A few weeks ago Jon and I stopped at The Mansion and dropped off some things they needed at the front door. As we drove up, I looked in the windows of the big room where special events were always held and people sometimes watched TV on the big screen the Army of Good bought for them.
I felt a longing to able to walk through the door, plunk down on the couch next to whoever was sitting there and have a casual conversation like I used to. I thought about how Alice used to reach for my hand when I sat next to her. We would just sit there together, holding hands, not having to say a word.
I always felt welcomed at The Mansion, by the people who live there as well as the staff.
Today I looked on my blog to see when I was last there. It’s was February 12th, almost a year ago. We were making a community quilt. Julie, the activities director, had fabric that had been donated. I brought in two of my sewing machines and Ruth, Claudia, Nancy, and Becky chose pieces of fabric then Julie and I sewed them together.
I was thinking about The Mansion today and I wanted to represent the people there that I miss on my Corona Kimono. So I did a drawing of Madeline, one of the women who live there, and stitched it on the sleeve of my Corona Kimono.
Around her image, I wrote about how I missed going to The Mansion and how welcomed and comfortable I always felt there. In my original drawing Madeline was holding up one of her drawings that she did in a class I taught. But when I stitched the drawing of Madeline onto the sleeve of the Kimono I ran out of room for her drawing.
So now it’s Madeline, representing The Mansion and the people who live there on my Corona Kimono.
Madeline, who would sometimes forget things from one moment to the next, but even in her ninety’s has a beautiful voice and could still sing all the words to “Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend” and act it out like she did in the play over seventy years ago.
I know it will be different when I can go back to The Mansion. Some of the people I knew won’t be there anymore and there will be other people I’ve never met before.
But I still have the beginnings of the quilt we started in February. When the pandemic is over and visitors can return to The Mansion, I plan on bringing the pieces back and finishing the quilt.
Is the inauguration there? Such an occasion of relief and hope, a joyous day! And now the ‘doguration’: Champ and Major…… dogs returning to the White House! LOL
No it isn’t Hazel. I was thoughtful of keeping this about the Corona Virus. Politics only enteres when it’s directly related to that.
This is your Journal. On fabric, not paper. Daily/weekly/monthly/yearly. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it’s been almost a year.
It’s interesting Jill. I just took a look at the Kimono yesterday and with each entry, I was taken back to that time. It really is a journal for me. And I felt the same about it almost being a year. it’s one of those time things that it feels like it’s been maybe a month, but also feels like it’s been this way forever.