I can already feel the busy hum of Thanksgiving. It’s a quiet buzz, a detachment and focus at the same time. I am not participating in it, but I can feel it around me. Maybe it’s an echo of the past, the child-like excitement at the prospect and inevitable disappointment at the reality.
A sadness settled into me today and I found solace in the pile of rectangular-shaped fabric swatches on a shelf in my studio. I don’t remember who sent them to me, it wasn’t too long ago. I sat with them on my studio floor and sorted them into colors and patterns having no idea where it would take me.
This one came first, the ballerina’s from an old quilt that Carol sent me. I’m not sure why they were in the pile, but they obviously knew something I didn’t.
So I sewed them together.
Then I noticed how the kitten and puppy, from the old cloth book that Cindy gave me, worked with another grouping of fabric.
And I sewed them together.
The tree was pinned to my wall. My eye went to it and the swirling floral patterns of anothe bunch of fabric laid out on my floor. So I sewed them together.
I’ve already started making the square with the ballerinas into a quilt. I don’t know what I’ll do with the other two pieces. Maybe they are the beginning of a quilt too.
This afternoon I worked my monthly shift at the Cambridge Co-op. Tomorrow I hope to go to my studio and be able to focus on the new quilt without too much interruption.
Because Jon and I will spend Thanksgiving at home with a friend coming over for lunch, the holiday will be a quiet one for us. And the quiet will slowly begin to descend tomorrow. I’m ready for it.
