weekend...

gifts...

  

This was a slide from Amy Butler's lecture at QuiltCon. The entire presentation was a feast of color, information and inspiration but this slide stood out to me because, well, sometimes you just need to hear this. Thanks, Amy.

                                                        

At David Butler's lecture I learned why this room is where I take almost every picture....a big north facing window. I love the light in here...it actually makes me happy. Especially when it bounces off that little face. 

I have also found out that the fairies have been at work again in our yard and, of course, the same sweet girl of mine who found these little flowers last year brought the first ones in this year. This was left for me on the kitchen counter one evening.

I'm finding quite a few gifts around me lately...amazing what you can see when you look. 

trying...

A few weeks ago we went to Austin so I could attend QuiltCon. I had been looking forward to this trip for nearly a year and it did not disappoint. It was a bit surreal, to be honest. It felt a little like being rescued from a deserted island and realizing you aren't the only person left in the world after all. After years of feeling as though I didn't quite fit in with the quilting community, I suddenly found myself surrounded by the very people who started the modern quilting movement. 

A weekend of lectures, workshops, vendors and conversation with other people who share my aesthetic was wonderful but what I took away most from this lovely trip was a bit...heavier...or more revealing, I guess I should say. 

I had a chance to bump into one of the very people I went to see. A lovely woman whose quilts I admire so much. I got a quick moment to chat with her and a hug that left me...in tears. 

This dear lady was such a sweetheart, so kind and so very, very maternal...and there they were....tears. Because these days, any and all things "mama" leaves me sobbing with an emotion so strong I just don't understand it. 

I know I need to face it...I know my years and years of defenses that have guarded me from just this very thing are crumbling. And how could they not? But, oh my goodness, I feel ill equipped for this. 

And now I am almost my mother's age when she collapsed.....and my oldest daughter is the age I was when that happened and of course it's surfacing now....bubbling over and spilling out at random moments. And I want to keep hiding...keep ignoring this thing that won't be ignored.  

But when I sat and listened to this woman speak, listened to her give a lecture that left the entire audience in tears as she spoke of her family and how they shaped her and inspired her and I realized that feeling all of this is the normal part. The grief, loss, sadness and loneliness are normal. But the feeling I've had my entire life, of thinking I was the only one who felt this, that is the part I need to let go of. 

And so, after weeks of avoiding this space again, of not being able to find the words to describe the constant undercurrent, I'm here. Trying. 

And I'll keep trying. 

valentine...

One sweet man, champagne, Chinese take-out, this favorite game.

Three kids, one puppy, no babysitter. 

Somehow still sort of perfect. 

weekend...

This weekend there was a trip to the local nursery that was overflowing with roses. More roses than I've ever seen in one place. A few lovely bushes came home with us.
There was this view from my window of ripening grapefruit and budding roses. A strange view to reconcile with February but a wonderful kind of strange.
And there was this moment captured when they weren't looking, with giggles and books and that amazing light through the window that makes this my favorite room.

On weekends like this it feels very much like home around here.

three...

This is us. At just about this time, three years ago. My third baby. Just born and immediately held close. Me holding her, him holding us... she was here. We did it. 

Not in this picture but right there, just out of frame- her big sister, strong, curious, determined to greet her baby sister. Her big brother, hardly "big" at all and hardly noticing anything out of the ordinary, playing games with the midwife. That very same midwife who I trusted and who trusted me. The midwife who knew this baby and I could get to this moment. And there was my doula, my magical friend, a source of strength, a source of calming assurance that I was cared for and respected. She took this picture that captures everything about that moment. 

That ordinary morning but most extraordinary moment. That moment when I got to be the first to hold a child of mine. When that most basic wish was respected by the beautiful women there with me. "Reach down and pick up your baby." Those words still (and always will) resonate in my mind. She was here, we did it. So much gratitude. 

My third baby. My first birth. We did it. 

yarn...

Not having a fiber shop close by could be very disheartening to a knitter just gaining some confidence and experience. What I might miss by not being able to browse and touch aisles of wool locally is certainly made up by the delivery of all this loveliness to my doorstep. It felt very much like unwrapping a present but maybe with a bit of apprehension that the colors wouldn't match how they appear on my screen or that the wool itself just wouldn't *feel* right. 

The colors are lovely, though, and the wool is soft and with a lot of tutoring from a far away friend (who is, thankfully, just a click away) I can't wait for this bundle of color and fiber to become something. Several somethings. But first I'm waiting for circular and double pointed needles to also find their way to my doorstep. 

Until then, just pictures.