“If you tell the truth, it becomes part of your past. If you tell a lie, it becomes part of your future..”

Greetings Dear Ones!

Well, it’s February—the longest little month of the year. It’s already been a long two days. I celebrated the first day by having the boiler break just as the blizzard was bearing down on us. Far from depressing me, I felt vaguely exhilarated as I put out cups of water in the cellar to see if the temperature had hit freezing yet (thus endangering any water pipes that might burst). Late into the night, I tended the wood stove in the kitchen as I knitted a wool shawl and nurtured my inner Little-House-on-the-Prairie dweller. I attempted to light a little coal stove in the cellar, more of a parlor stove really, but things did not go well. I found some old bags of black rocks with kind of a greenish sheen to them in a corner near that stove. I tried to light them but they would not ignite. Then I watched a YouTube video, as one does, to figure out how real Prairie dwellers do this properly. A homesteader from Missouri had the shortest video so I watched that one. It turns out that it takes a lot to get anthracite to burn. I also had no idea how to open or shut the baffles on the stove (I was BAFFLED) so after filling the house with smoke and having to open all the windows (which kind of defeated the purpose of heating the house in the first place), I decided to abandon the project and get the electric heater from the bathroom for the pipes. It wasn’t very “Little House” of me, but I was getting worn out and needed to go microwave my tea and turn on my electric blanket. I’m not sure I’m cut out for pioneering… (though I really like the knitting shawls from one’s own sheep part!)

The sheep have no idea it’s February. I’m not even sure they are aware it’s cold. They have a choice of inside or outside and they stay outside in falling snow until they look like snowballs. I like to sit with them during a heavy snow and feel the blanket of silence smother the nearby woods. I tell the sheep about St. Brigid’s day—halfway from the Solstice to the Vernal Equinox—and how Tradition decrees I must go clean the house. I would rather clean the barn. Patron saints who require one to clean the house are not my favorite saints. Patron Saints who require one to purchase a lot of over-priced chocolates and roses are much more fun. “Roses are delicious,” say the sheep, “but what does one want with chocolate?”

“These are ways humans express their love for one another,” I tell them, “And the day we celebrate Love is coming up soon—in two week’s time.”

“Tell us a love story,” the little ones say. “We don’t know about Love. We just know Food and Safety.”

“Well,” I say, “That’s Love, pretty much… but I shall tell you a story just the same.”

“Once upon a Time, there was the Perfect Customer who showed up at the door of a Perfect Seamstress. He had no needs whatsoever. Wait…he couldn’t be a customer if he didn’t have a need, right? He couldn’t even be human… Ok, scrap that. Dude had needs. He knocked on the door of the Perfect Seamstress. She opened it. Their eyes locked. He said Nothing. She understood his needs perfectly. As if by Magic, actually it was magic, she took one look at him and knew instantaneously what needed to be done. Wordlessly, he handed her his pants.”

“Excuse me,” interrupts Prudence Thimbleton in a warning tone, “This doesn’t sound like the sort of story one should be telling innocent and impressionable sheep.” (Prudence, for those of you who have forgotten, is that sour old “None/nun”—i.e. “none of this and none of that”—who squints judgmentally at everything I do from inside my head.)

“You’re right! A man handing a woman his pants sounds somewhat, well, seamy!” I exclaim hastily, laughing. “Clothes! He handed her his clothes…”

“You’re just making this worse,” tutts Prudence.

“What’s wrong with clothes?” I ask. Everyone hands seamstresses their clothes, and pants too for that matter. I’m picturing that character handing the other character a bag of clothes that need mending. That sounds innocent enough to be fairytale worthy to me.”

“You did not mention a bag,” says Prudence.

“OK!” I turn to the sheep, who are waiting expectantly. “There’s a guy with a bag of clothes. He’s still wearing clothes. Everyone is wearing clothes…”

“Do you have to cut their clothes off them in the Spring?” interrupts one of the sheep curiously, “Do they jump around in the dressing room and try to escape until you lock your knees around their necks and step on a hind leg in soft slippers to stop them from moving while you cut?”

“No,” I say. “That’s just you guys… and maybe a toddler or two. But back to the story!”

“There’s a guy who needs his clothes fixed. He took them off at home and put on other clothes. He bagged up the bad clothes and brought them to the Perfect Seamstress, who understood exactly what they needed. She didn’t have to ask a single question. He didn’t have to try anything on. He didn’t make a single request. Not once did he say “do you think you could…” or “call me crazy but what I really want is…” She didn’t even have to get out a stick with numbers and measure anything. He left his clothes (in the bag) and she set to work. When he came back, it was all fixed perfectly in neat, tiny stitches… Wait, no. Scrap that. This is a fairy tale. She waved a magic wand over everything and then just waited for him to come back on a horse with bags of gold and the announcement that he was really an enchanted prince in disguise. Then they fell madly in love and got married, always squeezed the toothpaste from the bottom, and never missed a car payment, ever. The End.”

“That’s a fun Love Story,” says a little sheep, giggling. “That story makes me feel happy!”

“It makes a lot of people feel happy,” I say, “until the sheer impossibility of it makes them feel miserable.”

“Why does it make them feel miserable?” they want to know. “Is it not true?”

“Of course it’s not true,” says Prudence. “A TRUE love story involves an exhausting amount of communication and sacrifice and well, telling the Truth.”

“She’s right,” I say, very pleased and actually a tad surprised that Prudence knows what true love is. “I love my dear customers very much but I have no idea what they want unless they tell me. Sometimes even when they do tell me I have a hard time understanding! And boy howdy, let me tell you, they DON’T love me if I don’t do what they want! Our love is specific, contractual, and Conditional.”

“Tell us a true love story then!” beg the sheep.

“Ok,” I say. “It’s a snow day. What else is there to do?” I settle back on my milk crate and begin again:

“Once upon a Wednesday, a pretty good customer came to see a pretty good seamstress. He had some pretty good problems he needed her help with. They each asked each other a lot of questions and told each other the truth. She did her best. There were no magic wands. She measured and took notes. She basted then sewed. He came back for another fitting. Things weren’t quite right so they kept talking, kept measuring, kept adjusting. Finally, after many hours over many days, the man came back and tried on his clothing. It was as close to perfect as a pretty good fairy tale can allow. He was happy. She was happy. He paid her money and thanked her. Everyone was Satisfied and agreed to work together again sometime.”

“Now, that’s a true love story,” says the oldest ewe. “I get it. The seamstress loves her work and wants to do it well. The customer loves his clothes and wants to fix them, not just deposit them in a landfill somewhere where, thanks to their 25 percent nylon/plastic content, they will never rot and will create an environmental nightmare over time. The seamstress loves her customer; the customer loves his seamstress. They both love the economy, the government to whom they both pay taxes, even the other people those taxes support. In this one simple interaction, they Love themselves, each other, the community in which they live, the country in which that community resides, and the planet under All. In the end, even the sheep get clean water to drink and good grass to eat.”

“Wow,” I say. “Who knew you were Globalists?”

“All Creatures are Globalists,” they insist. “In ever-widening spirals, the Love goes out—true love, sort of gritty, needing lots of work, with a few resentments along the way. But mostly, Pretty Good. It’s a Pretty Good love story.”

“That story makes me even happier than the first,” says a younger ewe hopefully.

“Agreed,” nod the wethers.

“So why don’t people communicate better?” they want to know. “Why do they lie? Why would they not say the truth, especially if they knew what the truth is? How can anyone help them if they don’t tell the truth?”

“Because they are sneaky, hopeless sinners,” says Prudence.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “All I know is that if you tell me your waist is a 34 and you are that around the tops of your legs, NOT your waist, then I’m not going to make your pants fit right. If I doubt your words, it’s up to me to measure and find out. (I Fact Check!!! Especially the wishful thinkers…) There are no “alternative” facts in a fitting room. If there are, they get “alterated” very quickly! People who don’t help me help them, who don’t tell me the truth about what they expect, are as baffling as a stove with closed baffles. They fill my mind with ice cold smoke. I don’t have room for that in the shop. We don’t have room for that anywhere. True love is based in Truth, no matter how spotted, wrinkled, chubby, or ugly that truth may be.”

I leave the sheep in a hopeful mood. Halfway up the hill to the house, I pause and survey the beauty of the land around me. This whole country is now grappling with bafflers, and learning what it means to tell the Truth. We cannot begin to fix things until people are honest about what the problems are. It’s time that we Menders stand up, in our quiet little ways, in our tender little deeds, and show folks that we could have a Pretty Good Country if we just all told the truth. Not Perfect… but Pretty Good would be a GREAT start.

That’s my Love Story for today. Keep up your Good Work my Dear Ones! It matters! TRULY.

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy