Happy February Dear Ones!

It’s about 12 F degrees as I make my way to the barn this morning. The air on my cheek feels like a 60 grit sandpaper kiss from one of the steers. It’s a silent, black and blue and white world, save for three pops of red: the barn itself, my nose, and the winterberries, glistening beneath icicles on their branches. The Winterberry bush, half way between house and barn, is large and ancient. The weight of a recent snow storm has torn off a limb, exposing the pith of the trunk where it ripped. Healing will come with the spring. For now, it trembles in the semi-darkness, offering hot bursts of color that cannot be frozen, dimmed, or shamed.

I feel like this bush—torn by weights that fall upon me (such as people who want their snow gear mended by Friday), half dying, half bursting with ideas and possibilities of a bright red new life just waiting to land upon soft, open ground. But the ground is frozen and so am I. February, often called ‘the longest little month of the year,’ is that time of not yet living, not yet dying. Hope is on Ice.

Yearly, I remind myself to be gentle. “Do not make any major decisions on February,” I say aloud, as on I plod, trudging the little circles of light between house and barn, barn and house, home and shop, shop and home. It seems like it is forever time to wake up, only it’s also always time for bed.

This is the time when Love Stories sustain us. I’m not talking about those old fashioned versions of “Boy meets Girl; Girl gets chocolate.” (“Which inevitably lead to ‘Boy disappears and Girl is left sobbing and eating an entire trifle with her bare hands,” says Prudence tartly.) I’m talking about getting in touch with that Enormous Source within and around us that helps us build and tread the bridges between worlds—between the interior self and outer self, the self and others, others and our community, our communities and the nation, with as much Grace as possible. I’m on a Kindness safari.

“Know any good Love Stories?” I ask the sheep.

“EVERY story is a love story,” says Blossom.

“I am trying to make my life a Love Story,” I confess, “only I am not doing the best job of it. I have a few crust-omers I don’t feel particularly loving towards.

“Are people in your shop asking you to love them? I thought they were just asking you to fix their pants,” says Prim.

“If every customer is a story, then every one is looking for love,” says Angel Wally.

“Of course they are asking for Love. Humans are asking for EVERYTHING,” says Willoughby, with a touch of eye-rolling.

“Well, why can’t you just Love them?” asks Prim. “Loving is easy.”

“Because…” I sigh heavily, “Some people need a tremendous amount—such as [that pest] from [that state] who keeps texting me at all hours (except during business hours) to see if her shirt is ready already. Some are easy to love—such as [that adorable person] who speaks softly and is in no rush, who needs a seat on the bench in the hall and a peppermint before he can make it back to his car.”

“I LOVE peppermints!” says Prim. “Let’s all have some right now. Let’s taste some of that love.”

I confess I have no peppermints, point them towards the Christmas tree they have not yet finished and go on.

“Some people create a deficit in me immediately that makes me mutter to myself and savagely stab my fingers with needles, accidentally, as I sew and have silent dress rehearsals with them in my head about what they can do with their dirty mending, if they really want to know… It bothers me that I know I give better service to crabby people and more affection to kind people. The kind people get more kindness from me, but slow service because I know they can tolerate a wait without hating me, and the demanding ones get swift service so that I can get rid of them quickly. This strikes me as wimpy and unsatisfying on so many levels. It’s leading me to live an Inauthentic Life, against which I rebel.

“Being Nice to Nice people and Mean to Mean people is really the way it should be,” announces Blossom. “What’s your problem?”

“It’s not as easy as that,” I say. “There are too many layers. Inside I am nice to the Nice, but outwardly, they are not getting the fastest work. They are paying too high a price for my affection. And the mean people are not getting any nicer—they just get moe spoiled by having everything just how they want it as soon as they want it. I think the Nice people should have that…”

Waterlily stares at me, asbsently munching for a while.

“What makes wanting what you want when you want it ‘mean’”she wants to know. “We ALL want what we want when we want it. We ALL bash each other like mad when you put the feed in the bucket. Is that Mean?”

I laugh. It helps me to think of them as greedy farm animals just trying to get into the feed room so they can eat all the grain. It’s just their nature to want free buttons for their thrift-store finds, and to expect me to sew them on while they wait, and then charge $2 to a credit card because they have no cash. These people aren’t unkind or mean, they are just pushy, abrupt, abrasive, utterly lacking in charm, like two young bulls who know it’s supper time.

“It sounds like you are hungry,” says Angel Wally. “But also Fed Up. Get rid of the thing you are carrying so that you can fill up on something more nourishing. If the love you are giving does not serve you, you will not last long as a seamstress serving the public. You will burn out too fast.”

“Aren’t you the one who says the people most in need of love are the ones behaving in the most unloveable ways?” asks Prim.

They are right. What do I need to let go of so that I can enjoy something Else? We all sit in silence, cudding for a while.

“I think the thing I need to get rid of is the sense of insult that is implied when people pester me—as if I don’t want to or am unable to take care of them the way they want unless they worry at me. It makes me sense their lack of trust in me. I want to feel trustworthy. Nice people make me feel valued, trusted. I like that…” I say slowly, feeling the sting come out along with my words.

“You need to eat up a whole lot of Beauty,” says Angel Wally. “Feast your eyes, your ears, your thoughts, on the things that make you Happy, not sad. Work hard and fast for everybody. Do things in order. Don’t play favorites. Your true Heart’s Desire sprouts from a sense of yourself that is sturdy enough to have preferences independent of external factors.”

He’s given me a lot to chew, as I pass the Winterberries again...

So! The task I set for myself this month is to reconnect to my ability to Love: to be that tiny red berry in a temporarily frozen world. (I want to give the “nice” customers good service too!) My plan is to keep an eye out for Beauty, for opportunities to observe others loving each other, to stock the Love Larder, so that I have plenty to share. When we feed our hearts with caring for Goodness, we reawaken ourselves to love and joy. When a man tells me he wants all the collars reversed on his threadbare shirts by Monday so that he can move to Montana on Tuesday, I will not scream silently “Are you KIDDING ME? How long have you known you were moving to Montana, you [person whose parents never married]???” I will be too full--of the glow of a moonlight on snow, of a person holding a door for a friend at the post office, of a friend’s music, of a mother getting her son’s boxer shorts hemmed so that her son won’t be ridiculed at ice-hockey—to do anything but burp out a little sunshine. I won’t have to suppress the urge to say naughty words, or listen to Prudence’s cutting remarks.

I want to fight the amnesia of Spirit that can overtake me on bleak, midwinter days. Along with mending your pants, I am also mending my Soul. Righteousness and victimhood tell us a petulant Something about our “worth” but they do not lead us to the true, rich peace that comes from recognizing we are already truly “enough.” They do not soften us or teach us to receive the bounty of this amazing Life.

I want to remember that Life is an ever-changing current, a river sweeping us past a Beauty Buffet on the shores. I am no more undamaged, or unlovable than my fellow button-hunters hunkering in our canoes. I want to lean into Goodness—for purely selfish reasons—because everything seems to work better when I do. Keeping others “happy” means I must also keep my own tank full.

Those of us who are ever Mending, have not always had the best instruction on how to Receive, how to lean in towards Goodness, in our lives, in those around us, in our world. It’s there. We learn to receive by Noticing—the light in the sky, a tulip in the grocery store, a man taking his wife’s arm, a person sharing a look or smile, the heart beneath our ribs, the silent breath that lifts and expands our chest.

There is a dance to dance between the Light and Sorrow. There is a difference between merely living and being Alive. Loving isn’t as much about Changing as it is about Choosing.

It is your own life that you must come to Love.

Keep up the Good Work, me Darlings! I love you SEW much!

Yours aye,

Nancy