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Seeing

the days,  the awake time followed by dream time followed by awake time…., the days have been different.   First there was Those Wind Days and on monday when i got home from working, i looked around out there.   Stood just outside the fence that doesn't exist right now and took this pic of the house.  in the next weeks,  there will be changes.   some of the trees will remain just skeletons but probably again, i won't cut them down because the birds like them just the same,  leafed or not.  We'll see.  and close to where i'm standing with the camera is a square tub that i dragged over from the property next door that is presently abandoned.  it's nice and doesn't leak.  hand made.

001

and then yesterday,  was  surprised by how vulnerable i was to Was,  the cat that lived with Jude,  dying.  i am ordinarily better with death.  but not this time.   so i began the kantha.001

002
it will fill both side panels.  to what extent,  i don't know yet.  will it go     through    the  grasses?   the lightning?  on the other side,  through the   Deb Lacativa mystery,  the Glennis  buddha window?  Or, up to them,  around.    i am just going to stitch and find out.

and i stitched down one of the black birds,  leaving the cloth that i said i wouldn't because it is too prone to Fray.  Will see how it holds as the cloth goes up and down from the wall.  i want to leave it as is if i can.

005

by Friday it will be 80 degrees.   i need it to stay.

 

 

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35 responses to “Seeing”

  1. Henrietta (aka ani or zani) Avatar
    Henrietta (aka ani or zani)

    WAS touched us all grace. I have a cat that looks just like WAS I couldn’t stop crying at first. There are tributes going around so the rings are rippling to touch all. xox ani. (85 in chicago today!)

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  2. Robyn Ayaz Avatar
    Robyn Ayaz

    Kantha stitching would be the best kind of meditative activity – as your hands can’t help touching the lovely texture, you stroke it and it makes you feel quiet and calm inside. Well, me anyway. Was looked exactly like my cat Billi who was a Burmese Blue – he thought he was a dog, behaved more like one, going out for walks with you etc. I am sad for Jude, as someone said yesterday there will be a cat-sized hole in her life. Not sure whether you have seen – Sandra and Nancy have posted a small candle burning for Was on their blogs.

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  3. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    am glad to hear that “tributes are going around”…
    but again…i am surprised by my own sense of it.
    i have a deep love of animals, my own, my own cat,
    but there is something more here. more than Jude even.
    she was an extraordinary being. and the relationship
    between her and Jude’s clothmaking, Seeing, was
    something, uhhhhh, more.

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  4. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    no…i haven’t looked. will now. thanks, Robyn…

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  5. Henrietta (aka ani or zani) Avatar
    Henrietta (aka ani or zani)

    yes, i know…i know what you mean. WAS is a special person…ive always said, four legs are better then two.  no one understands you like they do because they dont need words or language to know…they just know. sleep well grace. stitch happily new dreams

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  6. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Something about the shapes in the 3rd pic…really like, comforting arches & colors. And the black bird is perfect. My eyes fell right to the ‘tub’ as it reminds me of the tubs my ex used to mixed ‘mud’ for his tilesetting…those had slanted ends, but still, so familiar to me. Like home. We have all been thinking of Was (I’m believe) and will be affected by her death, that’s just how it is. There is more here, but words escape me.

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  7. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    yes…words escape. thoughts elude. it’s different.

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  8. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    You’re right. Sometimes it’s both.

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  9. ali Avatar
    ali

    blue skies, 80 degrees of warmth, kantha stitching, meditative mourning–I am moved by your heartfelt images and words, Grace.

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  10. sandra Avatar
    sandra

    Grace,
    I feel so sad for Jude. I have an idea, for I feel quite helpless, for she does so much for us and I would like to do something for her. So what if we all make a circle of lights for WAS and Jude? I lit a candle and put it on my blog. Perhaps we could all do this. As many people visit your blog will you help me spread the light? (please don’t mention my blog, for it’s for Jude and WAS)
    Sandra
    P.S
    I’m sorry I posted this twice but from your reaction to Robyn’s comment I thought that perhaps you might have missed it.
    I lost my cat, who was with me for the greatest part of my childhood. She came when I needed her most. I was devastated when she died. This is why I got the above idea for Jude and WAS.

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  11. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    something about the loss of Was triggered so much, perhaps the universality of losing someone we love, maybe because she was, at times, a physical representation of the spirit work jude does with cloth, she was able to be with and on and in the cloth she is creating. and mostly because she was WAS- a good cat who loved and was loved.
    and your stitching, isn’t it nice to not know, just to trust? & that bird. x

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  12. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    yes..i think a death brings to the surface many things for each
    of us. i have been thinking continuously about Was, who she was,
    what she was for me in the Whole of Spirit Cloth…
    still am….
    but what has risen to the fore front is how all there is, is the
    present moment. and i am looking at how though i know better, i
    still move through my days tethered to some Future…self tethered.
    mentally, emotionally. why?.
    Was was somewhere else and then she appeared and what i think is
    touching me so strongly is how she then FULLY became present. In all the photographs of her, she is doing some very simple things.
    Part of this is the beautiful way that Jude related to her, loved
    her beingness. but a lot of it is just Was. and what i am thinking
    about is that it was just her absolute Presence. so Complete in
    every moment.
    i think i believe that death is difficult for those that remain
    living. for the soul that “dies”, it is just some kind of Continuing.
    i don’t know. am thinking/feeling.
    yeah, i like the bird.

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  13. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Grace, you say this so well, capture ideas about Was that feel so true. I also think, at least for me, there is the element of the sudden-ness of her passing, for unless I am wrong, or missed something, I did not know of any illness or whatever for Was until the post on the 20th. Then she was gone, just like that, just as she had come to Jude. Poof. It makes it hard to internalize it so quickly (for me).

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  14. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    When I lost my kitty, I was surprised that the hole in my life was thousand times the size o my kitty…. been thinking aobut Was and Jude, too.

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  15. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Yes, lots of yes’s here.

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  16. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    ali…and today, when i got home from the laundromat
    and went out to hang the clothes on the clothesline, it
    was HOT.
    i wrote on the calendar: first jumper day.
    bare feet. this is GOOD.

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  17. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    Sandra…yes. some are Life Partners.

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  18. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    it IS hard to take in. Takes a long time, sometimes.
    and the agony of it, yes.
    but Sudden, well, death, when it’s time for it is always
    sudden. the finality of it. i don’t thing it’s ever
    NOT sudden.
    When the crazy man died…he had been told about 3 years
    before that he was going to die. but then, he didn’t.
    and though it was coming, for a long time, it was still
    just coming. the day it happened, it was many hours, and
    still…when he did not take in another breath, it was
    Sudden.

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  19. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    there are some animals that are just “beyond”. Your
    Pasha is one.
    i have the most Excellent cat, tazmeena. we share a
    very close experience here. but Taz has her own world;
    parts of the day coming into mine, but there is a big
    difference between how she lives with me and how Was
    lived in Hill House.

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  20. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Yes again. Maybe this is my own response to death. I understand how you speak of sudden. My Daddy died ‘suddenly’ even though he was in the hospital after having a heart attack/failure the day before. My sister’s cat died suddenly letting out a yelp at 2am and dying instantly on the pillow next to my niece. But not my mother. Her death did not feel sudden. And my good friend’s mother’s death was not sudden either. I’m sort of talking to myself here Grace. I wonder what makes the difference?

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  21. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    maybe it’s the one that is dying and the one that is
    there. i don’t know. maybe it’s the relationship that
    came before, between the two.
    i don’t know.
    and really, i don’t know anyone who really does know.
    so we ask these questions, and wonder.

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  22. sandra Avatar
    sandra

    yes, Life Partners. I believe that some part of them always stays with you, the bond will be forever.

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  23. ali Avatar
    ali

    p.s. I like your soaring black bird!

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  24. Robyn Ayaz Avatar
    Robyn Ayaz

    Oh Grace that is absolutely right, I think you have caught the essence of Was in your web of thinking – she WAS and I think we are all drawn to that like moths to a flame because it is a true way to be.

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  25. Robyn Ayaz Avatar
    Robyn Ayaz

    And I think Jude herself is part of the feeling – the way she recognised Was but never tried to “own” her. I noticed that in the way she always said that Was just came from somewhere and stayed – it is easy for us to see animals as an extension of ourselves but they are not and especially when they have had a whole other life somewhere else. If that makes sense.

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  26. helen lee Avatar
    helen lee

    I come here to see put into words what I am feeling. I think of Jude and Was often throughout the day and still well-up and am surprised at the depth of my sorrow. They have touched me deeply and have become most dear…even though there has never been a physical meeting. Thank you for saying things the way you do.
    Kantha is so comforting. I too love your bird….and the ripples to the right of where it flies.
    I have a similar tub here, that I used to soak willow in for weaving. A frog lives in it now….it is nearly time for their return…I am watching.

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  27. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    i am really glad for your words here. i have been thinking about this but it seemed too hard to find words
    for it…but you HAVE and they are just perfect….
    i have been wracking my brain for memory of a book i
    read a long time ago…it’s an Anthology of short stories written by famous women authors and one of the stories
    that has come up again and again over the years, and
    now, again with the Thing of Was, was written in first
    person of a rabbit. a mature female rabbit who lived
    at i think some kind of retreat center where the human
    women that came and went from their workshops about
    “enlightenment” would comment, when they saw her on the
    path….”oh….cute bunny” and how she was dumbfounded
    about why these women who were intelligent and educated
    would refer to her one, as cute, and two as a bunny when
    she clearly was a life worn elder rabbit.
    YES!, thank you for this. Animals are NOT an extension of
    ourselves, or in my sense of it, less than we are. just
    different.
    THANKS for giving words to this……….

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  28. sewing susan Avatar
    sewing susan

    I too have been very vulnerable to the death of WAS which I don’t really understand. Yours and other peoples comments here help me. Thank you Grace for your presence, the risks you take and force in our lives. I am grateful. susan

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  29. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    i will think of your willow tub every time now. is it
    put deep into the ground?…for the frog?

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  30. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    Sewing S….well….risks….i am not sure about what
    you see as risks???? would be interesting for me to know.
    but if it feels that way then i am going to think it is
    a good thing, risk taking. i guess i think that is what
    a life might be for. learning. and we, or i, and i
    should only speak for myself, i can’t learn from just
    being safe. i remind myself of this a lot lately.
    so…if you are ever in the mood, tell me about
    Risk

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  31. sewing susan Avatar
    sewing susan

    Oh darn I just wrote you a long response to the question of risk and I just completely lost it so I will have to begin again. Disappointing.
    Thanks for asking about risk Grace. I think taking risks is a good thing. And yes we won’t learn anything if we play it safe. So the risk i see you taking everyday is to be part of the conversation. You ask questions that many of us might be thinking but are afraid to ask and you give your opinion. But most importantly you are always part of the conversation which may not seem like a risk to you but it is to me.
    It is amazing and kind of funny this cyberspace community that is created. It is totally anonymous but incredibly intimate at the same time. I see you and Jude taking the risk to let us into your lives and process. You share your doubts along with your joys. And maybe that is why the death of WAS has touched us all so deeply because even if we didn’t know it consciously she was part of our lives too.
    My risk has to do with will I be received and welcomed? Do people read my comments? Am I part of the conversation? I don’t have a blog. The excuse I give is that I am a busy kindergarten teacher and am getting ready for an art exhibition for a class I am taking but really the truth is I am afraid to. I am afraid to be that open. But being part of the conversation here with you is helping me to get ready to take that risk. And I thank you for that!
    So I am grateful when I get to laugh out loud as Jude cuts her cloth and I read your comments and visit your blog for the risks that you take to let us into your lives. It makes me think about my life and my risks. It is wonderful!!!!!

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  32. helen lee Avatar
    helen lee

    No, not dug in at all, and a frog has returned every year for about six or seven years now. The tub is pushed against a wall though. Once we realised it was there we put a plank up, but I think it has its own way of getting in. Around the front we have the sunken pond….and I’m watching there too…I am so looking forward to seeing them all again :~))) Oh!…and I wonder if Mrs Hedgehog will visit us again this year….Spring feels so good Grace :~)))

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  33. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    Susan…for two days now, i have looked forward to
    answering this…thinking about this WITH you and here
    again, it’s late and i have run out of steam. but i
    want to say some things about your honesty and your
    words that are very important to my sense of Things.
    and i guess that waits yet another day. if i tried to
    do it now, it wouldn’t Honor it….
    but, THANK YOU SO MUCH for setting it into motion…..

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  34. sewing susan Avatar
    sewing susan

    Believe me I totally get running out of steam. I look forward to more dialogue with when it happens. Take care.

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  35. Julie L Avatar
    Julie L

    Hello Grace–I have just re-found your blog–I am finding that I really respond to your Kantha Cloth–perhaps because I have just realized that I am still angry that my Fatherwho died –15 years ago!! We were, in many ways, kindred–not just kin. Thank you for this lovely “thinking” blog Julierose

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