Make it New: Mending at Rock & Sling

Happy Not-Quite-So-New-Year, friends! So 2019 was quite a year, and I have spent very little time with this blog. I have instead been up to my neck with various and assorted Things, some fabulous, some not-so. One of the best things is that last fall I went back to school for a master's degree in English. Do I dare say I've resolved to post more here in 2020? For today, here is a link to my new post over at Rock & Sling: Make it New: Mending.




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Artist Series at Rock & Sling

Thank you to Rock & Sling for the opportunity to share one of the books that is inspiring me right now. I haven't read The Wide-Awake Princess to my kids in years, but it is still speaking to me. Now more than ever. You can read the whole blog post here.



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Signs of Life + Signs I That I Lagged a Little Too Far Behind on the Trail

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Coptic Stitch Journals

These days I have to think in terms of projects. While I work on one the others wait, patiently or otherwise. I finish things, but usually not within the time frame I had imagined. Some days this is frustrating, but other days I can totally bask in the warmth of knowing that I do finish things, contrary to how I saw myself when I was much younger, and not only that but I like the things I eventually put out into the world. Most days that is really a whole lot of warmth, and it is helping me to get more comfortable with the backlog of Things Waiting.

One recent project is this group of hand bound journals/sketchbooks/blank books. Pink is not a color I turn to very often, but back in February I was recovering from influenza and bronchitis, thinking about how nice spring would feel, and probably feeling the influence of Valentine's Day everywhere I turned. I wanted pink--glowing, tender, robust, healthy, promising pink in deep-breathing, loving shades. I also wanted to play with watercolors and so, slowly, these journals were born.

Somewhere towards the end of finishing one of these journals, I had the impression that I was creating a small world. And hopefully someone else will take this simple small world into their hands and feel the call to create their own world or worlds within it. That is my hope for these little blank books. I think our souls ache to create and birth and converse as much now as ever in our history.

This, too, is an encouragement when I start to get overwhelmed by all the Things Waiting. They will be finished because they are needed.

These three are available in my Etsy shop, Bark Bread Designs:

These two are available locally at an antique store, along with some other items I have made. (If you are interested in these, please message me.)

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Now in my Etsy Shop!

"Maybe I can let the pile of laundry be what it is and see it transformed at the same time."

My book, Shift: a visual poem, is now available in my Etsy shop. Equal parts prose poem and photographic series, this slim hybrid challenges the reader through vivid pictures and spare text to see the world around us both "as it is" and as something more--magical, transformed, full of possibility. You can find it here.

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"Imprint" at Rock and Sling

It is an honor to have my piece, "Imprint," up on the Rock and Sling blog this week. It pulls together some things I have been mulling over for months (sparked by the baby mouse and its siblings pictured below) and I am so pleased to be able to finally have it out in the world. You can read it here.

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Pasta with Squid Ink Sauce

Hours after moving our son into his dorm room at an arts boarding school a year and half ago, my husband and I sat down to one of the most delicious and memorable meals of my life. I was heartbroken and terrified--our boy was young and it felt way too early to have him away, despite the fact that he had initiated it and that after much soul-searching we were all convinced it was the right move for him. The dinner fixed nothing, but the sheer warm magnificence of it was something of a balm, the way light glitters off broken glass and reminds you that despite the shattering there is still beauty to witness. We ate wonderful things, including a pasta in squid ink sauce, which, despite a warning from our waitress, I ate without tucking a napkin into my shirt. I admit it, I fully believed I had learned to eat without dribbling. And I not only dribbled, I dropped a big piece of pasta right down the front of my shirt, and the black stain is never going to go away. I could not throw the shirt away, and I could not look at it for a long time, either, so I tucked it deep in my closet with all the other things I do not know how to deal with. Something in me remembers at times like this that I am a slow-simmerer. Finally the thought struck me that I could cover the stain even though I could not remove it, and I found tucked nearby one of the lovely vintage handkerchiefs I brought home from my grandmother's house after she died. And I sewed the two heartbreaks together, and it took a very long time, longer than I thought it should have, but look I have made a new beautiful thing and someday I will wear the people I love who I can no longer have close by. 

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Note to Self

There is plenty to fear in this world, and more than enough horror to go around. Let this change you, yes, but don't let it stop you. Practice every day standing tall and being soft at the same time. The fear will be there whether you go forward or hide, so you might as well go forward: reach out and see and listen and reach out and see and listen. Tall and soft, tall and soft. Rest when you need to. Fight for what is right. And watch for what is beautiful. Let that change you, too. Let it carry you. Then carry it with you, to every damn dark place you can.

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I made a book. You can buy it if you like.

It's been pretty quiet here on the blog. Partly because life has been crazy and busy and full, and partly because I have been working on several longer-term projects. I put the first one out into the world today. Shift is an extension of the teleidoscope series I did during the Advent season last year. The project was powerful for me, and I wanted to make it into something a person could hold in their hands, or place in someone else's hands, if they felt so inclined. And so, this. I liked the idea of print-on-demand for this particular project, because only as many of these as are wanted will go out into the world, and I do not have to get anyone else's permission to send them out. I would love it if you wanted to buy one.

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Rock & Sling Guest Post: Summer Reading

I am honored to have a piece up on the Rock & Sling blog this past week. It was the wrap-up of their Summer Reading series and a chance to revisit how life and books intertwined at some key summer moments, past and present.

And now that I'm thinking of summer, here's a small bit from a trip to my hometown in June:

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Update: May/June

I am honored to have had two pieces published recently: an article in the American Suzuki Journal, and a poem in Rock & Sling (Issue 12.1.) 

It was a special treat to see my article in the ASJ featured on the mailing label that came with the journal--I am rather proud of that. The article, "Walk the Hills, Crawl if Necessary" was something I worked on for months this past year. The basic point was that as parents we run into times when we have to loosen our grip on our expectations, that sometimes what looks like stagnation is still a moving-forward, just maybe hidden, or very slow. It ended up being very, very close to home, and depending on the day (week/month) it was sometimes nearly impossible to write about.

The poem in Rock & Sling was also difficult to write. "The Beatitudes" by Vladimir Martynov, Rescored for Kronos Quartet was a piece I nearly gave up on. It began as an assignment at a poetry workshop I attended in 2015, the last assignment at the end of an incredibly full, intense week. I hated what I had written so much I decided not to turn it in. In the end I could not leave it alone, either, but it took many months to shift into its current form.

Today's theme? Never give up. Time is kind of a magical thing, and I keep forgetting to factor it in. 

I have been working on several projects while away from this blog. Day-to-day what I see around me is Mess, but over the course of time I can see that I am making progress. In time I hope to share about those here. In the meantime you can find me a little more frequently on Instagram.

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Make it New: See it New

It is an honor to be a guest contributor on the Rock & Sling blog today. And it was good to re-read my own words. I know I am not the only one who carries the weight of current events, personal struggles (those of my loved ones as well as my own,) and what amounts to a daily battle with chaos around on her shoulders. It is only natural that we get tired. Playing with a teleidoscope last December felt like escapism at first, a place for my soul to rest during a busy time. But it became something more, reminding me that transformation is a powerful powerful thing. You can read about it here.

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From My Reading, 3/22/17

From Animal Farm, by George Orwell:

Meanwhile life was hard. The winter was as cold as the last one had been, and food was even shorter. Once again all rations were reduced, except those of the pigs and the dogs. A too rigid equality in rations, Squealer explained, would have been contrary to the principles of Animalism. In any case he had no difficulty in proving to the other animals that they were not in reality short of food, whatever the appearances might be. For the time being, certainly, it had been found necessary to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always spoke of it as a "readjustment," never as a "reduction"), but in comparison with the days of Jones, the improvement was enormous. Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones's day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas. The animals believed every word of it. Truth to tell, Jones and all he stood for had almost faded out of their memories. They knew that life nowadays was harsh and bare, that they were often hungry and often cold, and that they were usually working when they were not asleep. But doubtless it had been worse in the old days. They were glad to believe so. Besides, in those days they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the difference, as Squealer did not fail to point out.

*     *     *

I grew up watching the 1954 animated version of this at school. I've lost track of how many times I saw it, but the messages and images are pretty deeply-ingrained: the cruelty of Mr. Jones, the animal uprising, the Seven Commandments of Animalism. Napoleon's takeover. Good and faithful Boxer working himself nearly to death before being carted off to be made into glue. I always understood the movie as a warning about what had happened in the Soviet Union, but underneath that there was always what I now see as the core message: a warning about what we humans are tempted to do with power. What history has shown we do. That is what haunts me now about this book--that and how the truth flickers and shifts in the hands of some. How easily the others lose track, and go along with what is happening. This isn't just the story of a faraway place, locked into one point in time, it is something that happens over and over in our world. How simple it might be to just lose track, go along.

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Yes.

Does it matter, 

the way sunlight pokes through the blinds 

and lands on a vinyl seat at a Chinese buffet 

where you have come to redeem the day? 

Yes.

 Every ounce of effort spent towards good counts. 

Every bit of good you catch coming back counts, too. 

Those fairy tales you loved as a child (still love, it just feels a little different now,) 

that endless Story of good vs. evil? 

You are in the middle of that story, 

finding endless variations on it day by day. 

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From My Reading, 2/11/17

from Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, by Viktor E. Frankl:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

*     *     *

I have been taking my reading extra-seriously these days. There was a time when I was younger that I let myself believe I did not have room to read "for pleasure." It took crisis to realize that reading was not, in fact, a luxury, but food for my heart and mind. I made the decision that there was room in my life for books more than twenty years ago, and sure there are lean times, but I no longer have qualms about calling reading essential. Through the years you might have been able to find me reading while nursing babies, while knitting, while stirring pots of things-that-need-constant-stirring on the stove. Sometimes my head drops into the book on my pillow at night before I've read even a page, and sometimes these days I have trouble keeping the book propped open well enough to read on the treadmill. It does not matter, though; I am finding nourishment, even if it is in tiny bits. Plus, I get to meet the most amazing people through their books. Last week I got to know Viktor Frankl, and while I was familiar with some of his ideas, I needed to hear them more deeply.  Things like the passage above. And like this:

I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, "homeostasis," i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

I was also stunned by passages like this one:

For as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past wherein it has been safely delivered and deposited. In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. To be sure, people tend to see only the stubble fields of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity.

There is poetry in there, don't you think? And maybe enough strength for the day?

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Origami

When the news gets to be too much, send paper stars out into the world.

Not that you won’t get back to the news, the opinion columns, the how-to-survive-what’s-next articles. Not that you haven’t been talking about it, educating and comforting your children, ranting to those closest to you. You have vowed not to turn away, to do everything you can to support the people and programs and systems that are at risk.

But you know you have to find a way to live beyond the fear and sadness. The horror at each day’s developments. What do you do with it all? You told your kids the day after the election that you would keep living the way you knew you should live, and fight harder than ever for what you believe is right. But what do you do with this Waiting now, for the days to reveal just how many people have been betrayed, and how much damage will be done?

Start folding stars, for one thing.

At first they were Christmas ornaments for your family. For your children to take with them into adulthood: tokens of your love, a bridge from old home and old life to new. For the one close to you who left all extras behind as she fled a life of abuse in order to build something new and better.

It did not take long for this project to turn into something else, though.

It’s not just the working of your hands, or the bright squares of paper, or the repetitiveness of the task. It is the power to put good out into the world that compels you. To make something beautiful in the face of ugliness, and out of humble things, and with your own hands.

These are your greatest acts of defiance: beauty, kindness, love. They are not the only things, but they are the beginning, and quite likely the end. A promise to yourself and the people around you that you will not stop doing what you know is right.

And you keep folding. Take note, as you memorize the folds. So many fussy little preparatory creases: seven, followed by a cut and an unfolding, and you are holding a pentagon in your hand. Fifteen more folds and un-folds, a little pinching and arranging, and suddenly the paper pinwheels into shape. Five more creases, a tuck—and there. You are holding a star. And that moment where everything shifts into place becomes something you want to repeat, over and over.

There are no shortcuts. You forget once, and do all the preparatory folds with the pattern face side up. You try to force the pinwheel into shape anyway, thinking that maybe the backwards folds weakened the paper enough to make it do what you wished. But no. You have to go back and fold everything the right way. The paper had been weakened, yes, but in preparation for something else.

And this is what sinks deep into every cell of your body: how the folds weaken the paper, how the sheet softens in your hands. How without this weakness there would be no getting to the new shape.

Note how the new thing—this bright and delicate star—is stronger than the original.

Repeat, again and again, folding yourself into the process. Bend yourself over and over, in preparation for what is next. Hone your skills for beauty. Flood the world with stars. 

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Long Live

The checkout line at the grocery store was long. The list of things-unsolvable banging around in my head was long. My face, a little on the long side anyway, was maybe a bit longer than usual.

The gentleman in front of me, as he finished gathering his bags, leaned in to the clerk and said with a nod towards me, "I'll reward her with a joke since she's been waiting so long." Or something like that. And he turned to me with a smile. "What animal has more lives than a cat?"

I could not even pretend to have a clue. "Frogs. They croak every night." He grinned. The college student behind me was clearly amused, and the cashier, too. We all smiled, exchanged looks and smiled some more. I cannot remember if I thanked him, but I hope I did. I can at least pass the moment along. Because long live kindness and generosity. Long live laughter and compassion, and what Youngest recently referred to as softness, as in soft-heartedness. Long live taking the high road. Long live truth and honesty. Long live seeing the good in the mess, or at least seeing what it could be.

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Sometimes Small Things are Huge

Around four years ago I learned I had arthritis in the joint at the base of my left big toe. 

Nine months ago I quit running. Too much pain in too many places.

In May I had surgery to remove bone spurs and loose fragments from that joint. 

Healing is a slow thing, and slow, and slow.

Today I ran a mile. It was slow but not terrible. 

And this ice pack does not need to be this beautiful, but it is.

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"Bowlful of Light" at How to Pack for Church Camp

Summer camp is kind of a magical thing. When I think of how much learning, growing, playing, crying, and stretching I and the people I love have done at various camps through the years it is overwhelming. So I loved finding the online anthology "How to Pack for Church Camp" recently, and I am honored that they have now included my piece, "Bowlful of Light," on their website. There is such a wonderful collection of stories here, touching on what must be millions of raw/odd/beautiful/funny/deep/painful/holy stories that play out at camps every summer. Hope it stirs up something inside of you, too.

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"That Hard Passage," ASJ

Last fall my friend Sarah asked me to share what I had carried with me into adulthood from my childhood Suzuki training. There are many things--part of what I love about teaching is that it keeps showing me more about not only my own musical training, but my whole upbringing, deeply informed as it was by Shinichi Suzuki's teachings and philosophies. But this answer, what I am starting to think of as the discipline of beauty, is the one closest to my heart. I think it transcends the Suzuki philosophy, actually, to all of music and art, but this is where I encountered it in my own life. I am thankful to the American Suzuki Journal for giving me the chance to share my essay, "That Hard Passage," with a larger audience, both in their most recent volume (44.3) and here on their website.

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