bright and happy!

Today’s production united scraps of fabric from all around my life to make a couple of bright and happy accents in the ongoing Respect Quilts! There are dancing feet from niece Dana’s quilt, crazed tulips and a rose garden from the Alice in Wonderland quilts, and red polka dot cotton from Honey Girl’s last bandanna (thanks, adorable groomer who made smell her good again)!

Finally, there are squares made of a fabric printed with the names of all the states from the USA to remind everybody how connected we are… you can be sure that Indiana and Washington will be in every quilt, to honor our mission, which is:

The “Respect” quilt project: allies at work
The “Respect” quilt is a result of black and white creators working together to honor black women’s beauty, history, and resilience.
The first one, underway, is being created by a former teacher, a white woman, for a former student of hers, a black woman in South Bend, Indiana. When in her class at age 15, the young woman wrote and illustrated a short story, “Overcoming Adversity,” which stayed in the mind of her teacher all these years. (Discussions are afoot about revising it and publishing it with Honey Girl Books and Gifts LLC.)
The “Respect” quilt features African fabrics (waxes and Ankara cottons), Afrocentric fabrics, such as Harlem Toile de Jouy designed by Sheila Bridges (Brooklyn), and other fabrics purchased from Black business women across the USA, including Our Fabric Stash in the Pike Place Market (Seattle). It is the intention to celebrate and honor black womanhood that we all share.

Next steps:
First, I’ll make one for Anyjah (“Respect” quilt no. 1) & another very similar to hers as “Respect” quilt no. 2. No. 2 will become the prototype “Respect” quilt for sale. (This is where I am at present.)
Then, with the help of Anyjah and others, I will launch a fund-raiser for the Boys and Girls Clubs of St Joseph County, IN & King County, WA. For every “Respect” quilt sold, 50% of proceeds will be donated.

Julia
Honey Girl Books and Gifts
July 10, 2020
Email: juliawsea@gmail.com
https://www.honeygirlbooks.com/

Advertisement

Sixteen days to go: honoring hometown heroes

 

There are a few people I will really miss in South Bend. Steve is one. He’s Dale’s son, up at Dale’s Auto, on 933 north. Dale’s not running things anymore, but we all remember him well. I made Steve a pillow today, to say “good-bye.” It’s not the first time I’ve felt this special kinship with him or given him a gift: I wrote the poem below two years ago in a strangely poignant moment when I had just returned from a trip abroad and I suddenly realized that my time was ticking down, here in South Bend and… well, in general. What is it about mechanics that, when they are nice to you, honest and reasonably priced, you just love them so much?!

It was a hot summer’s day. I was waiting for a while at Dale’s Auto for my car to be fixed.* Honey Girl was with me. Having a big friendly dog makes it easy to meet people. Before I knew it I was deep in conversation, like with an old friend, with Harold–a guy I had just met! (I understand that he can be found on most days up at Dale’s, now that he’s retired from the GM plant.) The pillow you see above is number 1, “A Souvenir for Steve,” in the brand-new “Hometown Heroes” line of Honey Girl Books and Gifts. They have real jeans pockets for people who know what work is.

***

Dale’s Auto

The low thrumming of a window AC

Out here at Dale’s

Takes me back.

Aluminum siding hot to the hand

Muddy little footprints

Bicker, splash, play

Little boys on their way

I didn’t know then, but we were

All so young and lovely.

 

Harold was afraid of girls

He told me with a sidelong smile

Probably took a lotta nerve

To come and tell me

About his dog and its $600 end,

And Marmalade a ginger cat, a “friendly” cat,

Feline leukemia.

 

Rheumy eyes but good strong hands

Me ‘n the wife, she gets the couch

I got my chair.

65 years and a month

That was a pal from GM, dead, so…

Assembly line, ya know,

Gotta know how to handle it.

What’s for dinner tonight?

Where’ll we go fishin’ come spring?

It’s not so bad

If you know how to handle it.

***

The second hometown hero I’m honoring this week is Harvey down at the ReStore on South Main Street.  I volunteered there some hours this spring. I thank Harvey for giving me work to do. For seeing that I really meant it.  “A working person’s got to work,” he said.**

To receive a job to do gives you dignity and purpose–it’s so simple, yet so deep.

“In honor of Harvey”

 

*a 2007 Chevy Aveo, if you want to know. Just sold it for $450!

**Little did he know that he was echoing a similar thought as the Renaissance French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, who said: “Nous sommes nés pour agir … Agissons donc et autant que nous le pouvons” or “We are born to be active … let’s thus be active, as much as we can.” Michel de Montaigne, Essais (1580).

 

 

Letting go: on moving, death and the untidy garden

One of the poignant things about moving is letting go of things we once held dear. I’ve been abandoning books right and left (to the bins managed by Better World Books, but still…). Rich has abandoned his garden, once a crowning achievement which fed our family for weeks in the summer. Gazing out on the garden this morning while meditating, I savored its lovely untidiness, which brought up the connection to one of my favorite quotes of all time, by the French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne.

Thought of the day: Letting go is healthy and delightful (even if it feels wrenching at times).

***

“I want death to find me in the garden planting cabbages, but not afraid of her, and even less of my imperfect garden.”

“Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux, mais nonchalant d’elle, et encore plus de mon jardin imparfait.”

Michel de Montaigne, Essais, 1580

***

Imperfection and letting go are key concepts in Zen philosophy as they are in T’ai chi. As Bob Klein writes, “Many people are drawn to T’ai-chi-Ch’uan because it enables them to let go of their tensions permanently. Without tension, anxiety and worry, life is a lot more enjoyable. … to release this tension, you must go through the nervous system, for it is a nerve, constantly sending its signal to a muscle, which causes that muscle to tense. You are making yourself tense. Tension, therefore, is not released by doing something extra, but by letting go of something you are already doing.”  (Movements of Magic, 16)

***

Did Montaigne know of Zen philosophy?! Or perhaps the Stoics before him? sure seems like there is a connection between East and West deep down …

At any rate, Bon dimanche!

39 days to go. Day One: our trees are us

 

Today marks 39 days til we depart from the Midwest. That means 39 days to capture the essence of this region, to appreciate the people (and dogs) we have come to know here, and to contemplate what it means to return home after so many years spent in that vast region known to Seattlites as “East of the mountains.”

The trees seen here, laden with April snow and tender spring leaves, can be interpreted many ways. As I have gazed on them during my morning routine over the past year, my eyes were drawn to the point where the branches touch. You can see it in the right of the snowy scene. They touch gingerly yet steadily, tip to tip, jostled by the wind yet ever returning together. Neither one dominates. They look like friends, I’ve often thought.

Or, they could be likened to a teacher and a pupil. As The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting points out, “Old trees should show a grave dignity and an air of compassion. Young trees should appear modest and retiring. They should stand together gazing at each other.

Two trees crossing each other.

Two trees together yet separate.”*

Lovely thoughts.

Yet the Midwest where these trees grow can be a harsh environment for people. South Bend, Indiana is home to extreme poverty, violent crime, and thousands of people living in man-made misery. The state is a place where lawmakers systematically neglect the vulnerable, such as children born into poverty and elders lingering in nursing homes. Not to mention the chronic racism and homophobia that live on here in America’s Heartland… **

So the trees reaching in vain for each other could symbolize the human tragedy going on below.  They could remind people to try harder to fight these trends. You might think of the situation with the melody of “Ebony and Ivory” in mind, (in homage to the classic song by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney),

Sycamore and Cottonwood,

Side by side in my South Bend neighborhood,

Live together in perfect harmony

Why can’t we?

***

* reproduced in The Tao of Painting by Mai-Mai Sze, p. 54

** https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/study-indiana-rate-of-kids-in-state-care-double-that/article_bf1139e4-1315-5c61-8774-1f228b2c71ff.html

https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/indiana-ranks-last-in-long-term-services-for-elderly-disabled/article_8a3e734e-efb5-11e7-9290-9f2188d5196b.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Restoration_Act_(Indiana)

https://www.courierpress.com/story/opinion/columnists/jon-webb/2017/11/07/webb-indiana-still-has-racism-problem/827560001/

people are like trees, and other fables

I woke up with a start at 4:30am and have felt off-kilter ever since.

It seems that it must have been the tree branch, which fell off our neighbor’s tree last night and landed right outside our kitchen window that made the huge THUNK I heard. It sounded like a distant bomb going off.

Staring out at the windblown snow during this morning’s meditation brought more sad thoughts to mind, of death and weakness. The trees react vividly to the wind blowing their branches and, if we could watch ourselves from without, we’d probably say the same thing about ourselves. Sometimes I feel like a cedar, other times like an oak.

The cedar tree bounces and sways with every fiber of its being: from bottom to top the whole tree bows and flutters nervously. The maples and oaks more stiffly sway, hold their arms up to the sky despite the wind; but their tiny red and green budlets break off and fall down.

This weather reminds me of LaFontaine’s fable, “The Wolf and the Lamb.” A harsh little story! My own version, “April, the Cruelest Month,” inspired by life in South Bend, awaits below.

The sounds of tires slushing on the street below make me feel excited, like it’s Christmas time, then bewildered when I see robins hopping in the garden. How easily our minds are fooled and confused about what is, versus what is “supposed to be”!

A proverb in closing:

En avril ne te découvre pas d’un fil. Au mois de mai, fais ce qui te plaît.

(trans. “In April, don’t take off a thread. In the month of May, do whatever comes into your head.”)!!

Hang in there!  Only 4 weeks til May!

These pages are from Hey LaFontaine! Are You Ready for South Bend? (ten fables illustrated in a hand-made book, 2016).

more flood pics from South Bend, and a sign of spring

 

This force of nature is barreling through towns and drowning homes right and left! These pics were taken across the street from my house on Riverside Drive, South Bend. But the whole region of  “Michiana”–that is, northern Indiana and southern Michigan–is affected. It’s the St Joseph River, an often placid, but unpredictable river in the best of times,  but still people canoe there and go fishing.  But now look at it!

It looks like a Mack truck coming at you. The two bridges over the river from my side were both out this morning; it took 45 minutes to do what usually takes 8.

Yikes!

On a lighter note, while waiting for me to finish taking pictures, Honey Girl pulled me over to a sign of spring.

sign of spring! see the green shoots pushing through the dead leaves?

(so is the trash everywhere, actually, a sign of spring. It means the snow just melted.)

Right after coming over to ask when we were leaving, as in the picture below, Honey Girl licked my nose. That is a high praise! (She is not a big licking dog. She prefers to “talk” in all kinds of funny groans or get her squeaky toy and put on a squeaking show). I feel honored.

That reminds me of Rousseau’s Confessions. In book 6 of the Confessions Rousseau describes his fondness for taming pigeons and keeping bees: “I have always taken a singular pleasure in taming animals, above all those that are fearful and wild. It appeared charming to me to inspire them with a confidence that I never abused. I wanted them to love me in freedom” (Conf, CW, 5:196).

Honey Girl, 2/22/18

 

 

 

strange, cold, rushing waters

Strange sounds accompanied our walk tonight as well. It was the sound of deep, fast-moving water, rushing round the river bend. And it was close at hand–much closer at hand than it’s ever been. Suddenly the neighborhoods I live in and walk through make a completely different sense. Suddenly the river is the dividing line: a wide, deep, unpredictable killer. Suddenly the past and geography of South Bend feel more alive and logical.

We’re the side high up on the bluff. We’ve got downtown, factories, a public library, bus, train, and air travel centers, and a lot of other things too: decaying empty industrial areas and crime, poverty and misery, as well as significant architecture, an art museum, and a big hospital. The other side has Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s–on the opposite bluff–but it also has a large development called “the Northshore Triangle” of charming one- and two-story houses behind grand mansions along the river,  in what is now obviously a flood plain. I bet some developer made a wager back then that this would never happen, and a group of investors went along because, why not? They’d be long gone by the time disaster hits. Well tonight, it’s happening.

Be grateful for your warm, dry home.

And if your life is uneventful be grateful for that too.

 

a walk in the snow

Time for a walk!

Off we go.

The river looks good.

Trees are pretty in the snow.

What’s that?

Don’t know.

It’s quiet out here tonight.

Over the river and up the hill…

… to Honey Girl’s house we go!