Heart Path

It started out when we woke up Sunday morning  to someone yelling “John, John follow my voice” at 5 am outside our window.  20 minutes later the police were outside our house.  Someone named John was lost in the woods.  Or something like that, we didn’t get the whole story.  Wide awake, we went to the barn to find our chicken Shirley Partridge, on the ground taking her last breaths.  Apparently she had some complications laying an egg.  I placed my hand on her back and told her it would soon be better.  She died before Jon could get the gun. I’ve learned that most chickens don’t live long and they die easily.  I placed Shirley in the woods close to where I left Fran after she died.

Then, last night, began  a different kind of wild. Jon’s ebook The Story of Rose came out.  We stayed up past midnight (not doing a puzzle, a book party on facebook) waiting for it to load on our Kindles and Ipads.  I fell asleep long before that happened.  But this morning I opened my Kindle and there it was.  It was exciting, the book was climbing on Amazon, but there were problems with  loading the enhanced edition (the one with all Jon’s beautiful photo’s and videos of Rose ).  Our morning routine was interrupted with email and phone calls.

I escaped to my studio, indecisive, my head spinning.  I chose the fabric, then, it seemed the most natural thing, a flowered donkey.  The goddess and her wide skirt, like a cowgirl or a poodle skirt from the ’50’s.  I don’t know where she came from, but she seemed to be moving. The sun under her feet and lightening at her fingertips. What else would she be doing but following her heart path.

Then I started doubting myself, changing things, taking out stitches, thinking too much.  It would flow then I would stop and stare for what seemed like hours.  What to do next, critical voices in my head.”This is not what you usually do”, they said,” this isn’t good”.   I had lunch and came back, the same thing happen.  When I was sewing it felt good, when I stopped it didn’t.  I found myself questioning the whole piece, “leave it” I thought, “you’re trying too hard”.

So this is where I left it.  When I look at it now, it seems so strange to me.  Strange, like yesterday and this morning.  I’ll sleep on it and see what happens tomorrow.