Spring was a long time coming this year. Even as the snow melted and the robins came back the days still seemed too short, too dark.
But sooner or later every winter must end, no matter how deep or how dark, and even I can tell that the sunlight is brighter and lasts longer than it did in December. Staying stuck in the dark days of winter would require denial of the tulips rushing out of the ground and the fat, happy buds on the big old Forsythia.
Life is like that. Seasons come and go without care for personal metaphors. The garden dwellers that survived the winter don't spend a moment mourning their neighbors that couldn't make it until spring. Growth just goes on, filling the empty spaces until soon there is only green abandon.
So I'm awake and thankful and going about the business of every day. Still, something is different inside me. I am keenly aware of the brevity of life and the lack of promises we get from the universe. I've been careful not to push too hard or risk too much. Maybe that's been necessary, but maybe it's been a mistake.
This summer I'm going to risk. Big.
I haven't indulged my love of education since I found out just what chronic means. It's too iffy. I might pay my tuition and then never make a single class. Or get halfway through and not be able to finish. And exhaustion inevitably leads to payback. The spirit may be willing but the disease will take its toll.
Today, Spring is strong and I feel the same. I've made a decision to jump off a high bridge into a tank of icy water filled with man-eating sharks. Well -- really I've decided to take a class.
In August an internationally-known quilt artist will be teaching a seminar class for a week, just about an hour from where I live. I love her work. I drool to think of what she could teach me. But it would mean a hefty investment of funds, a week away from home, eight-hour class days plus evenings spent doing "homework". My first assumption was that I could never do it. Never. Nope. Not for me anymore. I'm chronic and helpless and have no options.
And have no patience with that kind of attitude from myself. I really want that class with Rosalie Dace, and I'm going to make it. I've talked to the good Dr. B and to my husband (who probably will qualify for sainthood before this whole thing is over) and to my friends who are going to be in the class. Now, I have something I haven't had for a long time; I have hope and I have a plan.
Friday before the class starts on Monday (this is in August) I am going to let my favorite nurse shoot my backside with a lot of steroids. I don't pitch for the major leagues so it shouldn't be a problem. I'm going to fill a prescription for more steroids and for something that will give me energy -- just for a week. And I'm going to go. Yes, I'll be pumped up like crazy and may not sleep that week. Oh, wait, I forgot -- I'm going to have a week's worth of sleep aids. And my buddies say that a rest period can be worked into the day.
I may fall apart half-way through and have to leave. Well, that's more of the class than I would have had before. And without doubt I will pay dearly in the week or two after my medicated state wears off. I know this is only possible because of the wonders of chemistry. So what. I'm going to do this thing. Yes, the cost is high. But I have the chance to learn from an artist I greatly respect. A chance to spend a week with women whose company I enjoy and who will be sharing the opportunity to grow in our art together. A chance to reach farther than I've reached in so very long.
Mostly, I have a chance to step outside my chronic life and taste life the way it used to be. How could I resist?
Showing posts with label quilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quilt. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Stitches in Time
Quilting came to me after I was diagnosed chronic, when I was at my lowest. It was a gift from my grandmothers.
I had lost my words and become fat and my hair was falling out in clumps. I had gone to a gray building filled with gray people and told them that I was not competent to ever work for money again. They believed me.
Until you have spent weeks gathering reams of evidence to prove that you are utterly useless to the world, you cannot understand how horribly and completely that hurts.
My mother had given me a nifty sewing machine a year or two earlier and I had taken a quilting class with a friend. For a year or more, the only quilting activity I worked on was collecting fabric. Then one chronic day when I was lower than low, the fabric called to me. I spread out my fabric, rejoiced in the beauty of it, and started cutting it into little pieces.
Quilting became my life raft. On days when I was drowning, when pain ruled, I could still fondle my lovely fabric and look at the books filled with photos of stunning quilts and dream of a better day.
As I said, quilting is a gift from my grandmothers. Meemaw was born in 1891 in Indian Territory Oklahoma. Granny was born in 1886 in Arkansas. Life was hard back then. Little girls learned to stitch as soon as they could hold a needle.
By the time I came along, life had gotten easier by far, but both still made their own clothes and clothes for my sisters and myself and quilts to keep us warm.
They let me go through button jar and play with rickrack and stack up the little scraps of fabric. Granny even let me pump the treadle to her old sewing machine while she stitched long, straight seams. They gave me quilts to wrap in, to be warm against long, cold Texas nights.
They taught me to love fabric, the look and feel of the stuff and the myriad ways it can go together. I forgot that lesson for many years. But when I was in need, it all came back.
Quilting saved me. It has become my passion. I am slow and not terribly good, but I love the way you can make something perfect and orderly. I also love how you can make something wild and free.
Thank you Meemaw. Thank you Granny. Once again you have wrapped me in quilts, warm and safe against the long, cold night.
Blessings,
Matriarch
I had lost my words and become fat and my hair was falling out in clumps. I had gone to a gray building filled with gray people and told them that I was not competent to ever work for money again. They believed me.
Until you have spent weeks gathering reams of evidence to prove that you are utterly useless to the world, you cannot understand how horribly and completely that hurts.
My mother had given me a nifty sewing machine a year or two earlier and I had taken a quilting class with a friend. For a year or more, the only quilting activity I worked on was collecting fabric. Then one chronic day when I was lower than low, the fabric called to me. I spread out my fabric, rejoiced in the beauty of it, and started cutting it into little pieces.
Quilting became my life raft. On days when I was drowning, when pain ruled, I could still fondle my lovely fabric and look at the books filled with photos of stunning quilts and dream of a better day.
As I said, quilting is a gift from my grandmothers. Meemaw was born in 1891 in Indian Territory Oklahoma. Granny was born in 1886 in Arkansas. Life was hard back then. Little girls learned to stitch as soon as they could hold a needle.
By the time I came along, life had gotten easier by far, but both still made their own clothes and clothes for my sisters and myself and quilts to keep us warm.
They let me go through button jar and play with rickrack and stack up the little scraps of fabric. Granny even let me pump the treadle to her old sewing machine while she stitched long, straight seams. They gave me quilts to wrap in, to be warm against long, cold Texas nights.
They taught me to love fabric, the look and feel of the stuff and the myriad ways it can go together. I forgot that lesson for many years. But when I was in need, it all came back.
Quilting saved me. It has become my passion. I am slow and not terribly good, but I love the way you can make something perfect and orderly. I also love how you can make something wild and free.
Thank you Meemaw. Thank you Granny. Once again you have wrapped me in quilts, warm and safe against the long, cold night.
Blessings,
Matriarch
Saturday, September 15, 2007
What Time is It?
I never have enough time.
As a result, I almost never finish anything.
I took up quilting a couple years ago because 'being chronic' seemed like a lousy hobby. I took up quilting because it gave me the perfect cover for my true love, which is buying fabric. My vision of heaven has nothing to do with streets of gold and everything to do with row upon row of gorgeous bolts of fabric -- all available for free, of course.
I'm great at buying fabric. My quilting, however, leaves a bit to be desired. I struggle to make points match. My squares are wonky and my seams sometimes look like the trajectory of a car drven by a drunk celebrity. And I'm slow. Once a month I go to quilty meetings where lots of women and one man get together to show off our work. Each month, the same women stand up and show their work, all so perfect, all so finished. Each month I go home and look at my projects, lined up along the shelves like neglected urchins. I stand there in my sewing room wanting to take up the scissors and thread and wale away until i have finished a quilt or wall hanging and reached the enchanted land of embellilshments. But usually I just go to bed.
That, dear reader, is why I have so little to show in the way of finished work: I sleep a lot. Fatigue is my constant adversary. My kind of chronic has no reserves. If I do too much and get too tired, bad things happen. You don't want to know the details, trust me. So I try to get plenty of sleep.
I have to sleep 9 hours at night, and tend more toward 10. And I take a nap every afternoon. Always an hour, sometimes two and if I've pushed a bit in the morning, I might be out for three. And, if I was foolish yesterday and spent time in the sun, walked around town with a visiting friend, drove too much, etc ... then today I'm going to pay. I will wake up late, be exhausted by the effort of eating breakfast and need a morning nap. I will wake up shortly before noon, be exhausted by the effort of eating lunch and go back to sleep. Before dinner I'll wake up long enough to load the dishwasher and figure out something for supper that requires absolutely no energy and then I sleep until my husband comes home from work. After supper, of course, I'm ready for an early bedtime.
You can see how that would make it hard to get much done.
My dear friend J recently stopped being chronic. She went to her doctor one day, expecting a change in chemotherapy, and came home with a referral to Hospice. Christmas may not come this year.
They say that those who are about to die find they are living much more vividly. They take chances and do things they've always put off.
Well, J isn't jumping out of airplanes or climbing mountains. Instead, she's selling her personal possessions so she will have enough money to eat when she can't work anymore. Yeah, it sucks the big one. Life is so unfair.
In addition to being my friend, J is a quilter. She actually has made a living quilting the quilts that other people put together. When I talked to her yesterday, she was trying to figure what she can do in the time she has left. Some projects she just has to finish: a velvet quilt for a friend who took her in at a tough time, a wall quilt for her daughter, a stuffed teddy bear and matching bunny rabbit for a grandchild she may never see. The rest of her 'stash' of fabric will be sold to quilters who are gambling they have enough time to use it.
They say people who know they are dying have more wisdom and insight into life's hard questions. So I complained to J about my lack of time, how I sleep too much and just don't have time to finish all the projects I have started. I asked her what to do, how to manage, what is the answer to my frustration? My friend shook her head, took a quick look at the stacks of fabric she will be selling in the coming weeks and gave me the full force of all her insight and wisdom.
'Work faster,' she said.
**********************
I realized today that at the end of my last post, instead of signing off 'Peace and Blessings' I had written 'Peach and Blessings.' It may have been a simple typo, or may have been some sort of associative slip caused by the sweet, juicy, bursting with flavor peach I was eating while I wrote. Either way, I sort of like the whole idea. After all, what could be more of a blessing than a perfect piece of summer fruit? On that note, I will leave you until next time with this benediction:
Peaches and Blessings and All Good Things!
Matriarch
As a result, I almost never finish anything.
I took up quilting a couple years ago because 'being chronic' seemed like a lousy hobby. I took up quilting because it gave me the perfect cover for my true love, which is buying fabric. My vision of heaven has nothing to do with streets of gold and everything to do with row upon row of gorgeous bolts of fabric -- all available for free, of course.
I'm great at buying fabric. My quilting, however, leaves a bit to be desired. I struggle to make points match. My squares are wonky and my seams sometimes look like the trajectory of a car drven by a drunk celebrity. And I'm slow. Once a month I go to quilty meetings where lots of women and one man get together to show off our work. Each month, the same women stand up and show their work, all so perfect, all so finished. Each month I go home and look at my projects, lined up along the shelves like neglected urchins. I stand there in my sewing room wanting to take up the scissors and thread and wale away until i have finished a quilt or wall hanging and reached the enchanted land of embellilshments. But usually I just go to bed.
That, dear reader, is why I have so little to show in the way of finished work: I sleep a lot. Fatigue is my constant adversary. My kind of chronic has no reserves. If I do too much and get too tired, bad things happen. You don't want to know the details, trust me. So I try to get plenty of sleep.
I have to sleep 9 hours at night, and tend more toward 10. And I take a nap every afternoon. Always an hour, sometimes two and if I've pushed a bit in the morning, I might be out for three. And, if I was foolish yesterday and spent time in the sun, walked around town with a visiting friend, drove too much, etc ... then today I'm going to pay. I will wake up late, be exhausted by the effort of eating breakfast and need a morning nap. I will wake up shortly before noon, be exhausted by the effort of eating lunch and go back to sleep. Before dinner I'll wake up long enough to load the dishwasher and figure out something for supper that requires absolutely no energy and then I sleep until my husband comes home from work. After supper, of course, I'm ready for an early bedtime.
You can see how that would make it hard to get much done.
My dear friend J recently stopped being chronic. She went to her doctor one day, expecting a change in chemotherapy, and came home with a referral to Hospice. Christmas may not come this year.
They say that those who are about to die find they are living much more vividly. They take chances and do things they've always put off.
Well, J isn't jumping out of airplanes or climbing mountains. Instead, she's selling her personal possessions so she will have enough money to eat when she can't work anymore. Yeah, it sucks the big one. Life is so unfair.
In addition to being my friend, J is a quilter. She actually has made a living quilting the quilts that other people put together. When I talked to her yesterday, she was trying to figure what she can do in the time she has left. Some projects she just has to finish: a velvet quilt for a friend who took her in at a tough time, a wall quilt for her daughter, a stuffed teddy bear and matching bunny rabbit for a grandchild she may never see. The rest of her 'stash' of fabric will be sold to quilters who are gambling they have enough time to use it.
They say people who know they are dying have more wisdom and insight into life's hard questions. So I complained to J about my lack of time, how I sleep too much and just don't have time to finish all the projects I have started. I asked her what to do, how to manage, what is the answer to my frustration? My friend shook her head, took a quick look at the stacks of fabric she will be selling in the coming weeks and gave me the full force of all her insight and wisdom.
'Work faster,' she said.
**********************
I realized today that at the end of my last post, instead of signing off 'Peace and Blessings' I had written 'Peach and Blessings.' It may have been a simple typo, or may have been some sort of associative slip caused by the sweet, juicy, bursting with flavor peach I was eating while I wrote. Either way, I sort of like the whole idea. After all, what could be more of a blessing than a perfect piece of summer fruit? On that note, I will leave you until next time with this benediction:
Peaches and Blessings and All Good Things!
Matriarch
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