Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else. –Margaret Mead

Happy Equinox Dear Ones!

Yay! Let there be more light!!

Whew! I’m not quite sure what happened. One moment I was unwrapping a brand new, perfectly good, fresh-out-of-the-box February. The next thing I know, it’s in hundred pieces I still need to clean up and March has already left without me. Usually February is one of the longest little months of the year but this time, even with an extra day, it shot by faster than poop through a goose. February’s menu mostly consists of the Pure Dead Brilliant Fiddle Camp and the insane rush I get from cooking for 165 people with a horde of fabulous volunteers, some of whom know how to chop an onion, some of whom don’t. An average February consists of the week I spend getting ready for fiddle camp, the week I am AT fiddle camp, and the weeks I spend recovering from fiddle camp (which can be anywhere from one to fifty, depending on how the onion chopping goes).

This year was one of the best onion-chopping years ever! But I still found plenty of things to weep about afterwards when the wise wee Being posing as my dog got perilously sick and nearly died, something crucial under the front end of the car broke while trying to get down my road axel deep in mud, I came down with a jolly good case of Covid, and lost my computer cable for two weeks. I thoroughly enjoyed the Covid, as it gave me a good excuse to lie still and consider the onions for four days. The wee Being’s doing better, though still on a downward trajectory of congestive heart failure. We were both grateful to spend the time cuddling by the wood fire—each with our own respiratory issues. The car is still in the shop—Vermont mighty mud for the win, pocketbook for the loss. Despite all, the most vexing issue was trying to locate the computer cable!

“Looking for things I have misplaced” ranks right up there among the top ten things I HATE to do, along with sneezing with food in my mouth and shortening jacket sleeves from the shoulder.

“Apparently you also hate dusting, and putting away anything clean,” sniffs Prudence, surveying the dishes in the rack by the sink and the basket of laundry at the foot of the stairs.

“Yes,” I admit, “but not with the same ferocity as the top ten. In fact, the top five are: looking for my keys, looking for my wallet, looking for my phone, looking for the computer, looking for its charger, looking for any kind of charger, looking for my glasses, and reaching for scissors that aren’t there…”

“That’s not five,” she says.

“I don’t care. I’m tired of keeping track of things that vex me. I’m in the business of keeping track of JOYS. Joys are what Remembering is all about. When I remember where I left my crap and then go find it, I feel immense joy.”

“Lucky you, then,” she huffs. “With the way you misplace things, you must be in a constant state of bliss.”

Remembering… it’s more than just locating one’s car keys or recalling that damn password you swore you would never forget. To “remember,” as I see it, is to Re (again) + Member, from the Latin membrum, meaning limb. To Remember is literally to find the amputated parts of myself and re-limb, reconnect, restore the wholeness of the organization of “me.” This federation has a variety of “members” who belong, without whom I am just not “myself.” There is the me that sews, that sings, that dances, that knits, that takes long walks with oxen, and the me that lies awake fretting after 3:am. There’s one here who loves to cook with others in the kitchen, whose love language is food. There’s another who finds ironing one of the most satisfying pleasures on the planet. There’s one who loves to read, one who loves to listen. “And by God, there’s one who love to TALK!” says Prudence Thimbleton, the one who loves to criticize.

For the most part, this is a harmonious group that is fairly well-integrated and cooperative. There are a few trouble makers. I used to think some of the members needed to be kicked out—like Party Girl and her sad drunk pal in the corner, and that weird little nerd from middle school who never seems to have any friends. But I have learned we cannot sever the parts of ourselves. They just come back with a vengeance. Re-membering restores them to us in ways that range from painful to delightful. They need to find their homes in our hearts, their share of missing love, and their “job” in the business of being “Us.”

We all have these disparate parts--some are to help us Do The Things That Must Be Done. Some are here to make that chore way more fun. The rest just need to be loved.

Sadly, the past six weeks have introduced a new character to Nancyland—The News Anchor. And boy is she an anchor! She binge-obsesses on the same exact story on multiple networks at a time. She is constantly checking her phone for updates. She subscribes to multiple podcasts discussing things that have no relevance to her actual Life or Spirit. She’s a drain on time and energy. She’s irritated when she has to do other things. She gives The Worrier plenty to worry about, which prevents us all from getting sleep, which makes even Party Girl crabby. We finally had to have a meeting and say “This is NOT who we are!” She has wrecked our productivity. The Fiddler hasn’t fiddled; the Writer hasn’t written. (Though Hermit Granny, who is in cahoots with the News Anchor, has managed to knit about 45 hats while listening to morbid stories about how the world is going to Hades in a hand basket, something our resident Basket Case Lady considers the waste of a good basket.)

We need to Re-Balance, we need to Re-Member.

What brings us Joy? What helps others? How can we Connect? What should we Protect? When we feel lost, empty, sad… what comforts and connects us? For me, it’s looking around and seeing myself in the swirl of a homestead in transition, in a county, in a state, in a region, in a country in the process of trying to find itself and call itself Home. We all—as citizens and individuals—are in an intense struggle of trying to remember who we really are—propelled not by what terrifies us, but what inspires us.

In Vermont right now, everything is the color of mud or mushrooms. There are a few blushing buds on branch tips but the leaves are still a secret. The sun has a little heat which, with the smallest gust of a giggle, the wind removes. It is a time of layering and peeling off layers as the days start to get rounder and more golden. It’s easy to swing from hopeful and excited to depressed and anxious—especially as the hay and firewood dwindle in their piles and mud season and the News Anchor blares constant Unpleasantness. It’s easy to feel a sense of Lack.

Then, I remember. Dreary Bleakness is also a time of great sweetness. The sap is moving in the sugar maples. The sugar shack I pass daily on my way to work is filled with steam rising through its chimney, returning the water back to the sky. We too, we filter, we distill. We keep boiling off what is unnecessary and diluting.

Again and again, we come back to ourselves as the seasons pass. We remember. We remember the scent of dirt as it thaws and it becomes part of us again. We remember the smiles and the laughter of those we have lost or not seen for a while, and they become part of us again. We don’t just forgive—which is an act of releasing; we Reconcile, which is an integrating act of remembrance. Some of our friends are going through dark and harrowing times. Let us help remember who they are. Remembering is not just about the past; it’s about the Future too.

Keep mending Dear Ones! Even if all you do today is hug yourself, do it! We need your good work now more than ever.

With Sew Much Love,

Yours aye,

Nancy