You can’t have your cake and eat it too!—English Proverb

Greetings Dear Ones!

I’m getting a late start on the blog because I had to rush to town early to gather enough handwork from the shop to keep me going through this storm. (Apparently, Yester-Nancy thought it would be Sunshine ever more and didn’t plan ahead.) These “April Showers” are bringing a wintry mix of snow and hail, sleet and sheets of water like the Big Dog in the sky is shaking his fur after a trip through the garden hose. And later, to cap it all, there might be as much as fourteen inches of let’s-wreck-the-driveway-again to plow with the tractor.

I apologize to the tulips, working like athletes to get their slender torsos out of the mud. They are the little miracles I have been seeking in the garden each morning, thanks to poet Mary Oliver. I have been cheering them on, coaxing and inviting them. Now, these guests are arriving too soon to the spring picnic and will have to stand around awkwardly with nothing to do, while their slacker of a hostess panics. Nearby daffodil blossoms bow their heads and keep their mouths closed. I rush by with a tarp and twine. I’m embarrassed. “I thought we would be ready for you by now,” I say hastily, tossing a light cover of moldy hay around their shoulders to keep them warm. Everywhere, green fingertips reach…seeking…reaching upwards through the darkness, feeling for the Light, only to be burned by ice. I curl my hands within my gloves and hurry.

I’ve battened the hatches and covered the enormous round bales of hay with the tarp. The pasture snack shack is closed. The sheep retreat to the barn, grumbling.

“We hail from the Shetland Isles,” they moan. “What is wind and rain to us?”

“When you are out, you beg to come in. When you are in, you beg to go out. There’s no dealing with you,” I say.

“But the Ox-lings are allowed in and out whenever they want…why not us?” they cry.

“One reason,” I say. “Coyotes. You look like delicious mutton morsels to them. Who doesn’t want hot shepherd’s pie on a grizzly day like this?” They shudder.

Otis, the stouter of the steers, swaggers up to his door and hangs his head into the aisle to listen. His nosiness goes beyond polite sociability. He wants to know if we are going to work today.

“Not today,” I say. He hangs his head. I’ve managed to get him and Gus hitched and pulling three times in the last few weeks. Now he thinks it should be every day. He’s a jock desperate to grow his muscles at the gym. Meanwhile, Gus loiters at the all-you-can-eat hay buffet, smiling—desperate to grow his belly not his biceps.

“Tell us something Good,” say the sheep. “We need some cheering up!”

I snuggle into a corner of their pen and they immediately crowd around me, looking for treats. I don’t want to tell them there is the lamb cake from Easter up in the house that I brought back with me from Pennsylvania and forgot to give them. It tasted so awful, everyone agreed I should take it home and feed it to the sheep and chickens instead of humans. It’s basically a stale, dry pound cake in the shape of my grandmother’s lamb mold with out-of-date unsweetened coconut fur that has all the desiccated delicacy of a bag of toenail clippings. I added extra flour in order to help the batter support the dowel that is baked into the neck to hold up the head. Be extremely careful attempting to chew the ear of this lamb! There’s a toothpick in it.

One of our most cherished family Easter traditions is to make an ugly, unpleasant-tasting cake in the shape of a lamb and then grouch because no one wants to eat it. It’s Tradition. The end result was just as awful as it always is; which satisfies those who believe Things Can Never Change and disappoints those who always hope otherwise. It’s enough to make some of us believe Certain People have dowels baked into their necks too.

“Easter was good,” I tell the sheep. “My family laughs a lot, at each other, at ourselves, at The Situation (there’s ALWAYS a Situation) and especially at the raisins the grandchildren have piled near the rear end of the lamb cake.” Even now, I giggle.

“What’s a lamb cake?” they all want to know. I roll my eyes. I forgot I wasn’t going to tell them about the lamb cake.

“It’s a cake in the shape of a Lamb,” I tell them. “Lambs are a very special theme at Eastertide. They symbolize New Life, Innocence, Obedience.”

“Obedience???? WHAT???” They are aghast.

“I know, I don’t get it either. I’ve never met an obedient lamb in my life. Perhaps Obedient means Trusting.”

“I don’t trust Nobody,” says Waterlily, muscling her way to the manger and bashing her own daughter out of the way.

“Well, I think we can all agree that lambs are beautiful. Christians use the Lamb to symbolize Christ as both sacrificial and triumphant. He is called ‘The Lamb of God.”

“We are ALL Lambs of God,” says Prim primly.

“Yes, YOU are,” I say, indicating all the sheep with a sweep of my hand. “It goes without saying.”

“The rest of us have to do a bit of sacrificing,” says Prudence (the inner critic in nun’s garb) elbowing me in the ribs.

“Is that where the cake comes in?” asks Willoughby.

“Ah, yes,” I nod. “It all makes sense now. Thank you.”

“What else do you do at Easter?” they want to know.

“Well, we go to church as a family. We take up a whole pew, sometimes two. We pray. We sing. I try very hard not to get distracted by mismatched seams on men’s sports jackets a few seats in front of me. Then we go home and eat. We eat like farmhands at a big table, as if we’ve been chopping wood or stacking hay for days. We eat in total Silence, no conversation, just quiet smacking of lips, forks clicking plates, reverent satisfied gruntles of delight. I tried to light a small conversation but it smoked out like a match on damp wood. They looked at me as if I was talking out loud at a concert. So I closed my mouth and chewed, letting the flavors become a melody. After everyone had finished, then we sat around the table and talked. I had forgotten how we do this.”

The sheep have flopped around me, quietly present, chewing thoughtfully, like family members.

“What did you talk about?” asked Prim.

“Some people griped about politics, others grumbled about the youth of today and how odd people can be. My siblings work with a lot of interesting people and do very interesting things. I told a weird but true story with a happy ending about one of my dear customers.”

“Tell us the story!” shout the lambs. “We love weird stories with happy endings!”

“Well, a lady came in who had a beautiful coat that she had bought at a thrift store. She loved the coat but it didn’t fit her quite right and it was way too long.”

“So you mended it,” says Prim.

“Yes,” I say. “It took a couple of weeks for our schedules to align so that she could come in and try it on. When she did, she loved it. It was exactly what she wanted. She went home with her new coat and was happy.”

“This does NOT sound like a weird story,” interrupts Fergus, clearly getting bored.

“It gets weird later. She starts to email me about something that confuses me. She wants to know what I have done with the lining of her coat. I didn’t touch the lining of her coat except to hem it. (It looks damn weird when you hem the outer coat six inches and don’t hem the lining too.) Well, she wants those lining scraps back. She wants ALL the scraps back. She feels like I have stolen something from her by removing the excess pieces of her coat. She says it’s like taking a ring to a jeweler and getting a fake stone back.”

“But if you don’t remove them, isn’t the coat way too lumpy?” asks Fern.

“Indeed! Well done, little Fern!” I praise. “So I agree to mail her all the scraps. ‘what have you done with my fabric?’ she demands in an email. I don’t want to tell her I have thrown those “precious” scraps away, so I don’t answer that email. I dig all the scraps I can find out of the trash. I have to wash some of them because I have dumped the floor sweepings in on top of them. I send them to her in a priority envelope and she receives them in two days.”

“This is still a boring story,” says Fergus, yawning.

“Not to me,” I say, continuing. “THEN…then…the next thing I know, she’s leaving a one-star review on Google, saying how disappointed she is with my service. She left a coat with a cashmere lining with me and when she got it back, I had removed the entire lining and replaced it with a cheap nylon one.”

“Is that TRUE?” asked Prim, horrified.

“Absolutely not. No Way. First of all, I would never do that, for any reason. I would never steal from anyone, never mind a dear customer! The last thing I stole was a bag of pennies from my next door neighbor when I was five years old. My mother marched me over there and made me return them and apologize. I cried so hard nearly vomited. So I have never stolen again. But really, this woman’s assumed ambition for me is, well, frankly, it’s hilarious. I am far too lazy to succumb to such a scheme, even if I hadn’t had good morals beaten into me early in life. She has no idea how much work it is to take out a coat lining, deal with the inevitable blizzard of body dander hidden in the seams, then fashion a replica pattern, make it out of cheap nylon—presuming I have bought some cheap nylon… Good Heavens! It would take me most of a day to do all that. For what? So I can have an old, purloined lining with no coat that goes to it? It’s marvelous. Simply Marvelous. It’s the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a long time, bless her heart. It actually filled me with a strange joy to know that I was so clearly right and she so clearly wrong. I actually didn’t care at all what lies she spread.”

“This is getting interesting,” admits Fergus. “What if people don’t like you? What if they believe her, not you?”

“Ain’t nuthin’ I can do about dat,” I say in my silliest cartoon voice. “Sometimes, you just gotta take the hit!” The sheep stop looking like a coyote is at the gate and go back to cudding. The sheep don’t like “hits” but it soothes them to think I can take it. It soothes me to think they think I am a grown-up. Hits don’t seem to hurt Grown-ups.

“So then what happened?” asks Prim.

“Well, the Easter Message got through. I decided to receive fear with Love. I decided to turn the other cheek, and NO, Fergus, NOT a bum cheek. A real cheek. Real Love. Just because someone wrongs us does not mean we are a victim. This poor lady was just plain wrong and obviously sad. She was missing something I could not give her. I decided to be nice to her and to smile and remember that I had done Good Work for her. If she wants to sue me later, let her. I’m clean.”

“And then, she did an AMAZING THING. She wrote and apologized! She took down the bad review! She admitted that it had taken us both so long to get her coat back to her she had forgotten what she had bought at the thrift store. It was not the lining she remembered. I’m so excited by this change! I admire her courage. It takes a lot to admit we are wrong. I feel the Hope that those who bake the Lamb Cakes feel—This Time It Will Be Better. The tulips cannot be stopped by snow. This lovely woman restores my faith and hope, which are the rewards for Love. Not all of us are baked with a stick in our necks. Some people can be reasoned with. And even while they are Unreasonable, they can still be loved. I’m profoundly grateful for this customer and this lesson.

Keep Mending, Dear Ones! Let’s keep disappointing those who think Things Can Never Change. Thank you for your Good Work filled with Love that is Sacrificial AND Triumphant.

With Sew Much Love,

Yours Aye,

Nancy

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