all.”

Indeed.

So!  Last week, I attempted to post my blog on Facebook, as I usually do, only to discover that I was locked out.  I tried multiple times to log in, only to receive the reply that my account had been deleted for illegal activity.  I was so confused.  What illegal activity???

“You are such a natural criminal,” says Prudence with authority, “You do bad stuff you don’t even know is bad.”

“But I hardly post on Facebook these days!” I protest, “It’s just blogs.”

“It doesn’t matter. They KNOW.  They know how naughty you are. It was inevitable,” sighs Prudence. “Besides, those blogs are awful. Except when you slack off and don’t do them at all, which is also bad.” 

Of all the darling internal characters I deal with, not one of them is handy with technology.  Party girl thought we should just take the night off and not worry about it. The inner Librarian just wanted to read some new books a friend sent.  Hermit Granny wanted to knit.  But some earnest (UN humble) lesser staff member decided she could “Fix” everything with a few clicks of her mouse.  She googled “fix deleted Facebook account.”  Right away several sites popped up.  She clicked on one that looked official and boasted “speak to a representatives” 24/7.  It only took three rings before “a representatives” answered, which was the first clue something was amiss.  (Everyone else on the planet, apart from MY naively ambitious inner techie, knows you can’t just call FB reps!) Let’s just say that things went swiftly from bad to worse and I wound up having to file disputes and crime reports through my bank, in addition to having to change every flipping password I have ever had on every device I own.  (I didn’t remember any of them anyway so it took two days to do all this.) It’s been a nightmare.

And I am permanently locked out of Facebook.  Facebook has yet to realize this yet, but it is permanently locked out of ME too!  I won’t be back.  I am appalled at the lack of help available to us innocent hermit grannies with no techno skills who are left vulnerable to the likes of these scammers.  If there IS genuine help available from their organization, it is not readily identifiable…nor the least bit “helpful.” 

So! I have eaten my share of dirt sans tahini this week. (Sady, not quite enough to recoat the driveway though!)

I’m feeling low. 

On the bright side, I know that if I go down hard enough, I usually bounce.  And on the way up, I focus on what’s really important.  These things are just tests.  I realize that true Love is the only way to go. 

I gather all the beloved and not so beloved parts of myself together for a group hug.

“I’m sorry I gave that scammer all the information I shouldn’t have,” weeps the incompetent techie-wanna-be.

“We love you anyway,” we say.

“I need to practice more,” admits the slacker musician.

“We love you anyway,” we say.

“I wish I was good at things right away,” says the person who mauled the driveway.

“We forgive you,” we say. “You’ve never plowed deep snow over mud before.”

“I wish we didn’t make so many expensive mistakes,” says the inner accountant.

“It’s ok,” we say. “Let there be Learning. Let there be laughter. What is money but a useful translation for energy.  You have plenty of energy. Our beloved and talented seamstress can turn that back into money with a bit more work.”

And there’ PLENTY of work—for both the fingers and the soul. There are jackets needing zippers, prom gowns needing hems, and customers needing compassion and forgiveness too (like the one who insisted I send some discarded trimmings and fabric scraps back, insinuating that I had somehow stolen them!).   I let my inner crybaby have a darn good cry, put myself to bed early, and got on with things.  And I got a lovely visit from Mother Theresa through the gift of her poem “Do it Anyway.”  

“She’s really made a mess of things!” Prudence, acting as Mother Superior, rushes to inform Mother Theresa.

“Love her anyway,” says Mother Theresa.

“I’m too trusting,” I cry. “I helped the scammers scam.”

“Trust anyway,” she says kindly.

“Her communication style gets her into trouble. She’s actually TOO honest,” accuses Prudence, “as if there is such a thing.  She just doesn’t need to say all the things she says, especially to certain people.”

“Be honest anyway,” says Mother T, smiling directly at me.

“Sometimes my kindness gets rebuffed or misinterpreted,” I say, thinking of the male customers who return to ask me if I am single.

“Be kind anyway.”

“My writing…” I start to say

“Write anyway,” she interrupts. “Give the best you have and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.  The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.” 

On the BRIGHT side, there is a new day, a fresh start, available to us all, any time we want.  Sure, some weeks really test us.  Along with our nourishing servings of dirt, we get some tasty Grace gravy.  It’s a relief to know I don’t have to BE the best, I just need to DO my best.  That’s enough.  

As we watch the cold, uncertain light of March fall on the faces of those we love, we know that Loss awaits us and we love all the more defiantly for it. We trace tenderly the thinness of skin or fur or wool that separates us from hidden bright bones beneath, knowing each moment is a GIFT and that nothing really can protect us from Living except knowing who we are, knowing whom we love, and getting our priorities straight.  And still, the inevitable scars and scrapes of us bumping into each other, ourselves, or a perhaps a substrate collapsing under melting heaves of frost give us opportunities for humility and Grace.  We may get bogged down, spinning our balding heads and tires.  We lose our money, our sleep, our tears, our faith… 

And then… the Good News! We can rise from the mud we have bitten.  We can MEND, Dear Ones!  Let there be Mending.   Sometimes our Good Work doesn’t feel good at all. Let’s Do It Anyway.

With Sew Much Love,

Yours aye,

Nancy  

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Remembering

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else. –Margaret Mead

Happy Equinox Dear Ones!

Yay! Let there be more light!!

Whew!  I’m not quite sure what happened.  One moment I was unwrapping a brand new, perfectly good, fresh-out-of-the-box February.  The next thing I know, it’s in hundred pieces I still need to clean up and March has already left without me.  Usually February is one of the longest little months of the year but this time, even with an extra day, it shot by faster than poop through a goose.  February’s menu mostly consists of the Pure Dead Brilliant Fiddle Camp and the insane rush I get from cooking for 165 people with a horde of fabulous volunteers, some of whom know how to chop an onion, some of whom don’t.  An average February consists of the week I spend getting ready for fiddle camp, the week I am AT fiddle camp, and the weeks I spend recovering from fiddle camp (which can be anywhere from one to fifty, depending on how the onion chopping goes). 

This year was one of the best onion-chopping years ever!  But I still found plenty of things to weep about afterwards when the wise wee Being posing as my dog got perilously sick and nearly died, something crucial under the front end of the car broke while trying to get down my road axel deep in mud, I came down with a jolly good case of Covid, and lost my computer cable for two weeks.  I thoroughly enjoyed the Covid, as it gave me a good excuse to lie still and consider the onions for four days.  The wee Being’s doing better, though still on a downward trajectory of congestive heart failure.  We were both grateful to spend the time cuddling by the wood fire—each with our own respiratory issues.  The car is still in the shop—Vermont mighty mud for the win, pocketbook for the loss.  Despite all, the most vexing issue was trying to locate the computer cable!

“Looking for things I have misplaced” ranks right up there among the top ten things I HATE to do, along with sneezing with food in my mouth and shortening jacket sleeves from the shoulder.

“Apparently you also hate dusting, and putting away anything clean,” sniffs Prudence, surveying the dishes in the rack by the sink and the basket of laundry at the foot of the stairs.

“Yes,” I admit, “but not with the same ferocity as the top ten.  In fact, the top five are: looking for my keys, looking for my wallet, looking for my phone, looking for the computer, looking for its charger, looking for any kind of charger, looking for my glasses, and reaching for scissors that aren’t there…”

“That’s not five,” she says.

“I don’t care.  I’m tired of keeping track of things that vex me.  I’m in the business of keeping track of JOYS. Joys are what Remembering is all about. When I remember where I left my crap and then go find it, I feel immense joy.”

“Lucky you, then,” she huffs. “With the way you misplace things, you must be in a constant state of bliss.”

Remembering… it’s more than just locating one’s car keys or recalling that damn password you swore you would never forget. To “remember,” as I see it, is to Re (again) + Member, from the Latin membrum, meaning limb.  To Remember is literally to find the amputated parts of myself and re-limb, reconnect, restore the wholeness of the organization of “me.”  This federation has a variety of “members” who belong, without whom I am just not “myself.” There is the me that sews, that sings, that dances, that knits, that takes long walks with oxen, and the me that lies awake fretting after 3:am.  There’s one here who loves to cook with others in the kitchen, whose love language is food.  There’s another who finds ironing one of the most satisfying pleasures on the planet. There’s one who loves to read, one who loves to listen.  “And by God, there’s one who love to TALK!” says Prudence Thimbleton, the one who loves to criticize.

For the most part, this is a harmonious group that is fairly well-integrated and cooperative. There are a few trouble makers.  I used to think some of the members needed to be kicked out—like Party Girl and her sad drunk pal in the corner, and that weird little nerd from middle school who never seems to have any friends. But I have learned we cannot sever the parts of ourselves.  They just come back with a vengeance.  Re-membering restores them to us in ways that range from painful to delightful. They need to find their homes in our hearts, their share of missing love, and their “job” in the business of being “Us.”

We all have these disparate parts--some are to help us Do The Things That Must Be Done. Some are here to make that chore way more fun. The rest just need to be loved.

Sadly, the past six weeks have introduced a new character to Nancyland—The News Anchor.  And boy is she an anchor! She binge-obsesses on the same exact story on multiple networks at a time.  She is constantly checking her phone for updates.  She subscribes to multiple podcasts discussing things that have no relevance to her actual Life or Spirit. She’s a drain on time and energy. She’s irritated when she has to do other things. She gives The Worrier plenty to worry about, which prevents us all from getting sleep, which makes even Party Girl crabby.  We finally had to have a meeting and say “This is NOT who we are!” She has wrecked our productivity.  The Fiddler hasn’t fiddled; the Writer hasn’t written. (Though Hermit Granny, who is in cahoots with the News Anchor, has managed to knit about 45 hats while listening to morbid stories about how the world is going to Hades in a hand basket, something our resident Basket Case Lady considers the waste of a good basket.)

We need to Re-Balance, we need to Re-Member.   

What brings us Joy? What helps others? How can we Connect? What should we Protect? When we feel lost, empty, sad… what comforts and connects us?  For me, it’s looking around and seeing myself in the swirl of a homestead in transition, in a county, in a state, in a region, in a country in the process of trying to find itself and call itself Home.  We all—as citizens and individuals—are in an intense struggle of trying to remember who we really are—propelled not by what terrifies us, but what inspires us.

In Vermont right now, everything is the color of mud or mushrooms. There are a few blushing buds on branch tips but the leaves are still a secret. The sun has a little heat which, with the smallest gust of a giggle, the wind removes.  It is a time of layering and peeling off layers as the days start to get rounder and more golden.  It’s easy to swing from hopeful and excited to depressed and anxious—especially as the hay and firewood dwindle in their piles and mud season and the News Anchor blares constant Unpleasantness.  It’s easy to feel a sense of Lack.

Then, I remember.  Dreary Bleakness is also a time of great sweetness.  The sap is moving in the sugar maples.  The sugar shack I pass daily on my way to work is filled with steam rising through its chimney, returning the water back to the sky.  We too, we filter, we distill. We keep boiling off what is unnecessary and diluting.

Again and again, we come back to ourselves as the seasons pass. We remember.  We remember the scent of dirt as it thaws and it becomes part of us again.  We remember the smiles and the laughter of those we have lost or not seen for a while, and they become part of us again. We don’t just forgive—which is an act of releasing; we Reconcile, which is an integrating act of remembrance.  Some of our friends are going through dark and harrowing times.  Let us help remember who they are.  Remembering is not just about the past; it’s about the Future too.

Keep mending Dear Ones! Even if all you do today is hug yourself, do it! We need your good work now more than ever.

With Sew Much Love,

Yours aye,

Nancy

In the Bleak Mid-Winter...

In the bleak midwinter/Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron/Water like a stone
Snow had fallen/Snow on snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter/Long, long ago

Greetings Dear Ones

Ordinarily, there is nothing I like quite so much as a Bleak Mid-Winter.  That carol, “in the bleak mid-winter….” often plays in my head as I trudge the grey and bluish circles to the barn and shop.  I confess it soothes my inner hermitess to have snow days and be cut off from civilization and be “forced” to sit by the fire with a good book, a new fiddle tune, or some yarn. The subtle luxuries of ‘snow on snow’ cannot be underestimated. I have lived in places where people gritch about the weather.  Here, we embrace it with relief.  We love wool. We love lumbering around as androgynous mammals. We are invigorated by air that feels like a paring knife.  Our willingness to be slightly uncomfortable occasionally makes every comfort sweeter and opens us up to thrilling opportunities those that want to live at a steady seventy degrees farenheit must decline.

Best of all is the deep quiet of a slumbering Spring beneath the grungy blanket of white.  It’s too early to wake her, shhhhh….  Prune the blueberry bushes as quietly as you can.  Don’t think of hot, full birds and berries. Just use this time to snip away all that is dead. Let the rest slumber.  The Bleak is as precious as anything is that is Temporary.

But this year, my normally deliciously bleak mid-winter is being interrupted by loud pronouncements of something truly Bleak—that it’s going to be a whole bleak YEAR—that ten months of an election cycle will become twenty five (or at least feel that way) and that we are all only living for one day, a certain Tuesday in November. Exhausting prognostications are heavier to bear than layers of quilted overalls under a Carhartt. The rest of our days don’t seem to matter much—the constant out-gassing of the punditry puts us in a paralyzing fog.  We need true Rest, Deep Sleep, A Long Winter’s Nap.  We need a cup of Joy with our daily broccoli.  Instead, we are anxiously anesthetized.   Like most of you, I have been reading, listening, fretting, obsessing…  It’s making not just winter but Life feel bleak.  And it doesn’t feel temporary. 

“When you can’t get out of it, get into it!” is one of my mantras so recently, I read an outstanding book for anyone feeling bleak. It’s “The Diary of a Man in Despair,” by Freidrick Reck, the journal of a German nobleman in Bavaria in the 1930’s.  In it, Reck talks a lot about how his fellow citizens are “losing their sense of humor” and replacing it with fears, suspicions, paranoia and distrust.  He traces the emotional decline of a country where neighbors used to joke with each other and treat each other with gentleness and tolerance, with generous laughter at each other’s quirks, and gradually become the tortured souls who report each other to the authorities for acts of unsanctioned kindness. To say Germany “lost its sense of humor” in the 1930’s is an understatement indeed.  (Reck was later sent to Dauchau and died there for “embarrassing the fatherland” with his writing.)

Just as when one begins to lose one’s hearing, it’s hard to know when we are losing our sense of humor.  We can’t tell what’s missing. What used to be funny that isn’t any more? Yesterday, I micro-waved broccoli as a part of a healthy lunch and it made a healthy smell which wafted all throughout the north end of the building.

“She means the shop smelled like a port-a-potty,” says Prudence.

Several customers came by to collect their finished items and wrinkled their noses.  Do I show them the broccoli and advocate for myself earnestly as if I am on trial, or say nothing, shrug, and let them think I’ve been eating bean burritos for a week?  What’s funnier?

“Neither,” says P.

Mistakes are a perfect time to decide if something is funny or not. Also yesterday, I chopped the sleeves off a man’s expensive dinner jacket in order to shorten them from the shoulder.  (It had working buttonholes at the wrist so it was impossible to shorten from the bottom.)  Carefully, I marked all the seams and relevant joining spots with colored thread so that I would know exactly how to align the sleeve on the jacket again.  Normally, I do one sleeve at a time, but I was tempted to try a new shortcut I had seen online, so I did both sleeves at once. Cleverly, I used different colored threads for each sleeve so that I could tell left from right at a glance: Red for right, bright blue for left (naturally). All was going great until I realized that in trimming the excess length from the top of the sleeve, I had accidentally also cut off all my thread markings, which went into the bin with the fabric I had just trimmed  (doink! Pause for sound of hand slapping head).  Do we think this is FUNNY?  Do we chortle aloud knowing that we DO have the skills needed to tell a right sleeve from a left without the benefit of color coding? (We do.) Or do we panic, flap our arms, do a tiny poop in our pants and blame the smell on the lingering broccoli?

A sense of humor is a choice. 

Humor is horror that includes Love.  Do you forgive me? Do you love me even when I do dumb things? Or do you think I should be reported to the tailoring police?

“At the very least, you should be reported to the broccoli police,” mutters Prudence into the vintage hanky clamped over her nose.

Finding things funny implies forgiveness; it implies safety.  It means I can mess up and still fix things.  Humor implies Faith that all shall be well. It means we are going to be ok in the end, even if we wear jeans that give us seamstress crack (a close cousin to plumber’s crack) when we crawl on all fours attempting to mark a hem on bridal gown with a three acre train.

Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves; we shall never cease to be amused.   If I can laugh at myself, I can laugh with you too at your dumb things without judging you.  Shared Laughter creates community. It helps a lot with Mending.

When my sense of humor is depleted to the point that my inner fifth grader is too tired to roll on the floor giggling because the whole shop smells like one gigantic fart,  I know it’s time to go on a Joy Safari and fill our spirit cup. We’re empty.  I look around for things that make me happy. I look at the giant rack of thread spools on the wall and think of the visiting five-year-old who informed me “that’s NOT a rainbow, but it’s trying to be.” I smile.  I see my button collection and remember the customer who told me his favorite color was “beige.” I grin.  I gaze out the enormous windows to the north and see homes and trees, and tendrils of river mist rising like smoke. Behind them all, as ancient and steady as a prayer mound, rises Mt. Watasticut—pristine, glittering, white. All of Nature is a wedding dress. I inhale the Beauty and the Promises.

Bleak mid-winter is a wonderful time to go on a Joy safari. Joy can be hard to spot on a summer’s day when her plumage blends so naturally with the swing of a hammock, an outdoor bath under the stars, and the taste of sun-warmed blueberries and fresh sweet corn twenty minutes from the stalk.  Pretty much anything can feel like Joy then.  

Against the backdrop of mud ruts in the snow and intermittent sub zero Bleakness, Joy looks a little different. She’s easily missed.  Sometimes, you just have to have a party and invite her and see if she shows up.  I did this past Sunday.  I went to the barn, cranked the tunes up to volume 11 and grabbed a pitchfork and a wheel barrow and mucked out the cow shed.  Joy and I danced in our thermal welly boots and sang at the top of our voices to songs we didn’t know all the words to. The Beloved Hermit of Hermit Hollow appeared in the doorway and said, “Wow! Sounds like a party going on in here!”

“Yep!” I panted as I charged past him with a load of frosted dung. “Every party has a pooper and this party happens to have TWO! Lucky us!! Two great big poopers pooping everywhere.” Gus and Otie, the ox-lings, mooed their affirmatives from the paddock.  Gus smiled and cocked his tail to drop even more.

There is Joy in hard work. There is Joy in seeking the comfort of those you love. There is Joy in witnessing their pleasure.  It was a Joy to replace filth with clean fresh shavings.  I made a large pile in each stall and then hung on the open gate and watched the Moo Crew charge in and do battle with their bedding.  They snorted and tossed it everywhere with their horns. They had a ball, smiling, pawing the ground and playing with the wood chips. Occasionally, each one would pause and regard me with bright, interested eyes and bovine gratitude.  Everything “new” is a game they want to play and Fresh bedding is especially exciting for them. 

“Why don’t YOU ever trample your bed on all fours, snorting and tossing your clean sheets over your head?” asks Joy.  I don’t know.  How many things in my life am I doing without a sense of celebration or pleasure? At feeding time, everyone I live with either wiggles, hops, barks, or bahs with joy.  Do I? Do I wiggle with glee at my broccoli and carrots? Or slump and meow that it’s not French fries?

“Life is supposed to be Bleak,” insists Prudence. “It’s inappropriate and hedonistic to revel.”

Joy disagrees.

“How can we be given anything and refuse to take delight in it?” she asks.

Just for today, as an antidote to terminal Bleakness, I choose Joy.  I am going to moo and wiggle and stomp my feet when I get fed. I’m going to make a riot of my clean bed. Joy is not in getting “more” or different but in celebrating what we get.  I get a LOT.  And I am deeply, joyously Grateful.

Life is not so Bleak.   Don’t let the pundits tell you otherwise.  Heaven forbid we lose our sense of humor, Dear Ones.  Keep mending. Thank you for doing your Good Work!  As always, thank you for commenting, sharing and subscribing.

With Sew Much Love,

Yours aye,

Nancy