the florals and the solids

purses in progress, june 18, 2007

In my mind, I see them walking together, arms linked as they laugh. So much of their lives still ahead of them just waiting for their footprints. On the right is a woman with red, curly hair pulled back in a bright, floral-print scarf. Her laugh is loud and full and causes heads to turn and faces to smile along with her. On the left is a younger version of my grandmother; her face so relaxed and full of joy that her own children might not have recognized her.

She had begun the day less than relaxed. After sending the children off to various friends’ homes, she had begun to worry that her friendship with Maude might have changed too much with two decades and several states now between them. As she reached up to clip on her white five-and-dime round earring, she caught her own reflection. Smoothing her long light blue skirt, she wondered if her best friend from high school would even know this woman staring back at her. This woman who had five kids, a house, and dreams long forgotten in a box in the attic.

Hours later, time seeped away when she spotted her at the bus station. Maude took one look at my grandmother and squealed with delight as she stepped off the bus and ran toward her. Later, they walked arm and arm downtown, and they tried to soak up every minute of this time together. Two days was not long for a visit. But, just enough time for Maude to remind her that time could not change the girl inside. Just enough time for her to remember.

***

These little snippets for a story came to me last week as I was looking at different fabrics in my little room. Because I was looking at my small collection of vintage fabrics, I was thinking about the 1950s and 1960s and what the people I know would have been like back then. I started thinking about my grandmother. She was a woman who did not have many friends, at least not friends that those of us left behind are aware of. But, we do know that she had two close friends, one from high school and one in South Carolina where she moved with my grandfather in the late 1960s. I started wondering about these women, especially Maude, her best friend in high school.

I know nothing about Maude. Not one thing. All I know is that she moved to Texas at some point. But, I don’t know when; I don’t even know if she is still alive. It seems she and my grandmother did keep in touch through letters that my aunt may have. Anyway, as I started wondering about her, about who would have been friends with my private, sometimes short-tempered grandmother, I suddenly thought, “I bet she was a lot like me.” I started to imagine the two of them visiting one another, and the possibility that maybe Maude had taken the bus across several states to see her family and had been able to spend time with my grandmother during her visit. I imagined that Maude had tried to remind my grandmother that even though dreams might have shifted, she still could remember who she was and who she wanted to become. I imagined Maude as the bright floral print to my grandmother’s light blue solid. I imagined her reminding my grandmother of the laughter and the brightness and how she too had a bit of polka dots and paisley and bright flowers inside her.

I imagined that I was able to do that for her too…

this morning

portland street altar, april 2007

I sought a cocoon of solace as I slid the rings across the bar and felt the warm water touch my skin.

The words rang out with a crackle.

Your problem is, you always want to talk about things and other people don't want to.

Words from long ago, but words that stay with a person.

For almost thirty years, I tried to package it all up in nice pretty bows so they didn't have to hear it. But, when people opened the packages, out would jump confusion, empty space, disconnection, trying to please, untruths, hurt, fakeness, and other images that were often not what I meant at all. And, I talked and talked and talked about the confusion with a few trusted souls, but I never really gave myself the space to change.

It was my body that finally got me to shut up and listen as it gave me a package full of my unsaid words in the form of a ping-pong ball size round cyst in my throat that lived in my body during the months of November and December last year.

The space it used to take up has become a barometer of sorts now that alerts me to a sudden tiptoeing back to past ways. And as those words rang out today, that space gave a little ba-boom, ba-boom and began to ache.

I reached up for my throat and sank to my knees as fine, whatever you want rang out in my head. In child's pose with the hot water beating on my back, I didn't sob but opened my eyes and watched the water dropping from my forehead. I heard Deb Talan's words and began to sing along with her in my mind…

Tell your story
Tell it, tell it
Tell your story
To anyone who'll listen
Tell your story
Don't stop talking
Just
Tell your story walking

I sang these words on repeat until my older-than-my-years knees reminded me to move. I stood and pressed my head against the cool wall and took several deep breaths. I called on my teachers, one by one, seeking.

Then, I heard their whispered chorus,

You are on your path.

My voice mingled with theirs as we said it again and again.

Until the water heater needed a break.

Until it was time for me to emerge.

i come from {poetry thursday}

i want to share another poem i wrote at artfest in susan wooldridge's poemcrazy class...when i read this poem tonight, i was reminded of possibility once again.

*****

I come from
a land where Cinderella eats a
black apple and dances in
both her shoes.

I come from
a tree house city where I watch
forest elephants search for their souls
inside a purple sky.

I come from
a field of gold and pink dotted petals
nestled in the breast of the milky way.

I come from
a heron’s wing, a wooly fleshed
warbler, a chickadees spell.

I come from
a tiptoeing, still, winter home
where I wrap myself in
a blanket of stories.

rhythm of possibilty {self-portrait challenge}

Sewing in my little room. It is actually pretty clean right now, but from this angle, you cannot tell that at all.

I tend to find sewing meditative. The rhythm of the cutting, ironing, pinning, sewing, snipping, turning, ironing, pinning and on and on. I have time to think as I do these things. Lately, my brain has tended to wander to the idea of possibilities. I am feeling my heart open with this idea…possibility. There is so much that is before me. I just need to give myself a little space to realize this. I need to allow myself to release the fear, anxiety, self-doubt, and self-judgment. It is that darn self-judgment that gets me every time. The comparisons with others and negative voices that echo in my head.

Trying to just find that rhythm of hope and belief.
In myself.

Trying to stay in a rhythm of possibility.

(visit self-portrait challenge for more responses to this month's challenge of environment.)

we have a winner!

Well, for all you guessers out there, the number of buttons in that jar was 4,797. can you believe it? goodness that is a lot of buttons.

Greenish Lady was the closest, missing the mark by only 131 buttons.

Diana and Bridget were close behind her though, so I want to give them a little something too.

And, I have decided that the person who guessed the smallest amount, a number that just had me giggling a bit, also wins a prize. And yes, my dear, that would be you gk girl.

Email me at waywardtulip at gmail dot com to claim your prizes!

Thank you to all of you for playing along - this was too much fun. I think i just might have to do something like this every couple of months.

goodness

goodness me, so many guesses! well, there are a couple of you who are pretty darn close! i will still keep the guessing open until sunday evening, so feel free to add your guess to the list if you haven't already.

thank you all for your kind birthday wishes. reading all your guesses and your kind words has been such fun.

i had a really nice day. it has been funny to answer this question this week, "what are you doing for your birthday?" (long pause on my end of the phone, followed by a slight giggle) "well, jon and i are going to 'an evening with bob newhart' at a theatre here in tacoma." (long pause on the other end) "oh yeah, he is great. i always liked him." "me too."

it was wonderful. he is just as cute in person and just as funny as you would imagine. a genius really with his timing and his facial expressions and his voices. we were in the fifth row...pretty darn cool. the place was packed and the crowd really enjoyed him. we were laughing all the way home. i love that guy. i think i might download some of his comedy albums...now that i have enough space on my ipod because...

Jon bought me a much bigger one! he used some of his birthday money last year to buy me a little nano. and he did the same this year (well, actually, it kind of works out that he used my birthday money as we used his to buy a new docking station for our iPods with me not knowing i would have a new one) because he knew i was just a wee bit sad that i couldn't put as much on my nano and that i wanted to be able to start listening to podcasts and other things. (not to mention that i still think he feels bad for erasing my entire iTunes library last december...and this way i can pretty much put almost every CD onto my iPod now, so if it gets erased again because of a massively huge miscommunication, it will be okay.) after it was charged, the first order of business, as decreed adorably by my husband, was to download the short film boundin'. do you know that animated short? the one that played before the incredibles in the theatre? if you don't know it, you should. really, it sums up my entire philosophy about life. (i am not kidding here.) and now i can watch it on a little screen whenever i want to. if i am ever on a plane that is maybe "going down," just know that i was there, sitting in my seat watching that little short and breathing deeply.

goodness. sorry for that morbid thought, but i am not kidding. the therapist i went to in college talked about the idea of staying calm in the midst of it all using the metaphor of either screaming as a plane experiences major turbulence or just sitting there and reading your book through it all. hmmm...i might not be doing this metaphor justice. but i think of that idea: that i would want to experience calm in those last moments. now i will be watching boundin' instead of reading if i ever find myself in that situation. moving on...

i am one of those people who loves a cake for her birthday. i know you might be nodding and thinking "don't most people?" but, my experience after grade school was that you don't always get a cake. (part of this has something to do with the fact that my mom doesn't like cake, so after we were a certain age i think she thought that we didn't want cake. so there tended to be dessert at the restaurant we went to to celebrate and i think there were a few ice cream cakes. and those are great. but, my brother and i are totally cake-cake people. i should have baked him one this year. hmmm. next year matt, i am showing up in portland with a cake.) i wish that i would have just started making myself one every year. anyway, the point is that i should have also just said, "hey friends and family, i like cake. and i kind of want a cake with candles and everything on my birthday." so, when jon and i got together, i finally said that. and this is where he started making one for me every year. super cute. the funny part is though that about every other year he tries something different. like adding cinnamon to a chocolate cake to try to make "mexican chocolate cake" like they served at this restaurant i love. not quite mexican chocolate. and this year, he was so cute as he made me a cake while i was out tuesday night, so when i got home, there was a note on it that said, "you do not see this." working from home and having to wait until thursday to eat the cake, well, that was torture. but, then, when we had cake thursday morning (i was up really early for some reason, so jon went ahead and put candles on the cake and served it to me for breakfast...hee, hee...love it), it was discovered that the cake and the frosting were made from an organic mix. hmmm. it was kind of like when you go to the store and you really want ice cream but buy some low-fat ice cream when you really want the regular chocolate and you get home and eat it and think "why oh why did i do this when i should have just gone to baskin robbins and eaten one scoop of the good stuff?" yeah. i love to do the organic thing as much as possible. but this cake was missing a little somethin' somethin'. however, i point out, that it truly is the thought that counts. and i think that we might just make some cupcakes together this weekend to celebrate the end of the school year for jon but also to just have that regular old pillsbury yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

today, as i chuckle a bit as i write this long post of silliness, i feel this true sense of joy that my husband is such a kind, sweet man. that he supports me in all that i do and that he wants to sprinkle pieces of joy in my life. that instead of just thinking "oh i could do that," he just does it, even if it means that sometimes things don't work out as perfectly as he would have liked. the fact is, he just wants to make me smile. and life is hard. so it is really nice to have someone in your life who just wants to do that for you.

(thank you sweetie)

more than 30 (also known as the one with the contest) (and in some circles known as the birthday post)

today, i turn 31. i loved turning 30 last year. simply loved waving good-bye to my 20s. was glad to let them be part of the past. i kind of want to stay 30 for another year though. it just feels like such a good age. i like answering that question, "how old are you?" and saying with a huge smile, "30." i think i like being an even age. and to be the beginning of a decade feels empowering. but today, i take a big step right into that decade.

last night, i was thinking about how excited i was to turn 16. how i didn't fall asleep and that at midnight i saw that my mom was still up reading, so i went into my parents' room and opened the presents my grandparents had sent. it was a pretty cool moment. my grandmother was always sending me "the latest thing" she had found. this time, it was these stretchy, metal bracelets (think almost slinky-like but rectangular). i did not realize that they were actually something you were supposed to put on the outside of your long-sleeve shirt, at the wrists, and then push up the sleeves - they were supposed to hold the sleeves in place. an odd invention that didn't seem to take off (do any of you know what i mean?). well, i thought they were just funky bracelets and put them on and when they went from being "stretched out" to resting against my skin, every single one of my arm hairs in that area of my skin was grabbed up in between the little slinky-like coils. holy crap. it hurt but it was so funny. my mom and i were cracking up until we were crying; trying to be quiet as my dad was sleeping. we had no idea what they were for. i think my grandparents also sent me a mug they bought in hershey, pa that had all the different hershey chocolates on it. and then, they sent a pretty nice-sized savings bond that they gave to all the grandchildren when they turned 16. i am sure that there was also a pair or two of super soft socks as that was something my grandma always gave me at birthdays and christmas. i guess the best part of the memory though is just thinking about sitting on the floor next to my mom's side of the bed and being in that moment with her. and, i think some hershey's chocolate was consumed as well...so fun.

lately, i have noticed several bloggers hosting little giveaways on their birthdays, so i decided i would like to join in on the fun...

a few weeks ago, i mentioned that jon helped me to count buttons. well, we were counting all these buttons:

we found this jar filled with them at an antique shop in portland. see that blue one? well, i had to have the whole jar after seeing that blue one (and the red one...oh and that green one...).

anyway, i thought it might be fun (and a bit silly i know), if i held a "guess how many buttons are in the jar" contest here in the comments. here's a hint: there are a lot more than 30 buttons in that jar, but there are not more than 10,000. oh and it took us several hours to count them (though we were nicely arranging them by color and other subcategories like "liz's favorites" and "ones that look like flowers").

just leave your guess in the comments. the person who is closest will receive a surprise of something i have made here in the little room and some other goodies (including, you guessed it, some of those buttons)!

i am going to go ahead and leave the guessing open until sunday evening, so jump on in with your guess! (though, i suppose i should have the rule that you only get one guess, so make it a good one.)

and thanks for making this last year, the year i was 30, such a good one with your friendship, support, words of wisdom, and all that good stuff. you all are just the best...

planting connection {self-portrait challenge}

There has been a running dialogue in my head with you today. I suppose it started with the smell of strawberries in the kitchen this morning. I started thinking about how anytime I would see you in the spring and early summer we always had strawberries. Because you would freeze them, I guess we had them whenever I visited. My mind wandered to memories of you all day. Maybe it is because the last time I saw you it was this week, three years ago. Does the mind subconsciously remember such things? This afternoon, as I sliced the strawberries before Jonny got home, I just thought about you and wondered how you are doing. Wondered where you are now. Just wondered. I keep thinking about how I have been drawn to the color green for the last year or so…longer than that now I guess. It is that nature green…that bright leafy, grass green that I seem to want to soak in. Though, I guess, I am drawn to all shades of it lately (as evidenced by my clothes and jewelry and the fabric I buy), but it is the grass green that seems to be important. It is the color that seems to be whispering "grow" to me. Maybe it is you whispering that word to me through this color. Through the leaves on the tulips all spring. Through the warm, thick grass in the backyard. Through the oregano that comes back each year in our little patch of "garden." Through the green of the plants I decided I had to plant late this evening. I was working late and decided that even though dusk was fast approaching, I just wanted to put those annuals into the pots and not wait another day. And, as I turned over the soil and moved it to the side to put them into the pots, I found myself talking to you again. Letting you know that even though I may not have your gardening abilities or that I do not love it to the extent you did, putting those plants in the soil in those pots helps me feel close to you. Helps me to feel a connection. Of course, it also makes my back hurt like hell. Goodness my back is the back of someone with sciatica. It felt good to just tell you about that too. Just like I was catching you up on my life as though we were talking as we used to. I started wondering if you used to wear gloves when you would plant things. I think so. I waited for an answer as I thought the question. Maybe you will remind me when I plant the herbs later this week. I told you that I thought you would have laughed at me out there wearing my wedding ring in all that soil and you would have shook your head in disbelief that I was planting things so late. But, then I had the thought that maybe you understood. You understood my need to feel this closeness. Our relationship has shifted. And, as I talked to you this evening, I felt this bit of space inside me that seemed to indicate that you understand. That there is just knowing now. And, that is okay.

It feels so good to talk to you. And, it wasn't a conversation filled with sobs or moments of literal heart ache. No, it was just me talking to you. Just me feeling connected.

(see more self-portraits at self-portrait challenge)