Maria Wulf Full Moon Fiber Art

I finished designing my Emily Dickinson, Secrets quilt.  I still have to back and tack it, but I think I can get it done by the end of the week.  I have a few people who are interested in it already.  That feels pretty good.

After taking the video in my studio this afternoon, the pile of firewood outside my window  still taunted me.

So when I finished designing my Emily Dickinson, Secrets quilt and packing up the last of my I Am Enough posters, (UPS delivered the mailing tubes today), taking a walk in the woods with Fate and eating dinner, I was back outside tossing the last to the wood into the woodshed and stacking it.

I got most of it done, but it got too dark and I was too tired to finish. But I did have some insights stacking these two cords of wood.

One of them is something Jon wrote about on his blog tonight.

It’s about my desire to do my part on the farm because I don’t make as much money as Jon does and how Jon often feels like he can’t do as much of the physical work.  We  talk about how we each couldn’t live here without the other. And that really, we’re a perfect match for living this kind of life together.  Each doing what the other can’t.

But still somehow we each also always feel as if we’re not doing enough.

Another thing that happens when I stack wood is it brings up memories of my old life, of the hard physical work I used to do restoring old houses with my ex-husband.  At that point in my life, stacking wood was a chore that became a burden.

But as  those memories came to me this time, I recognized them and let them go, as I learned to do when meditating.  And then I wondered if I hadn’t finally come to the point where I stacked enough wood to work  all the memories out, like sweating the poison out of my body.

And I thought this because I began to notice that instead of memories, new thoughts were coming to me.  And then, just recognition of what I was doing. Noticing how my body  felt as I bent over to pick up the wood and how my left hand couldn’t grasp the large heavy pieces like  my right hand could.

And each time I came out of the woodshed back to the pile of wood I looked at the sky or felt the breeze or really saw just how green the grass is.  I was experiencing what was around me  and my place in it.

I was being in the moment.

I also felt the  satisfaction of filling up the woodshed with wood.  Of knowing that when the winter comes, I’ll be bringing the same wood into the house and burning it in the stoves, warming our old  house in a way that the baseboards can’t.

Even thought I’m not cutting the wood and hauling it to the house, or paying for it to be done, stacking it makes me feel more connected to the process.  Acknowledging the sacrifice of the trees and being even more grateful for them.

“Can I hold your babydoll”, I asked Jean.  “I’ll babysit while you draw.”  Jean is always ready to laugh, a look of delight came over her and she handed me the doll.

Jon and the Army of Good bought dolls for a few of the women who live at The Mansion, the Assisted Living Facility where we both volunteer,   and Jean  loves to carry hers around. I held the doll for the hour long class, sometimes sitting her on my lap, while Jean worked at coloring in the picture I drew on her tote bag in black marker.

“These totes are just the right size to hang on a walker,” Julie, the Activities Coordination told me.

I hadn’t thought of that.   Jon bought Sylvie, another resident, some small totes and she couldn’t use them all so I decided they would be the perfect project for my art class at The Mansion.

I drew an owl on one bag in black marker and colored it in as an example of what they could do, but everyone had their own ideas.  A few of the women who showed up for the class, weren’t able to do a drawing so Julie and I did one for them to color in.

One woman didn’t want to draw at all, but she did want to watch.  I gave her the bag I made and she said she’d give it to her daughter as a gift.

Wayne and Ruth, the newly “married” couple, made bags for each other.

Mary made a bag for her granddaughter whose birthday is coming up.

Madeline made a bag with her husband’s name on it.

And Jean tried not to laugh when she told me she thought her bag was ugly.

Last month when  I went to The Mansion to teach a class, only Peggy showed up.  This time we had to pull another table over there were so many people who wanted to draw.

I remember my mother telling me she used to belong to a sewing circle when she first started working full time.  She said it was more about getting together with other women than it was about sewing.

That’s how I’ve come to feel about my monthly art class.

Madeline tells us stories about her life. Today she told us about her husband who was a professional photographer and her trip to Italy to meet her husband’s family who did not approve of her not being Italian.

Jean told us how she used to iron her children’s socks.  And we all tried to help Alice remember a word she had forgotten when she tried to tell us a story that she never got to finish.   Peggy always joins in the conversation  and gave her bag with a drawing of a horse on one side and a butterfly on the other to Julie.

But even for the people who didn’t talk as much, I got the feeling they still enjoy the company of the rest of us.  That just being together and working on something similar is important enough.

That’s how I’ve come to see the monthly art classes.  As a time to create together and just be together.