Save us from our phones with a pillow

Energized by an excellent article, “Save Us from our Phones!” by Casey Schwartz in today’s New York Times, I fired off the following letter to the editor:

Hello!

Thank you for today’s article by Casey Schwartz, “Save Us from our Phones.” I’ve revived an ancient technology for combatting the cellphone epidemic: a pocket. Each pillow produced by my microbusiness, “Honey Girl Books and Gifts,” has a pocket on the back. Informal data from happy clients, including my former students at Notre Dame, indicates that it works. As Godsee, age 19 wrote, “The pillow has become my go-to item when I want to relax and take a break from studying or work. With a cup of tea, a good book, and the very helpful and much-needed cellphone pocket (to store away distractions for a moment), the pillow has become an ideal source of comfort. I definitely recommend!”

Perhaps we need to reject tech devices entirely. Power to the pillow!

Sincerely,

Julia Douthwaite Viglione

Owner and chief seamstress, Honey Girl Books and Gifts

https://www.honeygirlbooks.com/

Honey Girl Books and Gifts is now on Etsy too!

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a quilt is born

a brief news flash from the world of Honey Girl Books and Gifts:

Number 13 in the Great Chain of Quilts est. November 2016, was just finished. This one is for Pam. The front features five lines of multi-colored cotton sewn in synchronized patterns, symbolizing the lives of Pam, her three children, and two grandchildren in ways that she will plainly see (and can read about in the “Story of Pam” that accompanies the quilt). The back features a soft fleece photo blanket designed and created by her daughter, where dozens of  family photos are arranged in loving company. That’s a nice model of how our minds work: photo memories on one side, symbolic patterns on the other: realism meets destiny.

Hope she likes it!

three days to go: peaceful thoughts and Night pillows

Hello,

I am a fuzzy pony here with a peaceful thought: being is round.

When you think about life from a round point of view, it is much easier to cope. Lots of nice things are round: the earth is round, and there are round-trips and homecomings. You could think of roundness in terms of ladybugs, birds in flight, and seasons too.

Bachelard explains the philosophical satisfaction: “images of full roundness help us to collect ourselves, permit us to confer an initial constitution on ourselves, and to confirm our being intimately, inside. For when it is experienced from the inside, devoid of all exterior features, being cannot be otherwise than round” Poetics of Space, 249.

Everything round invites a caress. Like these pillows.

And me, of course. Fuzzily yours,

Pony

Announcing the new Night Tranquility Pillows, model 1, “Shooting Star” (left) and model 2 “Moonrise” (right), available soon via Honey Girl Books and Gifts!  In their soft, squishy yet firm presence, they incarnate what Bachelard calls “the phenomenology of roundness.”

 

Three stars accompany each pillow and they have a symbolic meaning: the back of the white satin star shows the fears we carry about every day. The back of the blue star is a dream of happiness. The third star is the S.O.S. “Freak Out!” star which has the nightmare on both sides. This pillow can be used as a nonverbal means of communication, so that can family members can be alerted to a person’s distress.

 

Time for a walk with Honey Girl!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

introducing à la française

Introducing “à la française”: a most French pillow!

 

Inspired by some kindly neighbors and their French daughter-in-law and grandchildren. And voilà! Families on both sides of the Atlantic will have a cheerful new cushion in common. (You can have one too, of course, via Honey Girl Books and Gifts).

Yellow and blue are a very French combination; think of The Little Prince. In this version, a maritime theme, added to the yellow and white, reminds me of hot sun on the cool beaches of Brittany, in a style hearkening back to the classy, crisp Petit bateau clothing line.

***

“I have friends to make and lots of things to discover.”

Le Petit Prince, The Little Prince, classic novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)

the strangeness of eleven: on Bachelard, attics, and a “Night” pillow

Eleven days is a strange amount
You’re kind of in and kind of out
Living in limbo round people and stuff
Stuff is easy, people are tough.

 

boxes boxes everywhere and not a sheet to write

Nice discoveries, love renewed.

a reminder of calm

I love this little room with its sunny windows, blue walls, and cozy feel. Here is Gaston Bachelard on attics, from The Poetics of Space:

“Up near the roof all our thoughts are clear. In the attic it is a pleasure to see the bare rafters of the strong framework. Here we participate in the carpenter’s solid geometry. … The dreamer constructs and reconstructs the upper stories and the attic until they are well constructed. when we dream of the heights we are in the rational zone of intellectualized projects. But for the cellar…” – Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, p. 39.

Bachelard on the way space absorbs emotion, solitude, and creativity

“All the spaces of our past moments of solitude, the spaces in which we have suffered from solitude, enjoyed, desired, and compromised solitude, remain indelible within us, and precisely because the human being wants them to remain so. He knows instinctively that this space identified with his solitude is creative; that even when it is forever expunged from the present, when, henceforth, it is alien to all the promises of the future, even when we no longer have a garret, when the attic room is lost and gone, there remains the fact that we once loved a garret, once lived in an attic. We return to them in our night dreams. These retreats have the value of a shell.

In the past, the attic may have seemed too small, it may seemed cold in winter and hot in summer. Now, however, in memory recaptured through daydreams, it is hard to say through what syncretism the attic is at once small and large, warm and cool, always comforting.”

–The Poetics of Space, 32.

***

A pillow is born!

In this time of extreme agility and movement, of seeing people and dealing with stuff, quite a paradoxical effect has arisen. Instead of feeling overwhelmed or tired, I’ve had so much energy and creativity.

I’m happy to announce that a new Tranquility Pillow is born:  “Night”

(prototype forthcoming)

imagine this:

the Zen message: “Even when we enter disturbed waters, we can still align with the moon, until such time when we can see it directly.”

a pillow front of navy cotton in sky-with-gold-stars fabric

a Big poofy yellow or white satin Moon, a crescent moon

Waves in black, purple, navy and white or yellow satin, velours and flannel all rippling and converging on a distant horizon

detachable fabric “Stars” (instead of the original “Leaves”), but with a difference!

Instead of two leaves, this model has three. Three Stars to communicate your feelings. One in yellow satin (with “scary” back), one with pinkish satin (“soothing” back) and a third “Freak Out” Star with nightmare “scary” fabric on both sides. Perhaps this soft object might help teens and children express their feelings, is what I’m thinking… in this time of copycat suicides, it is crucial to act. When the nightmare’s on both sides of your imagination, you let it be known!

p.s. To the solitary reader: if you’re terribly sad or lonely, feeling hopeless, and you cannot afford one of my pillows, just let me know:  juliawsea@gmail.com. I’ll send you one for the price of postage alone.

 

Three weeks to go: advice on moving and a word from our sponsor

With three weeks to go, here’s some useful advice on moving and a word from our sponsor, “Honey Girl Books and Gifts”

1. Plan at least two months ahead. Follow this advice on moving

Jen A. Miller, “How to Avoid Stress When You’re Moving,” New York Times (March 31, 2017).

Ayn-Monique Klahre, “How to Hire Inter-State Movers Without Getting Scammed,” New York Times (May 8, 2018).

2. Go analog for long-distance planning

If you’re driving a long way, buy a large-scale Rand McNally Road Atlas and chart out your route and motel stops. Do not rely on Mapquest, which may lead you astray (as it did to us. All we need to do is head due West on I-90 which ends at a spot on I-5 about ten minutes from our new house in West Seattle. Why mess around with I-94 etc.?). Plus it shows where the pretty stuff is–it’s green!

3. If you’re traveling with a dog, find lodgings easily via Bring Fido:  https://www.bringfido.com/

However, I recommend making the reservation in person on the phone, just to make sure that the motel really will welcome you and your big dog when you arrive after driving all day.

And now, some news from Honey Girl Books and Gifts  https://www.honeygirlbooks.com/

1. Good news!

a) revenue just passed $1,000 since the “soft launch” in December 2017 (L.L.C. registration coming in one month in WA state, if you are from govt.org), and

b) I recently fulfilled orders for people unknown to me personally. That is a milestone according to Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start.

2. That has led to adding new components as follows for “Tranquility Pillows” (the most popular item):

a) Since every Tranquility Pillow is designed to make meaning, I’ve added this component to the Shopping page:

It helps to know something about you or the person for whom you’re ordering. Please submit a few lines on things such as a favorite book, a long-held dream, or a major life event that you, or your loved one, are encountering right now. This makes each pillow’s mood distinct. For example, the serene-looking “Magnificent Glide” (no. 8) was created to soothe a high school classroom, while “Stormy Waters” (no. 16), with its two waterfalls, honors the ongoing struggles and conflicts of its new owner.

b) New feature! Beginning summer 2018, every Tranquility Pillow will be accompanied by a few lines of verse chosen especially for the pillow’s “story of you.” Poets featured to date include Robert Louis Stevenson, Maya Angelou, and Emily Brontë.

c) Supplies limited. Alas, the light green organic cotton featured in the Spring pillow is no longer available. So when my stock is exhausted this pillow line will end.

3. Coming soon: “Hometown Heroes” a new design of Original Honey Girl Pillows. Features a back made of denim with a jeans pocket and an outdoorsy scene in flannel, and our adorable logo on the front.

4. Coming in July: Second series in the “Limited Edition Literary Pillows” line! Just like the first series inspired by Zola’s department store novel, these pillows will be made of vintage satin and flannel. They will feature a satin woman’s torso, lying down odalisque-style, inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s poem (in Richard Howard’s translation), “The Giantess” / “La géante.”

(I particularly love the last stanza:

… when the fetid summers made her stretch

herself across the countryside, to sleep
untroubled in the shadow of her breasts
like a peaceful village at the mountain’s base.

Et parfois en été, quand les soleils malsains,

Lasse, la font s’étendre à travers la campagne,
Dormir nonchalamment à l’ombre de ses seins,
Comme un hameau paisible au pied d’une montagne.

 

And a personal note of joy: today Rich and I celebrate our 32^nd anniversary! (It rained that day in New Jersey, but as they say, “mariage pluvieux, mariage heureux”).

Thanks for reading,

jdv

p.s. Moving sale this Saturday!  11:00am — 4:00pm, 1207 Riverside Drive, South Bend, IN.

Ripping off the Bandaid, or must moving become existential turmoil? Remember the worry-wort centipede!

Now that it is only four weeks til D-day, I have felt touches of that sickness known as nostalgia. It starts with a slight taste of nausea that spreads to the temples with dread and then cloaks the whole body in heavy, dank sadness. I know it well, having lost my mom just three years ago and my dad in 2008.

I hate nostalgia! I hate thinking about the past, wallowing in sorrow for babies grown, marriages sealed, friendships ended. I hate thinking all the time. The Mind, it was revealed to me during the past 18 months since I discovered meditation and T’ai chi, is not necessarily a friend. It does not naturally have any compassion for you. It can attack you, remind you of weakness, and torture you all day long if you let it. Moving your household is an activity that gives Mind free rein, because when you must spend several hours a day poring through cupboards, drawers, and shelves, choosing and tossing vestiges of the past, Mind creeps in easily and emotional turmoil may ensue, believe me.

The conflicting emotions whipped up by the storm yesterday have subsided to mental nagging today. As Peter Ralston points out, “We have a tendency to get caught up in things that don’t serve being ‘in’ or being responsive to the present moment and condition—we become enmeshed in figuring out, being anxious, upset, angry, fearful, reactive and so on.”

His solution is a brilliant series of mind experiments and exercises designed to unify the physical core and the Mind. It does work if you remain calm. Being calm for me requires preparation: doing T’ai chi daily, concentrating on even breathing, and holding a correct spinal alignment at all times. As Ralston writes, “Instead of trying to make those things disappear, we can simply let them be, not feed them energy and attention, and let them float in the base we now call being calm” (Principles of Essential Power, 6). But when you suddenly rediscover a handknit baby blanket, a cute old photo of your kid (whose present self isn’t quite so cute or unproblematic), or even a yellowed bank statement, emotions are prone to fill the idle Mind.

Better to channel that emotional richness into creativity, as Bob Klein, Twyla Tharp and so many other sages have advised. Therein lies our life’s purpose. Creativity for me is writing (a little) and especially sewing. Sewing is a bond to the past and a disciplined way to beautify the present and make people happier, if only for a few minutes now and then. My intentions are kindly, the results are heart-warming, and that is enough for me.

But our world does not promote such simplicity, and it never has, as long as humans live in community and compare our fate to that of others. Faced with our own mortality and limitations, we humans can easily become off-balanced and fall into existential turmoil. French literature testifies to this fact all the time: just think of Victor Hugo’s poem, “The Slope of Reverie,” Jean-Paul Sartre’s works Being and Nothingness or Nausea, and Beckett’s entire absurdly depressing oeuvre.

Why is that? Because most people in the West are dominated by a tyrant named Mind or conscious logical socially-conditioned thought patterns. Mind tries (and often succeeds) to convince us that only Mind can keep us together.  Only worrying holds us upright, gets us out of bed and off to work. Only other people’s opinions of us count. If we stop worrying and trying to measure up to external standards, we will fall apart and turn into mush. That is a powerful lie. But each must realize it in his own time.

Remember the tragic fate of the worry-wort centipede!

The centipede was happy, quite,

Until a toad in fun

Said, “Pray, which leg goes after which?”

This worked his mind to such a pitch,

He lay distracted in a ditch,

Considering how to run.

 

–reproduced in Watts, The Way of Zen, p. 27

 

image reproduced courtesy of Kaneki and a Centipede Plush ||| Tokyo Ghoul Fan Art by verticalforklift on Tumblr

On health (and pharmaceuticals), calm, and joy’s return (no matter what he says)

Hi,

Well, this has been another tiring week, with much grading of papers and intensive course preparation as we begin the final stretch to the end of spring semester. (Three more weeks of ND and 76 days til SEA!) More showings of the house and cleaning loom on the horizon. An annual check-up I was looking forward to, since I’m feeling so good these days, became a startling event when an unexpected symptom was brought to my attention. Inspired by the recent New York Times article on anti-depressants by Benedict Carey and Robert Gebeloff, and my own desire to “get back to normal,” I had already convinced my doctor to slash my prescriptions so that instead of taking three pills a night (two typical “women’s pills” and one anti-depressant), I take one-half of one anti-depressant. Now I’m on a strict diet also and who knows how “withdrawal” from those medications will go? Grading and prepping took all my time, so that I did not even do the morning routine yesterday. Friends I’ve spoken to have revealed more scary health events—kidney, back, and eye problems. (Old people problems! Yikes what does that mean?) And my right hip has been hurting for the past two days, plus my sinuses were acting up. I was feeling old, apprehensive, and blah.

Those were my thoughts before the morning routine.

As I settled in, I picked up a book I love and read a passage about “Being Calm—The Presence of Being.” I’ve pasted it below for you.

Gazing out the window of the sunroom, with my heels touching and feet at 90 degree angles, my back straight and spine crackling nicely back into place, I let go of all that busy thinking and just looked. The sky was blue with puffy white clouds. A few cars drove by; no radios were blasting and there were no train whistles or sirens in the air. But there was so much bird activity! I saw cardinals, robins, sparrows, and a crow.

A bright red male cardinal made my heart soar with his beautiful song, but when I tried to take his picture, he hopped higher and higher up in the tree. See him way up on that dead branch?

Later, a female cardinal showed up in a bush nearby. Last thing I saw of them, they were flying rapidly around the neighbors’ yards, him behind her.  They were pretty to watch, fluttering up and down in currents of who knows what emotion or feelings. Whatever it was, it looked exciting and fun!  (or maybe not. Maybe he was over-aggressive or creepy, and she was trying to get away. Now I see him way up in that tree again, alone.)

Suddenly, a sparrow flew up and I realized that other forms of life were right at hand: they built a nest right outside the window!

When the 30 minutes were up, my hip still hurt a little (T’ai chi should fix that). As for my mind, it feels all better.

P.S.  On what happened next.  Inspired by the happy feelings, I decided to give away one of my  “Spring Yellow Plaid” Honey Girl pillows to a young man who does carpentry work for us—who was just in the hospital for a serious operation. Since Rich works most closely with the workmen here, I went downstairs to see him and tell him my idea.

He immediately looked down, shook his head, and said, “I don’t think so. He’s not the kind of guy… blablabla negative negative negative.” I smiled and said, “But Rich, have you seen the way he looks at Honey Girl? How he talks to her?  He calls her Woofie Girl. He made a cement plaque for her in the backyard…”

But he just shook his head, looked down, and went shuffling off to do the crossword puzzle. That is a typical exchange between us. It used to bug me a lot and could even drive me to despair and great loneliness. But as you can see on the “Happy Clients” page of my fledgling business, I have learned to take his advice with a grain of salt (or not at all)! Typically, when he tells me not to do something kind and generous, I do it anyway.

And so I just turned away, saying in a pleasant, non-angry voice, “Well that’s ok. You don’t have to be involved. It makes me happy, so I’m going to do it.”

And now I am smiling again, looking forward to another good day. As Rousseau once wrote, “You must be happy.”  And as a long-lost fortune cookie added: “Don’t stop now!”

 

The text from Peter Ralston, Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power pp. 5-6:

BEING CALM—THE PRESENCE OF BEING

Sometimes we experience what we call “being calm.” It is thought of as a state of mind in which all the activity of mind is clear, at ease, and undisturbed. How this comes about is usually unknown to us; however, it is conventionally attributed to “self-control” and so we take credit for it. When I speak of calming the activity that we call “mind,” it is not to support the manifold assumptions that exist as mind, but to point to a principle that appears in the presence of what we’re calling “calm.” Being calm appears when our internal activity is aligned with the principle for which this is so. This principle seems tied to the presence of being, in which the mere presence of being is allowed to be, regardless of how it appears. In this, being is experienced without preference or aversion, no matter the form. What is the principle in which this is the case?

When the activity that occurs as mind is distorted into a form in which that activity appears to be disturbed or unsettled, it is often rejected and held as something wrong, something to be avoided. This relationship to what is apparently already occurring immediately severs us from the activity itself, putting us in the position of “fixer” rather than one of simply being. This occurs the moment we first ascertain that we are not calm. From this position we are not in the best place to correct this malady, should we hold that it needs fixing, and so a struggle ensues to find and move to a place in which the disturbance can be corrected. This way of holding calm makes calm almost inaccessible.

Being calm is essential to all that we do. Having a calm mind doesn’t depend on appearance. It doesn’t depend on situations. It is more powerful to see calmness not as something that we have to force into being, but as something already existing, or simply as a quality of being in which we can abide, something to be fallen into or uncovered. It can be held as a base or context to those qualities that we call non-calm, or different from calm. Thus we can see attaining calmness not as something that we do, like jumping from one item to another, but as a shift into the sea in which all things float.

It is our tendency toward constant reactivity that reveals to us the power of stillness.

[…]

By holding calm in the way suggested here, we can simply not “do” those things. … instead of trying to make those things disappear, we can simply let them be, not feed them energy and attention, and let them float in the base that we now call being calm. It is from this principle that we can be responsive and clear.

• Peter Ralston, Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power, pp. 5-6.

day three, new rules

Hi on day three of the five-day meditation in a mirror challenge,

Since today is my birthday I decided there are different rules.

1. I’ll describe the mirror, provide pictures of the meditation before and after, for your curiosity. (And to prove to my friend that I’m upholding my side of this deal. See post of 3/7).  Update on 3/20: the photos have been removed to protect my privacy.

2. I will make you readers “pay” for the insights and pictures of my life, by inserting advertisements for my products.

3. And you do not get my thoughts today. They’re the gift I’m giving myself.

So here are the photos of today’s event:

 

Site chosen: master bedroom of our beautiful Riverside historical house.

House for sale. This house will be listed on the local real estate market beginning next Wednesday, or contact Faith Fleming at Cressy and Everett. The mirror is a fine old-fashioned full-length mirror well-affixed to the back of our wood door. You’ll note the crystal-glass doorknobs which are all through the house.

On the dresser behind me is a lustrous vintage golden rayon fabric with a whimsical batik insert, bordered in black and white polka dots. That is the back of a quilt I made for us. I now have a business, Honey Girl Books and Gifts, which allows clients such as you to purchase such hand-made treasures for a modest price: labor ($25/hr) and $100 for supplies. It takes a very long time to make one, because it tells the “story of you”; inspiration takes place! Time and caring: that is all it takes. If you already have a quilt at home, I hope you treasure it. If you don’t, consider contacting me!

My feet are positioned almost perfectly, with heels touching, knees bent, and spinal column feeling flexible, firm and well-aligned.

Two shots to capture the time passing:

 

And this final shot is how I feel now!

Today is my birthday!  Gonna have a good time and play the Beatles, loud, all day, if I feel like it!

 

 

happy memories

It was a good weekend for Honey Girl and me. We had a nice brisk walk around the lakes on campus yesterday with a new friend, and we were thrilled to see the HGBG logo at the local puppy bowl sponsored by Two Dogs and a Cat, LLC of Granger.  (Those puppies seem curious to check it out!)

Happy Monday, everybody!