Greetings Dear Ones!

Wednesdays seem to slip by like greased weasels these days, so here it is, a few Wednesdays later than expected! I hope this finds you free and easy, wherever you may be, whatever season you are in. It’s the “dog days” of summer here in southern Vermont, which means most of us feel like dogs who want to crawl under a screened-in front porch and pant in the shade for a while. It also means that our night sky has Sirius “the dog” guarding the night sky overhead. True New Englanders are enjoying “air conditioning” that involves opening all the windows at night and fitting them with portable expanding screens to let in the cool night air. We trap the cool dark all day, shuttering the blinds, pulling the curtains, closing up the windows.

The garden is exploding with produce and a jungle of new growth thanks to the rain it’s enjoyed lately. Obediently, the normally wild pumpkins are climbing the Pumpkin arch I built them in the spring. It’s deep summer and fruition abounds. Winter feels forever away but it’s here—lurking in the pile of logs that needs to be split and stacked, in the full hay mow in the loft, in the daily tomatoes and blueberries to gather and store. It’s hard to believe one must prepare for Cold Lack in the midst of such hot abundance but I do so with immense gratitude.

I’m trying to be as grateful for the amount of work pouring into my shop—raincoats and back-to-school clothes are rolling into the work rack as grim reminders that September is about to push sweet-corn August out of the way like a schoolyard bully and this whole year might be nothing but a greased weasel. There are seven wedding gowns hanging on the high rail, and innumerable projects and promises waiting to be kept. It’s vital for me to stay organized and to communicate regularly with the clientele. That’s the part that often feels overwhelming.

Life went a little sideways for me a few weeks back when I accidentally dropped my phone into the chickens’ water bucket. Shortly after, it would not take a charge. I went to my friendly local Verizon store where two astonishingly talented young cyber wizards spent their entire morning attempting to help a middle-aged woman who prefers pencils and paper navigate the world of utter bewilderment that a single palm can hold. Stacking three hundred bales of hay by yourself holds nothing to the trickle of sweat that runs down my spine at the sound of a nice young man asking “Ma’am, can you think of another password you might have used?”

In that marvelous way that Life is always showering me with Abundance, I now have TWO phones. It turns out that I was eligible for a costly *free* upgrade to an Apple.

“But my Pixel is a real peach!” I protested, “I love my Pixel! I almost even knew how to use it.”

“Well, we seem to be phasing out peaches… and we don’t have a Samsung on hand. But we have an Apple and it’s free with your business account so why not try it?”

“Why not, indeed?”

Those of you who know me best will howl with laughter at the thought of me keeping track of not one but TWO phones. My former peach will still work as long as it’s on wifi and plugged in, which is important as every single one of my accounts panics because “a new device has signed into your account, and new authorization codes need to be sent to the old device.” It’s enough to make one crawl under a front porch and howl like a hound dog.

The only consolation that keeps me from running towards the nearest bottle of Scotch is that my kids will be visiting soon and will be able to help me. They are of the generation that peers into one of these things every five seconds. (Forget your high falutin’ morals, J.D. Vance, THIS is why one must have children!)

I may have a mess on my hands, but I still have Hope. That’s what counts, when one has a foot in each operating system and appointments and notifications are falling through the crack in between. Each phone seems to think different people are coming to see me. (Have I mentioned Mercury is in retrograde?)

“Does your work get more chaos when Mercury is in Retrograde?” I ask the Apple mongers at the Verizon store. Their smiles are just weary smirks.

“Ma’am, it’s Mercury Retrograde every day in here.” As they say that, an elderly man exits the store abruptly and goes to his car to yell at his daughter on speaker phone. I can hear her as I pull away—“Dad, please, go back in the store and let them help you. You actually DO need a new phone.” I resist the temptation to offer him one of mine. I’m sure the Good Book says something about “Let the woman screaming at two phones offer one to the man who has none…”

Duality, I am finding, sometimes ends in duplicity. Every time I open my shop door, it’s a bit of a surprise. The people I think are coming are not the people who show up. Sometimes this is not my fault or my phone’s. “Oh my! Is it Wednesday today?” asks a harried woman. “Was I supposed to be here yesterday? Oops…”

What I am learning about using two systems simultaneously is that each of them does a few things really well—much better than the other one. “Why can’t we just find one system that works perfectly for everyone?” my inner communist wants to know.

“Because we need competition,” says my inner capitalist. “Especially if it’s the kind where no matter how talented the other guy is, I win.” (I suspect he works for Apple.)

“Because people have different needs and deserve Choice,” says my inner Founding Father.

“Choice is Good,” says a friend. “When we go to a restaurant, it’s exciting to know there are other options on the menu, even if we know we will never order them.”

“Having choices,” as optimistic as that sounds, often becomes laborious and confusing. It’s not the efficient way to do things. Choice requires flexibility, discipline, and above all, education. We cannot make progress without making decisions. We cannot make good decisions without understanding what we are getting into. Imagination is not the same as experience. These are the rules of life I seem destined to learn again and again.

Flexibility, Patience, and Discipline are the virtues my two phones are teaching me this month.

“And don’t forget Humility!” snaps Prudence smugly. She loves the idea that if I had only worked harder at math class and gotten into the advanced classes that learned computer programming back in the day, none of this would be happening to me.

Yes… Humility. I am realizing how much trouble the letter “i” causes—both spiritually and technically. Pretty much anything with an “i” in front of it these days is causing me distress over my iChoices, my iMotives, and my iSanity. Putting “i” in the forefront of my business dealings is wreaking havoc with my old principles of simplicity and customer service. I need more iLearning. I need more iData. I need to figure out how the iCalendar works. I wrote myself some iNotes about this and promptly lost them. I no longer know how to close any “Windows.” Please excuse me while I visit the iRestroom and jump out of one.

As a simple woman crafting a simple life as a seamstress/shepherdess in Southern Vermont, I think it’s in my best interest to put ALL phones into the chicken’s water bucket and call it a day. That gentleman yelling at his daughter in the car outside the Verizon shop is right: “This is a bloody waste of time!” We don’t need to doom-scroll on screens constantly tempting us with click bait while simultaneously telling us the danger of screen time. (Yes, I am aware that you must be reading this on a screen!) Having two phones is teaching me the importance of having no phones at all, much the way that consuming two pints of sour beer followed by whisky chasers highlights the serenity of abstinence.

My contented inner peasant is not a fan of progress for progress’s sake. (Do not mention the word “update” to her or she will summon the villagers with pitchforks.) The evidence speaks for itself: Long ago, people wore clothing made or altered by seamstresses who did not have to spend a portion of their days poking and swearing at a sliver of black plastic they kept misplacing. People wearing sturdy handmade fashions spread blankets under their apple and pear trees and lay there quietly until they got bonked on the head and discovered the Gravity of Science, which has led to doom-scrolling and other things that ruin an otherwise decent nap. All the “Progress” since has led to this: middle-aged women and men having temper tantrums and waiting for younger kin to save them. Oh, give me some “screen time” that means a screened in porch, no mosquitoes, and a pint of fresh lemonade!

It’s Summer, my Darlings! Close down that screen! Open those Windows to the night. Taste the peaches. Savour the Sweet Corn. Let the grass tickle your toes. Spend half a minute watching a bug. Put your damp, rosy face into the soft folds of the neck of an ox and inhale deeply. Lie down next to a dog during a dog day. THIS is life. Swipe at mosquitoes, not slender slabs of pocket rot. Screens are for porches and windows, not people. I’m a real person—a greased weasel with corn on her breath, a hot and sweaty feral meadow-roamer, a cool and dark Moon bather, filled with genuine love for You, telling you this. It’s truth.

Let the mending continue! Keep up your amazing work.

With Sew Much Love,

Yours Aye,

Nancy