“Give yourself to Love, if Love is what you’re after” –Kate Wolf

Greetings Dear Ones!

Buckle up! Here we go: the start of the FIFTH year of this blog. The Love Safari continues. I wasn’t even sure I would manage one this week—as there are 18+ (and counting) prom dresses clogging up the shop with glitter, glamour, and tulle. AND (this being Vermont) there are Morris Dancers too! In the nick of time, I completed the overhaul of seven matching vests for our local team, who danced at dawn on May Day. With all the deadlines, and to ward off the temptation to guzzle distilled beverages straight from the bottle, I have taken Mary Poppin’s advice and made the job a game. It’s called Spring Bingo. In the various boxes are all the things Prudence loves best (um…not really) about customers during prom season: mother and daughter bickering, having enough tulle to slip-cover a pony on the cutting table all at the same time, closed hems that include 4-inch horsehair braid, and the dad being rushed to the ER when he sees his baby girl in something that makes him assume the high school dance floor will include a pole. One dear young lady came in recently and ticked most of her favorites: forgot shoes for hemming, dress needed in less than three days, made entirely of glitter, left wallet at boyfriend’s house and can’t pay for it, it’s too tight but she wants it tighter because “the zipper is too big.” Should the day come where every single box is ticked at once, I give myself permission to drop a gravity-fed steam iron on my foot and go home.

The State Troopers are all switching to summer uniforms and need new arm patches sewn on. Cruisers in the parking lot and troopers in uniform going in and out of the building might make people wonder what I am up to. I say nothing. I cultivate an air of mystery. Knowing so much of the force will make it unlikely that I will ever qualify for jury duty again so I’m glad I got my chance while I could. Last week I was assigned to my third and final trial—unsavory charges of alleged violence. I had already made up my mind that if the defendant had been up half the night trying to make a vintage 1980’s Gunne Sax dress three sizes bigger using faded velvet that could not be matched, he probably was innocent and could plead insanity. But when I showed up at the courthouse with my fellow jurors, we were excused. The trial was either postponed or cancelled. In one swift gulp, the morning was bitten and chewed but the rest of the day spit out. What a gift! I love the idea that I was willing to give my time and that Time, in turn, was willing to give itself back.

Time mystifies me. I am one of those mothers who thought she would never get her children potty-trained and the next minute they left for college. These days are a swift kaleidoscope of every changing colors (and glitter! Ugh… why did I assume Vermont promsters would prefer sensible things like flannel or burlap?) Morning skies on the farm, which seem to arrive every twenty minutes or so, are a rumple of pink and blue tie dye with a row of slim, inverted lungs in stark outline at the edges. Their blackened tracheas reach upwards, bifurcate, and branch, becoming the smaller and smaller paths towards the air they transpire. The central heating is off but on colder mornings I load my arms with the last sticks of firewood for the kitchen stove. I can hear the local band of bachelor turkeys roaming in the dusk, making their characteristic wobble-gobble. They swagger into view at the edge of the woods, boasting and showing off. I must remember to scan the trail for their discarded feathers. Turkey feathers make the perfect tools for gently brushing bees off a frame of honey or brood. A sweet and gentle customer, who is moving to Colorado and cannot take them with her, has given me a precious hive of bees to steward. I am experimenting with keeping them in the upper loft of the barn, by a large open window, where they will be safe from bears. They are a small but friendly clump of BUZZ and seem to like their new location. Until now, they have been city bees, working off a balcony. Soon, they will discover the orchard! I can’t wait.

Bit by bit, all the pieces of the Spring delirium are coming together. The bees are here; the trees are here; all the furry and feathered family are “home.” I’ve mulched the blueberries. In the forest, a green mist rises between the tree as the brush closes in, sealing off the view. Tree frogs and early birds have begun their morning choir rehearsals. The calves and sheep vie for cuddles and scratches at each margin of the day (and also behind their ears). Their hides are weary of last winter’s clothing. Each dawn brings both the reassurance of small, familiar circles—daily chores, patterns, procedures—as well as those elipses that are annual, novel, and exciting.

When I saw my niece Rabbit at Easter time, we decided to go for a walk. “Which way do you want to go?” she asked, adding “If we go that way, it’s all up hill.” I laughed.

“ALL uphill? Have you not heard of Kepler’s Laws?” I asked. “If we return to where we start, then we must walk uphill as much as down. The needle returns to the start of the song.”

“Makes sense,” she said, shrugging accommodatingly. I learn so much from dear Rabbit. She always gets me thinking.

In the 1690’s, German astronomer/mathematician/musician/natural philosopher/astrologer/writer Johannes Kepler came up with laws of Harmony. He recognized three “laws” concerning planetary motion around a fixed sun as the center, laws which mark an interesting turning point in the transition from thinking everything in orbit revolved around the earth to realizing everything actually revolves around the sun. (He also realized we have two eyes in order to create depth perception but I am getting off track now…) He realized that when a planet is closer to the sun, it travels faster, much the way a seamstress’s fingers have a way of scooting past a hot iron on a hemline. The farther it is from the sun, the slower its orbital speed. He recognized that we travel space in a series of ellipses, not circles, and that all planets are in a consistent and relational harmony of time and distance with each other.

Harmony is the supreme potential of balance—things seeking equilibrium—going too far and then having to come back. What goes out will come back in again in time the way Disharmonious actions flow out from us like ripples disturbing a pond. They go out and back, like Prom gowns, gradually lessening in frequency until harmony is restored. Harmony, in this case, is defined as a shop without prom gowns.

I look around the transitional chaos at both shop and farm and wonder what Kepler might think of it. Do things return to Harmony? Really? If given enough time? And what about the law of Entropy? And the Laws of Glitter? I’m pretty sure they all cancel each other out. All these prom gowns have come in… soon they must go back out. Afterall, it’s the law. RIGHT???

It’s certainly true that what goes out from us comes back to us. During April vacation week, I took to thanking the teachers for their service, the way I normally thank veterans. Many of them came in during their week off to have their spring wardrobes spruced up (the teachers, that is, not the veterans). They were surprised to be thanked. And meltingly Grateful. The more I thanked them, the more they thanked me for thanking them. The more we received each other’s gratitude, the happier we all were. I started thanking everyone. I even thanked a woman who forgot her shoes and balanced her heels on a two-inch stack of books so we could get the hem marked on her bridesmaids’ dress. “Thanks for making my day,” I said. “You realize, of course, that if this hem is off, you will just have to wear books on your feet to the wedding!” (I seriously hope she does! How fabulous would that be?)

So! Harmony, Chaos, Transition, Glitter…. Yep. We got it all. Spring is Springing and the planets are swinging. The sun feels closer and Time is flying. Balance is doing its level best. Gratitude sweetens the deal. It’s almost as much fun as Bingo.

Thanks for being here for the ride. Thanks for the kind words and good work you put out into this world in need of Mending!

With Sew much Love,

Yours aye,

Nancy