Little Miss Sky Eyes
Greetings Dear Ones!
If things were going to plan, I’d be at the vet’s right now, dealing with one of my little feline friends who needs to have a cancerous eye removed—a gruesome task for such a beautiful day. But Fate smiled on the little guy, as he exploded out of the carrying crate, jumped out the nearest open window, flashed four middle claws at me, and disappeared. (I’m still struggling with the grammar on this one—does it read like Fate jumped out the window? Or the cat? It feels like both.) So here I am, plans and carrier in tatters, boundaries escaped, stewing in a brew of frustration and guilty relief. For a while longer it seems, we all still have our eyes to see this precious golden day. I’m not sad about that.
There is nothing quite like Vermont in October. (If one is going to lose some vision, perhaps November would be better—though indeed not if one is voting!)(Please Vote!)
Last Sunday, I took a rare day off from the grim drudgery of slip-covering brides during Wedding Season and went with a friend to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival in Tunbridge for what we giggled was “a play date.” We feasted our eyes on colors, textures, and fibrous beauty of every description. With over thirty fleeces yet to process from this year’s shearing, I promised myself I was just going “to look.” The drive over Putney Mountain to her house at 6:30 am was like a movie scene: Dawn hit each hill and leaf like a novice lighting director playing with the set before the show. Heavy mist lifted like curtains as the spotlight shone in random directions on the road twisting like a river through the valleys. I saw the Sunday papers at the bottom of driveways getting gently covered by falling leaves before sleepy coffee sippers came to fetch them. What if they could not find yesterday’s news before today’s glory covered it completely?
All the towns we passed were nestled in the folds of an enormous quilt of Autumn colors. There were frequent white churches with iconic steeples stabbing at blue from green commons. Farmhouses bordered the squares and high on the calico hills, large, empty barns looked down on us with an air of historic holiness to them, like ruined cow-thedrals echoing the simple hymns of life long ago. Cotton candy clouds spun of maple syrup stuck haphazardly on the satin skirts of the sky. We emerged from the car in Tunbridge—Artists free to touch and taste and roam within the Painting.
We went from vendor to vendor admiring Gorgeous Ingenuity and Patience plied with Talent. (I bought bottles of homemade hot sauce and an etching of oxen pulling a stone boat but no yarn or wool, thankfully!) In the Unhurried rush that is a festival, Time was piled up all around us—hours of birthing, feeding, cleaning, shearing, scouring, sorting, spinning, felting, plying, knitting, weaving, collecting, deciding… Most folks sold their time for pennies on the dollar. I think every creative person must. (Socks with a nine thousand dollar price tag don’t sell that fast.) And most creative people are Givers who struggle to receive because they do not understand the value of a skill that comes naturally to them.
Everywhere I looked, I saw HER again—Little Miss Sky Eyes.
I met Little Miss Sky Eyes at a Scottish Festival here in Vermont in August. I was demonstrating spinning wool on a variety of spinning wheels and showing off some of my dear sheep in a small pen next to me. The dance competition stage was our nearest neighbor so many dancers came to pet the sheep and hear stories. One of them stayed and got to spin her very own book mark using one of my “cranky spindles.” It’s a tool I made from a coat hanger and a turned baluster from a stairway. The wire is bent into a hook at one end and a handle at the other that passes through a hole I drilled in the baluster. It’s not a traditional way to spin but it is a very user-friendly way to help unlearned hands experience quick success at spinning. It eliminates the months of “potty mouth” that one must use if one is actually going to acquire this skill for real. This girl spun a long thread with ease and squealed with delight as I took it off the hook, pinched the yarn in the center and then watched it ply itself into a twist with a sudden, magical twitch. She looked up at me in wonder—with huge blue eyes that exactly matched the color of the sky all around her tightly coifed bun.
“Can I do this again?” she asked. Light was streaming from her being.
“Of course!” I replied, handing over more wool.
After she had made a second one, she said “I finally found the thing that I am good at!”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Eight,” came the distracted reply. She was reaching for more wool.
“I think you are going to be good at many things in time. Eight is very early to be good at something already. These things take time. Eight is the perfect time for learning something new.”
“Can I make as many as I want?” she wanted to know.
After she made her third piece of yarn, she decided to tie them in a knot and make a bracelet.
“I’m going to need a lot more wool,” she announced. “These bracelets are so good. I need to make one for all of my friends.”
She set to work building bracelets behind me in the back ground as I told my stories and taught people how to spin. By mid afternoon, she was an expert. A half hour later, she was taking charge of my show. When a crowd would disperse, she would go out and drum up business.
It was hot. I was tired. I was losing touch with my connection to the sense of enormous Privilege it is to Share. Every time I wanted to slump in a chair during a lull, or trudge to the water closet, or spin my own wool in silence, there was Little Miss Sky Eyes darting through crowds piping “Who wants to learn about spinning? Who wants to make a bracelet?” She ran at the herds of families with children with the energy of a young Border Collie, directing them to my tent. She was spinning up bracelets and telling me I should sell them and split the money with her. She was lecturing grownups about the history of Shetland Sheep in America. She went off briefly now and then and won five participatory medals in the dance competitions yet I hardly knew she was gone. She was always back in a minute with more friends who needed bracelets. She kept the crowds crowding us all day.
“Don’t you think you should check in with your parents?” I selfishly asked this dear little pest more than once. “They might be missing you!”
“Oh no,” she answered quickly, grinning. “I told them I would be here all day. It’s the only part of the festival I want to see. I also told them that when I am old like you I am going to have my own sheep and a real spinning wheel.”
I never met this girl’s parents. I have no idea who was in charge of her. I don’t remember her name. I only remember her eyes and the way I felt when I looked into them—like I was lost in a wild blue heat of earnest innocence. It struck me how she knew already how to justify her joy by means of suave generosity.
“I want to be so good at this, I get to do it all the time, like you” she said sweetly. She has no idea that that’s exactly what I want for myself too! We all want to get so good at something we love that people will pay us to do it for them.
Old… Like me…
She IS me.
And if you are any kind of craftsman, writer, artist, musician, builder, mender, healer, Giver—she is YOU too. Do you remember that joy of discovering a new skill that would come to define you? The endless energy and hunger that come with fresh Approval? How even that cannot compare to the intrinsic pleasure of doing the thing itself, with no thought of product placement? The heavy relief of realizing you have something of value to give?
Towards the end of the day, Little Miss Sky Eyes slumped down next to the sheep, her arm through the fence resting on the back of a tired lamb. She looked a little sad.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, offering her a scone.
“My friends don’t want any more bracelets. They say they have enough.”
“How wonderful!” I said. “You’ve saturated the market. Excellent. Now you must make the best one of all for yourself.”
She looked at her bare arms and shrugged.
Together, we spun another long thread. I let her use colors I hadn’t given her before. She wrapped it around the neck of her toy stuffed animal and smiled.
“Can I make another one for my mom?”
At Tunbridge, I surveyed a field filled with tents within the circle of velvet hills. Each white square housed creative spirits with eyes of sunlight, wanting to be part of the Transformation that true Beauty requires. We know the labor that Love demands. We have learned that progress requires participation and prizes cannot replace the blessing of Community. At such festivals, we seek each other as teachers, siblings, students, playmates, and pals to nurture and inspire and solace our inner Little Miss Sky Eyes.
Don’t forget to make something beautiful just for you, Dear One!
With SEW MUCH LOVE for all your Good Work,
Yours Aye,
Little Miss Nancy