Greetings Dear Ones,

Well, here it is, right in the middle of the holiday rush and I decided I would just Quit Everything for a while. No hustling for presents. No tree trimming. No parties. I have not been sewing, spinning, knitting, baking, reading, writing, or playing music of any kind. On a good day, I may lie around watching old sit-coms from the 80’s (that I never got to see then because I wasn’t allowed to watch TV; I had to “play outside.”) The phone is ringing off the hook and I just lie here by the crackling stove, sipping tea and watching people with rather unfortunate hair and clothing choices make a slap-stick muddle of their lives for 45 minutes at a time, before everything gets resolved with a few one-liners and that sparkling good will of another era.

My shop is clogged with work and I am getting testy emails from people “just checking” in to see if they should come in and pick up yet.

They shouldn’t.

I haven’t done their work today and I doubt I’ll get to it tomorrow. I’d rather lie here. My body has some major decisions to make about whether we are ever going to wear jeans and walk vertically again.

Naturally, my inner Capitalist is going out of her freakin’ mind. “Everyone says Covid is now just a mild flu. You’re over-dramatizing this. What kind of Slacker are you? You’ve GOT to power through!” she shrieks. “You probably aren’t contagious. Get up and plug in the iron. Fix something…Make something. DO something!” She is running in circles, shaking fistfuls of bills at me. I ignore her.

“You manage to power through for the animals,” she says accusingly.

“Yes, but I MUST. And I always will. That’s what having animals means. They always come first.”

“Why not people?”

“People are not going to die if they don’t get some pants hemmed.”

“You’re not going to die either!” she storms.

“Yes, but after five days of aches, chills, and fever it sure feels like it…” I mumble, turning over to cough until I see stars.

Doing chores with a fever is not the most pleasant thing to do but at least the weather is still mild and I don’t have buckets of ice to haul and smash. Twice a day, I feed the animals and go back to bed with a little dog who is only too delighted to keep me company in the over-heated covers. I drag half a bale of hay out to the sheep in the field and sit on an old tree stump to catch my breath.

“You’re sick, aren’t you?” asks little Miss Prim.

“Yes,” I say. “I haven’t been this sick in many years.”

“Well, you need to hide that. We sheep never look sick until we are just about to die. It keeps the predators at bay. You need to pretend you are fine.”

“You sound like some of my customers.”

“This is a world pretty short on Mercy,” says another sheep. “Limping just makes you a target. Keep your suffering out of sight.”

“That seems to be what a lot of people do,” I admit. “How many of us are actually walking around with invisible Handle with Care labels on them? So many of us are suffering like sheep afraid of getting bitten.”

“It’s a Thing,” says Wally, chewing.

Walking back to the house makes me dizzy because there is a ringing in my ears. Out of curiosity, I match the pitch I hear as best I can and hum it into the guitar tuner app on my phone. My head is ringing at a faint D#.

“I hope you feel better soon,” says Everyone. Some of these people say so with their own selfish agendas at heart; others genuinely wish me well. Honestly, I am in no hurry. It’s been five years since I have taken any kind of break. I’ve earned this and no one is going to deprive me of it. If I can’t get out of it, I’m going to get into it. Defiantly, rebelliously, I don’t give a hoot who sees me limp, or lie on the dog’s bed in front of the stove. I am not a sheep. I’m a crabby middle-aged woman who hasn’t slept through the night in over a week. Frankly, that’s way more dangerous than any coyote!

I listen to every sound in the house until all I can hear, beneath the D#, is Stillness. I had not realized how hungry I was for this Silence, for this peace. In the Stillness… when I am Very Still…I find myself. Still. It feels good to lie still. I don’t want to be Tough. I don’t want to “power through.” I’m exhausted by the thought of being anyone’s pretend hero. I just want to lie here and listen to something I am supposed to learn about Healing, about Resting, about Receiving the miracle of health I take for granted every day. Suddenly, I am flooded with Gratitude. I have unhooked from the relentless forward momentum of my normal life just to Be. This illness is actually a blessing.

When the fever finally breaks and I can begin doing little things, I start my most important project: embroidering a heart-shaped pillow for a customer. He has asked me to make a plush toy for his child that can contain a much older plush toy inside of it. It’s the child’s favorite toy but it is worn to shreds. In Velveteen Rabbit terms, this thing has been loved so much it is Real to the point of disintegrating into wadded up thread crumbs stuck together with kid sweat and drool. The idea is that the little toy will live inside the “heart” I build to put inside the much larger replica of this toy. I have no pattern, so I am just winging it from pictures. Love has damaged this little bunny so much he has no recognizable face.

The little Velveteen bunny lies next to the fabric that will become its new home looking exactly how I feel. I try to handle him as gently as possible. Gradually, the heart and the larger new toy take shape. The proportions are not exactly right because the hollow torso must accommodate this “heart” that is oversized and filled with ragged, damaged, but pure and true Love. I leave the chest empty and stuff the arms, the legs, the feet, hands, head, ears… I sew on eyes and embroider a nose. Then I pack the little bunny away into the heart and seal up the chest cavity with Velcro. The new guy looks both hopeful and vaguely surprised—the hand-sewn mouth is a little crooked, as if this chap is a little shy but up for a good joke. I hope he will be loved, both for who he is and what he contains.

I have put a Good Face on something that is hiding something ragged within. The sheep would be proud of me.

I think about how hard this time of year can be on some of us Menders. The Darkness is always a challenge—so is the unrelenting weight of fear and fatigue we are still coping with after two years of a global pandemic and economic and political upheaval. We are all more tired than we think. Most of us are carrying hearts full of ragged little loves we cannot bear to part with yet cannot survive our continued grasping. We tell ourselves we cannot rest, we cannot wait, we must carry on. But these hearts can be so heavy… And we can only build our newer, bigger, stronger, more hopeful selves if we take it gently, one stitch at a time. Time is all we have and all we need. It is the only Healer.

I feel so blessed that I got to lie still and be authentically Ragged for a week. I had the luxury of being able to make space for myself. Prudence and the inner Capitalist realized, for once, that continuing to whip me was futile. I had the luxury of not giving a damn.

I’m hugely grateful to my sweet customers who mostly understood and were content to wait graciously. All in all, it was a splendid isolation. A perfect Advent of silent Waiting in the dark.

Dear ones, I hope you don’t need a virus to allow you to realize the beauty of resting when you are tired or praying when you feel hopeless. Your work is important, yes, but even more important is that Spirit that informs all you do. If your spirits are at low ebb, please remember how very much you are needed, wanted, and loved. Those who love you can build a safe place for you in our hearts where you do not have to pretend to be invincible. Rest your little ragged self with care and patience. Let old resentments and rush jobs pass you by in the holiday hurry-up. Who cares how many days it is until the presents are due? Embrace Presence. Giving yourself the gift of Time will do magic and mending you cannot imagine.

For if you can love and make space for all that is ragged in yourself and others, is that not the greatest gift of all?

Wishing you every blessing of Health & Peace,

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy

P.S. I am actually On the Mend and feeling better!