I just finished a phone conversation with my grandma Betty. She and my grandpa live in eastern montana, next door to my mother. (Here’s a photo of them dancing at my cousin’s wedding.)
My grandma was telling me about the conflicts arising around my grandpa’s relentless singing. He sings through long car trips, at family get togethers, at work in his yard. He sings loud gospel numbers, with lots of feeling. Now he is singing in restaurants, standing and singing to the people munching fries and spooning pie into their mouths. It drives my mother crazy. I have no idea what it is like to care for your aging parents. My mom gives a lot of herself and has her patience tried in ways I can’t possibly see from this great distance. What I do see, however, is that there is something profoundly brave and joyful, something delightfully inappropriate and unexpected about a 95 year old man rising slowly from his diner chair to serenade a restaurant full of strangers. I love it that my grandpa just can’t stop himself from singing!
an old man singing
jarring possibilities
I’m working on a small quilts series of things in jars. I was initially thinking canned goods: pickles, beets, pears..., but I’ve quickly run out of typical can-ables (no relation to cannibals) and am tapping my thought box for more. I’ve got sprouting avocado seed, bathing beauty, bolts and screws, and lightening bugs thus far. Any other ideas for jarring possibilities?
1 thing I love about camping...
If you look closely at the ground you can see the thousands of tiny wood shavings my daughter produced over our 4 day camping trip. There were no phone calls to make to friends, no planned activities, no texts to send or receive, no shows to watch. The girl had a knife and an endless supply of wood. She whittled a sword, a serving spoon, 2 paddles for floating on the river, 20 some pairs of chopsticks, and a spatula. She also infected the rest of us with whittling fever.
We are not so different, you and I
My husband jokingly called this a potato bird. Interestingly, that name quite appropriately embodies the idea that tickled my cortex into making this quilt. I recently read a short National Geographic article on gene mapping. We humans share a whopping 24% of our genes with the wine grape. The chicken shares 65% of our human genetic make up. I can only imagine that this little Goldfinch and the Yukon Gold potatoes nestled beneath it, have quite a lot in common.
What is going on inside that head of yours?
I grew purple cabbages for the first time this year. I often found myself locked in concentration, staring at their shiny developing heads, and wondering...
nude photography
Her firm subtle curves, her impeccably smooth skin, her impressive longevity with holding the pose, all made this eggplant a joy to work with. She grew in my backyard this summer. You can’t tell from the photograph, but she is over 7 inches long. What a beauty!