Vibrant But Not a Beauty

She was vibrant, but not a beauty. At first I didn’t notice anything at all about this woman working at the fabric store.

I handed her the four bolts of fabric and requested a quarter yard of each one. As she unrolled the first bolt and measured my meager request, I told her that I was making the first quilt for myself. Not wanting to appear a novice, I added that I had made other quilts, but this was the first one just for me. “I already have lots of fabric, but I liked these.” She glanced at me and we both laughed. Quilters always have lots of fabric, but always want more. “My quilt will be a variety of browns and dark reds.” Then I added, “I like those colors.” She nodded as she snipped a perfect cut. Feeling a little foolish about filling the silence with chatter as she worked, I decided to just shut up.

I watched her as she rolled and pinned the remaining fabric back onto the first bolt. Then, without looking up from her work, she said, “The darker colors help me to find my center, to feel grounded.”

There was a moment when I couldn’t respond; I could only look at this woman. I was trying to process this incongruency, a haggard-looking woman and a Zen-like observation. She was probably ten years younger than I am, but she looked much older. She was far too thin, no make-up, and her thin wisps of mousy brown hair hung down in her face as she leaned over the fabric. Her faded jeans hung straight, no hips, no thighs. As I stood in a moment of suspended reality, her words echoed in my mind. “The darker colors help me to find my center, to feel grounded.”

Suddenly we were both animated, sharing with each about the projects we had done and the ones we intend to do. She continued to cut, fold and pin as she talked about a wall hanging that she had seen and wanted to make one similar to it. It was a quilted wall hanging, a grand piano with a long-stemmed red rose lain across it. She talked about its elegance and that she wanted to make hers in black and red silk.

As she talked about the sheen of the silk, the contrast of black and red on a white background, the way black and red combinations pull together all the other colors in a room, I looked again at her hands. Her hands were dry and rough with several scabs and scars, probably cut and poked by scissors and needles. As if she knew my thoughts, she told me about the hand quilting she kept nearby when she was at home. “You have to be very efficient and disciplined to quilt by hand,” she said. “Otherwise, a project would never be finished.”

When she handed me the four carefully folded pieces of fabric, I thanked her for the conversation. Thanking her felt so inadequate. I felt lighter. I felt centered. I had been in the presence of a wise woman, a vibrant woman, though not a beauty.

Insulting a Sweet Potato

I spoke to a sweet potato yesterday. Insulted him, really. I looked him in the eyes and said, “Oh my, you’re an ugly little fellow.” He didn’t reply, as far as I know. After insulting him, I immediately stuck him in the microwave so he really didn’t have time for a comeback. If he had a second or two to think about it, he might have said, “Beauty is ephemeral; my sweetness is eternal.” That would have put me in my place, of course, but then I would also have had to deal with the reality that not only had I insulted a sweet potato, but had been humbled by one as well.

As it was, I had only to come to grips with the fact that on the third day of being housebound by a very deep snow drift across my driveway, I had finally succumbed to cabin fever, the “talking-to-vegetable” type of cabin fever which is considerably more tolerable than becoming a vegetable-while-talking.

There has been an odd variation of snow depth in my front yard. There are areas where I can see tufts of grass, still green, poking through the snow. In other places, there are snowdrifts over a foot deep. One of those snowdrifts stopped just before coming up against the door of my Ford van. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to get in the van each of the three snowbound days to know that the battery was still charged (a moot point, since I couldn’t go anywhere.) There was over a foot of snow in front of my van.

Occasionally, I entertained thoughts of bundling up and attacking the problem with my snow shovel (assuming the storage shed was free of a snowdrift.) Then I found it more entertaining to cook and bake (and eat) as well as to read and quilt. I enjoyed what I was doing and got a lot done.

However, I didn’t think about writing more than a nanosecond or two (does the second nanosecond really need to be mentioned?) I know that some writers find inclement weather useful to their craft. For example, Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues) wrote in his book of essays (the title was something about geese, maybe ducks, flying backward?) that his hometown, Seattle, is a perfect setting for a writer because of the dismal weather. That works for him but apparently not for me.

To write, I need to be un-bound. Lacking the discipline to write because I should write, I need to be free to choose to write. I need to know that while I could breeze off into the day with a bundle of impulses and no objective at hand that I, instead, freely chose to set up my laptop on my table. (They should be called tabletops because it’s ridiculous trying to keyboard on wobbly, flabby thighs.) I write because I choose to write. (This is of no help in actually finishing my novel, but such is the price one pays for freedom.)

Therefore, I didn’t write this entry for my blog (even though every day in my planner since the first of the year includes the message to myself to blog) until the evening after my grandson and I dug out the driveway, scattered salt over the icy patches, and rewarded ourselves with oatmeal cookies. No sweet potato pie. I’m giving the ugly little fellows a break until the next blizzard.