Just Around the Corner

 So this happened...

Number 1: A couple of days ago, a friend asked me, “Any new blogs percolating?” My mind was blank. My muse the crow wasn’t poking me. Nope.

Number 2: Yesterday, the mail delivered a newsletter for us old retired folks that featured the theme “Around the Corner,” based on a quote by Cher: “If you can’t go straight ahead, you go around the corner.” Interesting concept, I thought. What’s around the next corner? The crow began stirring.

Number 3: Today I opened my Facebook page and the first thing I saw was this quote:

 

Well. It just so happened that yesterday was also the day of “Mystics and the Mundane,” a course I’m taking via ZOOM. “Synchronicity,” said the teacher, “is the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear related but have no discernible connection. Pay attention when that happens. Maybe there’s a message for you in it.”

The crow squawks. A new blog is percolating, after all. But what is that message?

I think when I was younger, “around the next corner” held great appeal. Whatever was around the next corner, it was probably going to be good. It smelled of adventure, new opportunities, learning experiences, striking out into the unknown. Around the next corner meant I’d leave home and go to college, that I’d get my own apartment, my first car, my first job; I would  become a wife and mother. Yahoo, bring it on, world!

The quotes I research are almost all in that vein: “your breakthrough is around the corner ...  prosperity is around the corner ... romance ... better things  ...  success ... a brighter day. The sun is always shining around the corner.” 

Well, I grew up. I found out that leaving home and going to college had its drawbacks. And true romance was not just around the corner – there were disappointments before I found the one for me. There were days, weeks, months when raising children, blessings that they are, was a tough go. Learning experiences weren’t just “aha” moments; they included many hard lessons that hurt. People you loved turned a corner and were gone, leaving you alone and mourning. I learned – and you probably have too – that there is no “straight ahead” in life, you will always be turning a corner into the unknown, and while that unknown will have wonderful times, it could also be scary, sad, and difficult.

So, what to do about those corners?

I suppose, the smaller you make your life, the less corners there are to navigate. If you do the same thing over and over, the track you’re walking on will have a nice deep rut that keeps you safe – but it could be disastrous when you hit the dead end and can’t find your way out. Or, you could put on your body armour of cynicism and pessimism so that the "slings and arrows" that life sends your way don’t hurt so much. Less pain, but also less delight. You could put on blinders and earbuds, so you don’t have to see or hear the bad, hard stuff that surrounds you. But life as Pollyanna in Lala land is kind of lonely, isn’t it? You could focus only on the positive things in your life, turning every disaster into a moral lesson – there’s value in that, but honestly? You will likely be watching your friends’ eyes glaze over as you drone on about your lofty views. "Get real," they may say.

This week, the resident sweetie and I have been talking about turning a new corner sometime in the future when we transition to a less independent life. Friends of ours, just 5 years older than us, who are decluttering their home before moving to a smaller place that offers assisted living, told us, “Don’t put this off too long! It’s so stressful!” I can empathize as I picture cleaning out my studio, handing over my significant stash of sewing supplies to Sally Ann. Tears will fall, I'm sure. We look at our beloved home and yard, the trailer that’s given us years of camping enjoyment, the traveling vacations exploring the world, and we know we too will be sad when we turn that corner and leave these riches behind.

And yet, we trust also that there will be new adventures that await us, if we but look for them. Hopefully, there will be new riches, new experiences to add to our life story. Could that be the message, the secret to successfully navigating the corners in life?

And in the meantime:

 

Yes!

Fifty Ways to say I Love You

I began writing this on Valentine’s Day, and love was in the air. The media was full of ideas on how to proclaim your love to your sweetie, your friends, your family, and significant others. Hearts, flowers, balloon bouquets, chocolates, a getaway, sexy lingerie – all tokens of love.

But really, love is not in the air, is it? The airwaves and newspapers are full stories about people shouting at each other, uttering threats, challenges, curses, and worse. Covid was bad enough, but mostly we pulled together to defeat this enemy we held in common. Now we feel as though we have been sucked into a centrifuge, whirling round and round, with little bits of us flying off in every direction. A box of chocolates or a bouquet of flowers isn’t going to solve this growing vortex of bitterness and anger.

It was my intent, when I began writing the blog, to share the noodlings I’d written in my journal. You see, the resident sweetie doesn’t believe in Valentine’s Day per se. He says, “Every day is Valentine’s Day,” and he’s right. I don’t get the hearts and flowers, but I get lots of love, and I have no complaints. But perhaps there are others who do. So I asked myself, “Who needs to hear a loving word today?”

Who needs to hear a loving word today? Those who mourn, those who are lonely, struggling, depressed, worried, hungry, displaced, anxious, grieving: a loving word can make a difference. We don’t necessarily need to say “I love you,” (although, would that be such a bad thing?) but we can say words that show we care. 

 

And those who are doing their best to make this world a better place, they too may need to hear a loving word – those who have good news to share, the ones who brighten our lives and have taught us important lessons, kids who make us smile, the friendly store clerk, the police officer who doesn’t give us a ticket, but just a warning (that hits close to home, doesn't it, sweetie?). Kind, complimentary words can encourage them and inspire.

And could it be that those who are angry, nasty, vindictive, mysoginistic, and racist are the way they are -- twisted and broken -- because they’ve never heard loving words? Could words like "Talk to me, I'll listen" begin to soften their hearts and heal their pain?

We all need to hear loving words, no matter what our circumstances. We are all connected to each other and what does one person good will also do others good. 

 

To work together to make a world that is more just, beautiful and nurturing takes loving words and deeds. Are we contributing to that, or standing in the way?

In 1975, Paul Simon wrote “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” ("Just slip out the back, Jack,
Make a new plan, Stan..."). But maybe in this day and age we need a new song: 50 Ways to Say I Love You.

That’s as far as I got in my blog writing, and then I quit. Surely a commitment to use caring words is way too simple, I chided myself. It’s new age woo-woo, an airy-fairy solution to a complex problem. It can’t be that easy.

It isn’t...but it’s not a bad way to start. We have seen, and continue to see every day, that angry words and conspiracy theories can spread their poison very quickly and insidiously. It is “the madness of crowds” – those angry words quickly become dangerous sparks which begin a conflagration.

"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness" says an ancient proverb. It’s better to do something about a problem than just complain about it. A candle is a small answer to a large problem, but it is still a worthy step in the right direction.

Everyday could be Valentine’s Day. Who do you know who needs to hear a loving word today?

Tree Thoughts

Trees are woven into the background fabric of my life. I remember the shady old maples that lined our driveway when we lived on our farm in Ontario. 

 

I remember the spreading branches of the catalpa with its heart-shaped leaves growing in the yard of our apartment in town, and the ash saplings we dug out of a friend’s woods and transported to our new home on the bumper of our little Volkswagen Beetle. I climbed trees, hung by my legs from their branches, played house in their shade, rested against their trunks as I daydreamed. For my tenth birthday, mom and dad gave me a little Golden Field Guide to the Trees. At school, we memorized Joyce Kilmer’s poem, "Trees."

Trees were always there, always lovely, always in the landscape of my life, no matter where I lived or what stage of life I was experiencing.

But one day, when I was a middle-aged woman, a speaker at a conference in Vancouver added a whole new dimension to my concept of trees. He told us about nurse logs. A nurse log, he said, is a tree that has died, and then fallen down in the forest. As it decomposes, as insects and microbes break it down, it slowly turns into soil. The chemical action of decomposition creates warmth, and much like an incubator, it creates a safe and fertile environment for new little trees to sprout and grow. 

 

With this lovely image, our speaker was making a point about change, which is all around us – not only in nature, but also in beliefs, institutions, even in our own personal and family lives. New growth comes from old forms that no longer live, but create an environment that nourishes the growth that comes from change. The death of these old forms is not a waste, but can become an incubator for growth.

And what’s true for trees is also true for humans.

This was an eye-opener for me, an “aha” moment. The insight was comforting, but also challenging. Change happens – that’s inevitable. So how do you use the past to promote healthy growth?

Fast forward to 14 years ago, when we moved to Vancouver Island after spending 33 years in Alberta. We were sure this is what we wanted to do, but all changes are hard. One day, feeling disconnected from everything we’d left behind, I walked in the woods and found peace in the trees. I felt gratitude for the past, but realized that in it were the seeds of our future. This began my art quilting journey. I created a little quilt to express my feelings of disconnection.

 

A month later, feeling more settled in my environment, I created another, featuring a healthy tree beside a flowing river, to document the journey of change. I created more tree pieces, based on what I saw on my walks in the woods. And so it went. 

This tree beside the Puntledge River was still vibrant when I created this piece in about 2010. It has since fallen down and is gone. I miss it.

 

Soon, there was a “tree wall” in our home, a gallery of art pieces that features trees in all kinds of formats. 

A more recent piece also features trees.  It is entitled “New Growth from Old” featuring a nurse stump (which I’ve written about before on this blog “What a Wonderful World, May 25, 2019). 

 

 This is another one, which I named “Three Sisters.” 

 

This year is a momentous year for my two sisters and me. Two of us celebrated 50 years of marriage, and the younger one celebrated 30 years. This calls for some new fibre art, and so I created three identical “Three Sisters” tree pieces, one for each of us. The nurse log at the bottom of the piece has grounded us as sisters, and has provided rich soil for our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social growth. It’s the ground of our being.

But there’s even more significance to these tree nurseries. The sibling trees grouped together create a supportive environment in which to grow. Their roots intertwine and communicate with each other. Their roots also receive distress calls from each other, and the sibling trees will adjust their feeding patterns to help the one in distress, even sending out nutrients to the struggling sibling tree.  (I’m not making this up; the latest scientific research supports this.) These trees – and we as sisters – have each others’ backs.

My journey with trees is not finished yet. Those nurse logs have not only provided a place for young trees to grow, but also inspired thoughtful growth for an older woman like me.

Postcards for a New Year

The crow woke up on the first day of the new year. “Hey, get busy,” she scolded me. “You’ve been lollygagging around long enough. Get your rear in gear.”

I didn’t need a scolding – I’ve been missing the flow of creative juices. This fall wasn’t a great time for me. Now I wanted to see what would happen if I went into the studio and just started doing something, anything at all. 

 I had a new journal - all those blank pages. I wondered if I could sketch my way through the year, or at least do something different from the boring drivel I’d jotted down in 2021 – stuff like, “leftovers for supper,” “played crib with Al and lost,” and “raining again.” Maybe I could make a fabric post card today, then sketch it and write about it in my journal.

I pulled a few pieces of fabric from my scraps – some sparkly white, a freckled blue, and a modern abstract print.  I looked out the window, and these words came to me: “Sun sparkles on snow.” It was a beginning.

An hour or so later, this was the result: a postcard with a poem stitched on the back:

Maybe it’s a bit grandiose to call it a poem, but this is what is stitched on the back: 

“Sun sparkles on snow. New paths to follow. New trails to break. Where will they take us?”

Now the juices really started flowing. Could I send the postcard to someone anonymously? Could I do more postcards? Might I do a postcard a day? Could I follow this thread and take it wherever it might go? Well, why not?

I find that when my mind is open to an idea, suddenly all kinds of words and images appear that seem to be related to that thought. Sort of like “Field of Dreams”: if you build it, they will come. If you keep your mental ears open, you will get new insights, you will see new visions.

So sure enough, on Jan 2, my friend sent me a poem related to this idea, a little ditty that she remembers reading in her autograph album (remember those!!!). It goes like this:

“The future lies before us like a field of snow,
Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show.”

Rebel that I am, I wanted to do a different take on those words.

So January 2, I produced this postcard:

The words on the back read:
“Where the path well-traveled ends is where your adventure begins. Be strong and of good courage. Take that first step and venture forth into the great unknown.”

There was no room for more writing, or I might have added, “Don’t worry what those footprints look like, they’ll probably be messy and you may go off in the wrong directions, but that’s what life is all about. It takes a lot of mistakes to figure out the right thing.”

January 3: I began thinking about how striking out on your own into uncharted territory is scary.

That’s when I read a story in the NY Times about an 85 year old man who had just recorded his first album of original music. He said, “Do something that involves other people. Even one other person. Getting out of a groove — sometimes you just need company. There’s this fantasy that creativity is something you do alone, by candlelight. No! Do something with other people who are as genuinely interested as you are.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/01/style/new-years-resolutions-quotes-tips.html?smid=em-share

He’s right – knowing that I will share these postcards with others here in this blog and perhaps in the mail or in a show is part of the joy of creating. So here is postcard #3:

The back side records the words of a well-known song: “Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone.”

January 4: As I was sipping my morning coffee, I read the following poem in Mary Oliver’s book Devotions:

Oh, what fun! Dancing crows – yes! If you’re having an adventure, do it with a smile on your face and a spring in your step.

Here’s postcard #4 – from my studio to your computer, and wishing you a grand adventure as you step into the unknown in 2022.

"Los Litte"

The meaning of the title will become apparent further down in this blog

It was gratifying to get so many responses to my last blog featuring my Covid Crazy Quilt. One friend emailed me, “In these times of Covid and restrictions, it is interesting to hear what people are up to. Quilting is your way of remembering these many days. Your blog made me think of my way of coping ...”

Coping is a big word these days, and no wonder. Covid isn’t the only thing we’re dealing with. Here in British Columbia, a massive storm has wrought devastation to many people in our province. It’s destroyed homes, farm animals, transportation routes, taken lives, and left us bewildered and anxious. After record heat waves and forest fires this summer, now this. What’s next? 

When I checked the dictionary, I found this definition of coping: “Something a person does to deal with a difficult situation.” We need to find ways to deal with these difficult situations, or they will destroy our hope and our emotional health.

And if I dig around a little deeper, I find lots of advice and tips. They all sound so good:

In my recent post, I wrote about one method of coping, which took up about one hour a week. If you subtract about 50 hours for sleeping, there were 167 other hours left in the week to fill with other coping mechanisms. And the truth is, that didn’t always go so well.

Those walks I planned to take? The projects I started? The intentions I did not fulfill? The kind words I wanted to always speak to my resident sweetie? The positive thoughts and affirmations I wanted to fill my day with? Ha. Often the wheels have fallen off my coping mechanisms. I loaf around on the sofa, eat too much, doom-scroll through my phone for bad-news stories ... and just listing my shortcomings isn’t helping at all.

I’ve been pondering this. Why is it that I feel I need to be so much better at coping than I often am? Shouldn’t I be in control of my feelings, not have these blue days (or weeks) when nothing goes right? At my ripe old age, shouldn’t I have figured out “the secret?”

That’s when I realize that I’m equating “coping” with “control.” Coping methods often help us get through or around or over anxieties, sadness, frustrations and anger, but these methods cannot remove the situations we are facing. 

 

Whatever the situation you are dealing with – Covid, natural disasters, losses, root canals/toilet training/empty shelves at the grocery store/gasoline rationing, disease, __________ (fill in the blank with your own personal mountain to climb) –  coping methods cannot change that.

As long as I am fighting against things I cannot control, I am fighting a losing battle. The limitations on our lives right now? That is Reality. The imperfections we carry within ourselves, so that coping mechanisms don’t always work? That is Reality.

I think back to my dad, as he struggled with the disabilities of old age; he, who loved to read and write and explore new places, was blind and in a wheel chair. “Ik mat los litte,” he told us, using the Frisian dialect of his youth. “I must let go.”

It’s what I need to do, too: let go of the mistaken belief I can control everything, that if only I could learn to cope better, all would be sunshine and light. It won’t be...and yet, as my dad did, I can find a measure of peace and equilibrium. I can be easier on myself and others, knowing we’re mostly doing our best, and (as Rumi said) “We are all just walking each other home.”

This blog finally found its legs when I read this, written by recovering alcoholic Holly Whitaker and posted  at this site: https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2021/

“I’d always considered the word surrender to be blasphemous. Surrender was never a possibility to consider; it wasn’t something self-respecting, self-reliant folk like me do—we scheme around and bulldoze through whatever stands in our way.

 ... [But] Surrender is the strongest, most subversive thing you can do in this world. ... It’s a way of existing, a balancing act. For me, it looks like this: I pick up the baton and I run as far as I can, and I hand it over when I’m out of breath. Or actually maybe it’s like: I’m running with the baton, but the Universe is holding on to the other half of it, and we have an agreement that I’ll figure out the parts I can and hand over the parts I can’t.”

"Los litte," my dad would say. Let go.

Whittaker continues, “By surrendering to whatever is unfolding and by accepting what is ... you not only get a break from the exhaustion of having to control everything, but you also get to experience life, instead of what you think life owes you.

And, she ends by saying, “Hint: what life wants to give us is infinitely better than what we think it owes us.”

I've sewed the squares of my covid crazy quilt together, and will share the end result when I've figured out how to finish it. Don't hold your breath! Things take a little longer these days, and that's okay.

 

One Strip at a Time

February, 2020: that’s when we started hearing about “that virus in China”. March 2020: Yup, it’s here. Social distancing, self-isolation, and hand-sanitizing become part of the lexicon. April 2020: Debates about masking begin...remember that? 

 

We tore off the calendar pages as the story unfolded and our knowledge grew. We got the vaccine. And yet,  now it’s November 2021, 19 months later, and we are still struggling. November is  the beginning of the grey times. How will we get through another winter?

Last year, when all this started, I optimistically decided the days would go faster and better if I counted them off, creating a concrete reminder of each day to bring me closer to the end of the pandemic. Sort of like an advent calendar counting down to Christmas. After all, how long could Covid possibly last?

In April 2020 I counted off the days by creating little 2x3" fabric snapshots of something that brought me delight.  I called it my diary of daily delights. 

 

In May 2020, I shared my journaling thoughts with you. In June, I counted off the days by walking every day. And then the wheels fell off. From July to October 2020, whatever good intentions I had, evaporated. But in re-reading blog posts from those months, I find a repeated theme: left foot, right foot, breathe. Repeat. This is how we will get through this. Keep on keeping on. And I did. I hope you did, too.

Then, at the beginning of November 2020, I decided to create a quilt square every week; I had so many scraps that needed to be used. 

 

 Each square would consist of 7 randomly cut strips in colours that summarized that week’s events. For instance, 7 grey and black strips to represent a full week of rain; 7 gold and orange strips for the week when the temperatures were blazing in mid-summer; and 7 pink and green strips for the week the tulips began blooming in our garden.

 

So that’s what I did. The year is over, and I now have 52 squares of 7 strips in a huge variety of colours, all of them together representing one full year, 365 days, of a Covid-dominated life. I just finished the last square on November 1, 2021. 

This practice...of doing one little thing a day, or one little thing a week ... works for me. I may be cranky about the pandemic, upset with the political shenanigans all around the world, angry about the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, worried about climate change, frustrated that we are hemmed in by Covid, but when I am working on this one small thing, I get lost in the process of creating, and for a little while, I forget about the ugly. Perhaps I’m creating hope. And that hope stays with me.

Now I have 52 squares. When I started, I had no idea of what I would do with these squares, so I didn’t worry about the rules of design. There’s no unifying colour to tie these squares together. I did not use the colour wheel to ensure nothing clashes. I did not map out a design to follow. There was no big picture. These squares were about getting through the pandemic, one lovely strip after another, one day at a time, one small step at a time.

Yesterday I laid the squares out on the floor in the order that I had created them, a bright orange square next to a subdued grey next to a vibrant green, and on and on. Lo and behold, what I saw then was the Big Picture. 

 

One strip at a time, I had created a picture of life. My blanket of many colours is what life is like: the hours make up a day, the days add up to weeks, and one week at a time, we live through a year. Good days and not so good days, bright weeks and dark weeks, one leading into another. Each fabric, portraying just one day, is beautiful in itself, just as each day has some moments of beauty. Each square is beautiful/interesting/evocative in itself. And when you put them all together, what you have is a picture of this past year, a picture in riotous colours that don’t match, don’t create a pattern, aren’t nice and neat and orderly -- just like life.

And beautiful, anyway. 

If you are a stickler for details, you will notice that there are actually 53 squares here, and that one of the squares is a picture of a tree. That's the week when we got together with our whole family to celebrate our 50th anniversary on the edge of the ocean, where the full silver moon rose every night over the water. I think I will sew all these squares together and create a covid quilt as a keepsake.

 

 

 

We've been camping for the past few weeks. A friend, who knows that I never go anywhere without my computer, wondered if I might be spending my time “boiling down the sap of my life stories”. And I have been. But I won’t post them until I’m sure I’ve boiled them down enough so all the sweetness is revealed.

In the meantime, because it’s raining (again!) I thought I might share a little story.

Just before we left on this trip, I’d received an invitation to rent a writer’s hideaway retreat for a week in September. I was excited about the opportunity: a charming oceanside cabin off the beaten track at a very reasonable price. What could be bad about that? Then I read the fine print: there was a warning about bears and cougars, and the road to the cabin was very steep and washboardy, and might not be navigable in the rain. But the clincher was this: are you comfortable with knowing that mice enjoy the residence as well?
                
Mice. There’s a big difference between the occasional errant mouse checking out the premises, and a family of mice making themselves at home, running over your bed at night. 

 Which would this be? Just in case it was the latter, I regretfully I turned down the offer.  

Well, the gods must be laughing now, because guess what? A few days after setting up camp here, late one evening while I was quietly reading, a mouse scurried into my line of sight. I jumped up, and of course, he disappeared down some mouse hole that we couldn’t find. But overnight, he left his trail of calling cards behind. The next morning, we bought a few mousetraps, baited them, and then went to bed.

In the middle of the night, Al heard something and got up to check. Poor little mousie was running across the floor with a trap hanging from one of his appendages. Fortunately for him, as he frantically ran down his hidden exit, he was able to leave the trap behind (and no, there was no amputation of any part of him left behind.)

You would think this would be enough of a warning that he would never make another appearance. But no, he showed up again the next night. Unfortunately (for him) that was the end of that story. He died happy, though, chewing on a piece of extra-old cheddar. Mousie was dispatched into the underbrush. Perhaps an owl would find him. And that was that, we thought.

But the saga continued. Mousie must have had a friend, because the next morning we found more evidence of mouse visitations. Not only that, but our friend who was camping next door was very annoyed with us. She’d had her own visit while she was quietly reading, and she claimed we’d sent him over. We lent her a few of our traps and that night we waited with baited breath (ha ha) for the night visitor to make another appearance.

Our friend won the mouse lottery. Another mouse was dispatched into the underbrush. This is really the end of that story.

But not quite. When I told the story to my daughter-in-law, she said, “I wonder if the mouse appearances have a message for you.” Was there something I needed to learn from the possible mice in the cabin and the real appearance in our trailer?

Well...maybe. I’ve been reading a bit about “living life on the edge” in a book called This One Wild and Precious Life by Sarah Wilson. 

 

She says when you move away from the safety and security of your everyday life and move out to the edge of your life,  where the boundaries are less defined and you’re not sure what’s going to happen next, you will find that you are more alive. You pay attention more closely, and you begin to grow towards the edge. Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “Do something everyday that scares you.” When I turned down the writing retreat, was I avoiding mice, or was I avoiding challenges to my safe life? Was it more than just mice that had me rethinking the invite? Was it that I suddenly realized a week all by myself (except for the mice) might not be the idyllic experience I’d imagined? Perhaps in my quiet times, I’d be confronted with issues I needed to address. Maybe it was easier to stay home.

How often do we choose the safe path, the one that causes the least anxiety, and thereby forego the thrill of discovering new perspectives? How often do we worry about issues needlessly, and thereby miss the blessings of fresh visions? I’m glad Emma challenged me to to pay attention to the mouse appearances. It pushed me towards the edge, and that’s a good thing.

One can overthink this, of course, spending your life questioning your decisions and worrying about lost opportunities. So I also listen to another voice: that of my 6 year old granddaughter Grace, who wrote a song for me on my birthday. Here it is – you can make up the tune yourself. 

In case you do not read "firstgrade-ese" English, here's the translation:

“Wories, wories go awai
Wories don’t bug me aneymore.
I don’t like you aneymore.
I don’t like the way you treat me aneymore.
Goaway wories goaway.

This song you can sing wen your worede then your wories will go away.”

Thanks, Grace. And no more worries about mice, kiddo. I’m over that!