“When something fits you, there’s no reason to consult the mirror. You only need to look in the mirror when something does not fit.” –The Hermit of Hermit Hollow

Greetings Dear Ones!

It’s still warm and bright out at the end of a work day in the shop--plenty of time to garden, exclaim over the beauty of the jonquils in bloom, roam the shipwreck of winter sticks strewn about the pastures and survey downed limbs and trees that need to be dragged up to the logging station by the blueberry patch and butchered into tidy packages to stack and serve as meals for the belly of the wood stove. Perhaps the ox-lings Gus and Otie, who will be age three soon, will be able to pull the logs. The bleeding heart has emerged from the soil by the garden spigot. A frost threatens. I’ve brought some prom gowns home to hem in the evening once twilight forces me indoors. The days and words and lists of chores are expanding outwards in every direction. Nighttime retreats, deserting small embarrassed shadows who hide behind upright trees standing bravely in new light.

It’s Spring. In Vermont, that means pretty much anything can happen. Spring and Fall are verbs here. They wear muddy boots on soggy mornings and make a lot of sweet and sweeping promises about preparing, repairing, recovering, collecting, tidying, transitioning so that we can give Change a great big hug when she arrives. (There is endless raking to do.) Lady Change is an imperial visitor here at the Land of Lost Plots. Her carriage arrives without warning. Sometimes she brings treats. Sometimes she doesn’t. I am the resident tenant tending the manor; she is the Landlord—a temperamental transient whose arrival I prepare for warily.

In the paddock mud near the barn, Gus and Otie smile happily, their jaws grinding steadily. There’s no grass to speak of so their mouths are full of fresh money. The prom girls hand me grubby twenties, which I revive with the steam iron into crisp rectangles. I store them in an envelope and hand them to a local farmer who delivers vast, round, white bales of haylage—the bovine version of sauerkraut made from orchard grass. We are all part of the circle of glitter to grit—from nubile maidens with well-groomed eyebrows thirsting for Beauty and Experience (to be clear, it’s the maidens, not the eyebrows that are thirsting) unwittingly funding the fodder and follies of their exhausted, weather-weary elders who have had all the Experiences they can handle (and the ragged eyes and eyebrows to prove it). Cash is the translation. Some of these young ladies are the daughters of farmers. And so it goes…

A little dog trots by my side and I feel happier today than I have in a while. My taxes are paid. I love my customers, my community, my country, despite its political divisions and cultural chaos. There is a deep contentment I receive from my participation in the faithful circles of Hope and Crisis. Humans keep humaning: a man has misplaced his pants; a woman has lost her purse; a bride is getting married Saturday and just bought her gown last night; a boy needs a suit for his uncle’s funeral. For an entire afternoon, I evaluate my need for emotional support potatoes. Eventually, I breathe and remind myself how lucky I am to shake hands with both prom girls and farmers—to live so close to the Mirror.

I plant a bed of spinach then begin the Seventh Year of this Blog! I told myself six years ago that if I stuck with this for seven years, I might learn a thing or two. Here’s a summary thus far:

Looking in the mirror is the circular process of transmitting and receiving. Flaws and beauty are reflected and magnified. Some people stand in front of it picking, picking, sighing and picking at their clothing, their skin, their spirits, awash in Dissatisfaction. Others are grateful, Delighted, smoothing rather than picking. Some folks are pickers, some smoothers. There is always a choice to see in a mirror.

Writing is a form of mirror.

ANYTHING can be a mirror.

Dreams DO come true…but in ways that make us realize that we need to keep on dreaming. (Sometimes this just means we really need a nap!)

We have to keep looking in the mirror.

“Is this your dream life?” asks a loving friend who comes to visit, surveying the muddy cattle, the muddy field, the muddy mud. She is smiling in a celebratory way. She doesn’t see the mud.

“Yes…” I admit slowly. “I just wish I had dreamed of a barn that wasn’t ten inches lower on one side and a roof that didn’t leak. I wish I had dreamed of good fencing before cattle. Having horned creatures weighing over a thousand pounds each who wish to visit you in your house is NOT a dream; it’s a Nightmare! I definitely didn’t dream up all this MUD and I don’t believe I wished for quite so many brambles…” We laugh. Then I realize I am “picking.” My inner Smoother looks again into the mirror around me. There is a wheelbarrow overturned on a tidy mountain of dung. Black and silver ashes mark the former site of the burn pile where recently stood a tower of brush and rotten logs and unusable wood scraps and broken furniture pieces left in the attic by the former owner. Shit IS happening but we are dealing with it. Happy animals are Home in a place where they are cherished and tended daily with the best that the farmer-prom-girl circle can provide. Things are getting greener, cleaner, clearer. The forest is starting to breathe. Chlorophyll is coating the land with usable sugar. Something (and Someone) here is Working…

We are all Mending.

The Dream, I realize, is not about achieving a Great Good Thing or things, but being part of the process of transformation. It’s in the Mending. It’s in taking What Is, accepting it, and then adding some muscle towards making it Better, whether it’s a ripped pair of jeans, a savage curry, or a heart. It’s about being fierce when one is handling a bramble and tender when one is handling a teenager. (And being able to tell the difference!)

We all think that Thing we dream is going to be THE BEST THING EVER. And then we live into it as hard as we can. And it is. But it isn’t. Picking and Smoothing, we seek greater Satisfaction as seasons, blogs, farms, glitter, gowns, wedding rings, and rainstorms… around and around they go—the wheels on Lady Change’s great carriage, taking us forward into the Next Dream we dare to Dream.

WHAT A BLESSING!

Keep mending, Dear Ones! Thank you for the wonderful work you are doing. Thank you for becoming the hands and eyes, the touch and vision capable of making things better for others and yourself. Thank you for your kindness to strangers. Thank you for having the courage to look into the Mirror and love all that you see. Carry on!

With Sew Much Love,

Nancy