A true Seattlelite, I love everything (well, almost) about rain. The sound, the smell, the sensation of moisture on your skin. The fog, the moss, the infinity of greens. (Wet feet, not so much.) Embrace it! It will soon change. It may rain less for a while, for instance, before a new cloud bursts. The sun may even poke through!
“People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness, that is to say, dependent on form. They don’t realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe. It changes constantly.
The joy of Being, which is truly the only true happiness, cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person, or event–through anything that happens. The joy cannot come to you–ever. It emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself and this is one with who you are.”
–Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, p. 213-214.
The photos below relay my voyage yesterday, down the hill to the dock at Seacrest Park, then across Elliott Bay to the waterfront. From there I walked up through Pioneer Square and Chinatown to the Seattle Kung Fu Club for class. (It was amazing, as always. T’ai chi is sublime!) The last photo, of the Port of Seattle cranes and harbor, was taken later in the day on the return journey–see how much “sunnier” it got, between 10am and 1:30pm?!
See the water taxi between the trees?Water taxi coming our wayKing County Water Taxi at Seacrest Park dock
This misty grey morning, as I peer out at Elliott Bay and think about the voyage ahead–down the hill in the rain, onto the water taxi and across the bay, up through Pioneer Square to Chinatown where I’ll do T’ai chi at the Seattle Kung Fu Club studio, I feel energized and serene. Reading Peter Ralston lately has been inspiring, and to practice T’ai chi and make quilts at the same time seems somehow philosophically coherent.
As Ralston writes in Principles of Effortless Power, “Only the ‘form’ survives of anything created and then passed on in time, since creativity resides within what is formless and this formlessness cannot survive, having never existed. Therefore, only when the form is being consciously created in this moment is it truly useful and representative of its origin” (xx).
The form, message, and feel of a quilt become visible over time, as seen in the photos below, dated 11/20/21 and 11/26/21. Once created, it is. You can feel it with your hands and face, snuggle under its warmth, enjoy its bright colors and patterns. It may fade if left in the sun, or be stained by some accident, yet a quilt will usually survive a pretty long time.
The Form we practice in T’ai chi comes to life in time as well. Yet once created, it is gone, until next time.
So far, I’ve learned about 20 minutes of the Wu Form. When I practice, I feel like I’m inhabiting a timeless realm where themes and refrains repeat through space, spiraling and stepping to some unknown beat. Can’t wait for class!
P.S. These photos of the water taxi and Chinatown are from July 2018, when we had just moved here. They do not represent the world as it looks today, on 11/27/2021. the fog hangs heavy over the water this morning… making the world just a little more quiet.
The venerable Shi Wuling once came to South Bend, IN, and it is from her that I first learned about Buddhism. Lately I’ve delved into Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Surya Das’s audiobooks, Buddha Standard Time and Buddha Is as Buddha Does. Perhaps it’s working, because I finally feel more at home at home. It’s almost three years since we moved. Since I left my identity at the curb and took on a new everything. (Well not quite everything. The husband and dog are the same.)
And I swear we’ve both lost 10 years in attitude-drag. To see him on his e-bike & going to the gym, and me with my regular T’ai chi and Aikido sessions, we are both way more disciplined and physically fit than we were in our 50s. We’re also cheerful now. I think we are actually happy, most of the time. Pretty amazing in comparison with the stressed-out wrecks we used to be!
Funny, what you realize when you have the time to realize stuff.
Creating intricate quilts with symbolic meanings and diverse textures continues to be my passion and way of communicating with the world. Above and below you’ll see some pics of my latest work, the “Respect” and “RARE” quilt projects, which have drawn me to connect with people of color from all around the USA and increasingly, here in my hometown. That development–and the chats, smiles, and thank you letters I’ve received–give me great pleasure and life satisfaction.
Thinking it over as I work in silence, I realize that these projects are a continuation of friend-making I learned to do in France. After years of feeling estranged in my beloved adoptive country, and never really connecting in a long-term way with a French person, I moved to France again in 2001. We would be there for two years, so I needed a friend. One day, I put up a card in the library, asking basically if anybody felt like being friends. Or at least talk once a week. Then 9/11 happened the very next day. And on 9/12, two French women called. It worked. Life-long friendships were born there in the Bibliothèque anglophone on rue Boisnet in Angers, France.
Now I’m trying to reach out, or deepen friendships, with people from a different population–namely my fellow citizens. Through the “Respect” quilts, I seek to support and celebrate people of color in the USA. And make friends, if possible. As a very white person living in a very white city, it is not that easy. But little by little, what do you know? The same technique seems to work. People like people who like them. A smile begets another. Hope begets hope. One person’s search meets another’s.
These latest quilts are for inspiring Black women who live in the Seattle area, a top-echelon hospital administrator (and a friend, whose name starts with “J”) and an award-winning high school student.
Drop by West Seattle Grounds coffee shop during the month of June and you will be surrounded by my handiwork. I’ll be there in person smiling at everybody, and hosting the “Make a quilt” game, during the West Seattle ArtWalk on June 10 from 5-8pm.
On another note, it would be amiss of me to neglect mention of Taiyaki, a Japanese delicacy that I discovered today after T’ai chi class. (Which was fantastic as always.) The taiyaki truck Bean Fish parked right behind me. When I smelled that good smell and saw the truck sitting there, I thought: “If this is not synchronicity then I don’t know what is!”
Wow! Good call. I highly recommend the Food Truck, Bean Fish, for these deliciously comforting treats. I had an “original” with red bean paste and loved the warm, crunchy, gushy sweet combo of flaky crust, soft inner layer and perfectly textured bean paste (very important). Plus the adorable fish’s face and cute scales! It made me quite content, all the way home.
(Or for the rant version: all the way through the convoluted Pioneer Square detours, past the rude/terrifying speeders who zoom by and/or cut in on the highways, and behind the long lines of patient neighbors working our way back to “Vashon East”, otherwise known as West Seattle, cut off from the mainland since 2020 when our bridge broke.)
Either way, it was an excellent Saturday morning.
FYI: The Bean Fish truck is parked across the street from the busy and amazing Asian grocery store, Uwajimaya, for your shopping convenience.
Life can be sweet. Hard but with moments of grace. As I was writing this, Richie Havens, “Here Comes the Sun” came on the airwaves thanks to my favorite radio station KEXP, and reminded me of this flowering tree seen recently in Chinatown. Yes, let’s have some hope! Spring is coming, hate has lost, help is on the way. Tomorrow Trump has to leave the White House by noon, and we’ll have new leaders : President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris!
After four years of Trump, it is amazing to survive intact. And after all those years in the drear darkness and punishing snow and winds of Indiana winters, I am surprised by the light touch of winter in Seattle–it’s a damp darkness, slow-moving but livable. While we await vaccines and better times, I gave myself a task of capturing the rage and despair inspired by Trump, but now that “The Ten Days til Post-Trump” is done and published, I am ready to move on.
We persevere, holding book discussions while shivering at a picnic table, finding things to do at home, suspending judgment, just getting by. My sewing gives me hope and love; I hope the feeling comes across and gives you a little lift. Here is a sneak preview of “Respect” quilts no. 7 and 8, in progress.
“Respect” quilt no. 7: top and center squares, made of Sheila Bridges’ “Harlem Toile de Jouy” and African fabrics from Cultured Expressions
“Respect” quilt no. 8: top and center squares, made of Sheila Bridges’ “Harlem Toile de Jouy” and African fabrics from Cultured Expressions
Big progress! The quilt front is done and is now being basted to the batting and the back, in preparation for machine quilting.
Must get some rest tonight but before I stop for the day, I want to share this quote and another favorite square (above): both remind me of why I love doing T’ai chi at the Seattle Kung Fu Club in Chinatown (even though it must have been over 90 degrees in there tonight, with two fans running!):
“Virtue is never solitary, it always has neighbors.”
Hard to believe it’s already been 1 year, 2 months and 19 days since I first shared details of the “morning routine.” That routine was a wonderful ally during a year that brought a series of huge changes, including the departure from South Bend, IN–our home of 27 years–a road trip / cross-country move with our dog, the end of one professional Identity, and the creation of a new life in Seattle, a hometown I hadn’t lived in for 34 years.
Three days after we arrived here, on July 5, 2018, I made my first official visit to the Seattle Kung Fu Club via the West Seattle Water Taxi. What an ecstatic, strange, and sobering journey that was!
Ever since that day, I’ve practiced a new routine of physical conditioning. The mental conditioning continues as well; in October I began learning Qigong from Jean Clough, at the Fusion Kung Fu and Movement Arts.
Seven months later, I am happy to announce the results are wonderful. A new, more flexible routine has become my ally. It is not any shorter, but it is guaranteed to work, day in, day out.
The flexibility comes from the fact that the morning routine is not always done in the morning anymore, apart from the 30-minute standing meditation. I have not found anything as powerful to battle the morning funk / angst / depressing thoughts. When I do practice this simple exercise, I always feel warmer, stronger, and happier. (It requires standing with heels touching, knees slightly bent, and feet splayed at 90 degree angle, hands relaxed and listening to your breathing, calming your thoughts, for 30 minutes in silence. Sometimes I read a line or two from a favorite book on this list.)
The exercise routine has changed considerably, although I still try to do at least 20 push-ups a day. As a student of the Seattle Kung Fu Club, I now do 21 preliminary exercises before practicing the Wu Form of T’ai chi, which I am gradually learning. The exercises are amazingly long and rigorous–we do 12 sets of each, on both sides–and they never fail to make me feel warm, strong, and powerfully rooted. (Details upon request.) Together with the Wu T’ai chi form, it takes about 90 minutes to do. Sometimes it feels frivolous or a waste of time; yet when I finish, I always feel happy and grateful, and I often have a new idea…
Last month, SKFC leaders invited me to be part of the short T’ai chi demo that will be performed for guests on February 16 and I accepted of course (yikes!). As one who never played team sports as a girl (or ever!), it has been an interesting thing to watch myself enter such activities. I do not like doing things I’m bad at, like striking heavy bronze cymbals out-of-sync. I do not like being the slow person in the performance, the one everyone has to watch. I feel strange standing around like an extra on a movie set. Yet over the days of practice, I have come to feel immensely happy to be part of this group; I love moving in sync with the others, and feeling the energy flow between and around us.
What I’ve learned: it’s not about me anymore. There is a great pleasure that comes from being nobody special, an extra, a warm body. I am pleased to be able to use my abilities (sometimes wobbly, often imperfect) to honor someone else.
Sorry to leave you up in the air like that, on the road trip! The fifth day began in Moses Lake–a vast and wind-swept desert setting. It was fun to see the sign for George, WA–I had not thought of that town since my days at WSU–and like every other tourist I could not resist:
As we spiraled down into the Columbia Gorge, signs finally started listing Seattle–what a thrill to the traveling trio, five days away from South Bend!
Snoqualmie Pass is beautifully mysterious, with its sudden waterfalls and misty views:
I drove for the last leg, with tears of joy as I realized that our dream had come true: we are home at last! Honey Girl likes it here too.
arriving in WSEA July 2, 2018
That enormous moving truck made its way down our tiny street (a dead end) the very next morning. It was truly an engineering miracle to see him get that rig into the street, and to back it up all the way out. Hats off to Daniel, the North American Van Lines driver, who navigated the whole move like a true pro and is a nice guy too.
I made a bee-line to the Seattle Kung Fu Club as soon as I could and I’m grateful to now be among the T’ai chi students of Grandmaster John S.S. Leong and his staff. (So far, I’ve been relegated to doing long arduous stretches for the duration of the 1 1/2 hour classes, but I look forward to learning the Wu Form in due course). It is wonderful to look into the eyes of people at the Seattle Kung Fu Club–they all look so vital, healthy, and alert.
To go there, I walk down a dizzying street from our house on the top of a hill to Seacrest Park at sea level and take the water taxi 15 minutes to Pier 52 in downtown Seattle. Then I walk through Pioneer Square and beyond the eclectic mix of upscale art galleries and fancy restaurants alongside homeless missions and the people who gather nearby, to a tiny building in old Chinatown. It is a minuscule second-floor studio with an enigmatic grandmaster who inspires reverence among all of us sweaty people–just perfect. What a feast of sensations! the dazzling water and lively boat traffic to see, the smell of diesel, the sound of the waves and the rumbling engine, then the strangely relaxing and familial smell of sweat and body warmth… it is just what all the “mindfulness” books suggest leads to wellbeing. Check out the pics of the commute below. That long grey ship seems to be sending us a message to persevere in the inner arts and to stay strong with exercise… The pagoda-like entrance to King Street and the dragon mural at Hing Hay park delight the eyes and bring a smile to the spirit, every time:
I’m in heaven. With both brothers (and fabulous sisters-in-law) nearby, nieces, nephews, and one out of two sons close to home, family is finally near at hand. Yet there is much I do not know. Who knows what lies on the other side of that doorway in our backyard?
Maybe it beckons to inner space: leading into the Space of Now. As philosopher Eckhart Tolle famously wrote, “you may be surprised that by becoming aware of the space of Now, you suddenly feel more alive inside. You are feeling the aliveness of the inner body–the aliveness that is an intrinsic part of the joy of Being.” (A New Earth, 252).
Thanks for joining me on this journey. There really was a rainbow waiting on the other side!
Hard to believe it’s already been 1 year, 2 months and 19 days since I first shared details of the 
Daily Joy with Honey Girl 