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why do we love what we love?

and does "stuff" somehow love us back?  is there reciprocity  of a subtle kind?

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i go to the local Walmart to get Cinnomon Swirl Bread for the old Cowboy i take care of.  i walk  through the craft department on the way to check out, past a table with bolt ends $ 1 / yd.  last year i saw a yard plus something of this.  the label said made in China 100% cotton.  i walked away, went back, walked away went back.   Why do i really really love this piece of cloth?  

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the pale green is the original.  the variations from the Indigo Vat

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this is the last from the Vat, just tossed in when it was cold, on my way out yesterday.  left some hours.   But, back to the original question.

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my summer uniform.   it was HOT yesterday.  first day of 2012 i got to go back to wearing it.

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Jude's cloth

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56 responses to “why do we love what we love?”

  1. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    …..because we can’t help ourselves

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  2. Michelle Avatar
    Michelle

    I got on the Internet here…hoorah…….read about Was becoming what was and wept, then this Why do we love lovely thing and laughed out loud with the patch on the dear dog…and smiled with the Dalai Llama and melted at the monkey again……….so that’s all…..I love that you love and what you love too, and I love you!

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  3. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    do you think it could be what we are
    FOR?

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  4. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    and i love you back, Michelle

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  5. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Hmmm…
    This may be another of those questions we ponder, but do not completely resolve. But, I know just what you mean. Some ‘things’ touch us so deeply. More deeply than one would think. I have been thinking of how do you express that in words or cloth or ? I could also ask, do you need to? But, I really miss that deep connection I had with my mom. We could talk about camp (that I went to as a child, while she worked there) and we both knew what the other meant, we got it. This feels a bit off subject, but related. Again, I know what you mean.
    And why is it the we sometimes love a little of something. For example; the little indigo dyed square Really caught my hear, while the yardage did not. Some of it was the color difference, some of it the feeling of ‘treasure’ aspect -because there is this small amount.
    I was so delight and touched to seed all of the places the little square landed (especially on the pooch!)
    Here is a quote to ponder and some comment to it as well:
    http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2012/03/sometimes-material-desires-have-a-spiritual-aspect.html I’m sure I’ll be back to see how others weigh in.
    Gotta run…

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  6. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    reminds me of those traeling gnomes…. seen at the Eiffel tower, at the Great Wall, at the pyramids…
    I hae lots o thought about this, but I spilled jo on my keyboaRd and don’t have all my letters! some gone totally, some sometimes… it will cost a lot : ( so …I can’t leae a long comment…

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  7. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    yes. all these questions and questions they will remain.
    maybe the thing is to keep wondering.

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  8. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    V, i am sorry that your keyboard is on the fritz but
    really, i kinda love the way it’s trying, and doing
    well enough…

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  9. ;uie Avatar
    ;uie

    I think love when and where you least expect it, is a thing of wonder: Today, errands and we stop at UGO, United Grocery Outlet, a place for discounted food goods, overruns, etc. We get our few paper products there and I like to roam the aisles and wonder who buys all of this stuff…then, eyes are absolutely riveted to a display of canned pimientos de piquillos, peppers from Spain that are very costly in most places. These are stuffed with cod and prawns and I have to have them. I am of Spanish origin, parents from Spain, first generation but normally, feel closer to Ireland than Spain. But every now and then, the blood stirs, usually via music but today is is the gastronomic heritage pull of this beautifully packaged tin of peppers with its photo of the brilliant red of the peppers on a white plate that is rimmed with green. I love this product; the label, “Mi Conserva” brings a touch of nostalgia. Conserva means preserved, and my mother used to call her pantry with her own canned goods and sauces, Mi Conserva. I am an adventurous cook and eater and so a tin goes into our basket. Come home, we open the tin, dip homemade sourdough french bread into it, lick our lips, husband thought it would be spicier, confuses Spanish with Mexican and I love the lingering pimiento flavor…love in a tin of imported peppers. Wonder that of all places, I found it in a little out of the way place in Tennessee!

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  10. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    YES!
    by the way, love the images above

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  11. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    Marti…YES!!!!!!!! and yes, again, reading twice, did the beautiful tin of imported peppers FIND YOU? is this a case of
    Magic Reciprocity?…that for all your good willingness toward
    Tennessee Living, you are given a little something to keep you
    on the Road? today, i will think this. i will think this is
    True.
    this is a beautiful piece of writing……..and i can SEE your
    eyes rivited to the display. Even wild horses couldn’t have
    kept you from it. what shape is the tin? can it be used as
    a resist piece for your dye work? (top/bottom)?

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  12. ;uie Avatar
    ;uie

    Ha, you know me so well; top and bottom of tin already washed and in my dyeing basket: measures 3 x 5 1/2″ and is a rectangle with rounded edges. Top has a wonderful stamped design as if someone drew a long loop then made shorter continuous curves up and down all around the perimeter of the tin. Fascinated with idea of placing cloth in the bottom tin, has a ridge all around and letting cloth drape out over the ridge held in place with twine, crisscrossing it over the stretched cloth so that too would leave a design…frugal surface design at it’s most basic!

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  13. nance Avatar
    nance

    love the exchange of you and marti… lovely… and i hope you keep a piece of the cloth in all those places that you put them… i am pondering on how you can keep it on chinche…? we do love what we love… and i love you both!

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  14. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Yeah, me too, its comical\ out of the box.
    And I loVe how this sounds: I don’t have all my letters. Kinda like not haVing all one’s maRbles!

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  15. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    I love the little blue patch on the dog. The dog looking right at you and trusting that this is important enough to you that he must be still for just a moment. So now I kind of want to pin fabric to my boys, my husband and also all of our newly budding trees and shrubs outside. This is a lovely post. Love to you, grace.

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  16. Els Avatar
    Els

    Ha Grace, nice to see that lovely little piece of cloth “walking” around in your surroundings 😉

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  17. Robyn Ayaz Avatar
    Robyn Ayaz

    Boy, you do ask the hard questions Grace which is why you are there of course! I checked out Nancy’s link and I’m not too sure about that – some would use that as an excuse for over-indulgence of all kinds of tHINGS! I wonder if food is different? There are certain foods that can take me to a wonderful place or memory of a place in an instant and marti, one tin, such restraint! Fabric? As a committed signed up LOVER OF FABRIC, is it ok for me to go out and buy bolts of expensive fabric just because I love it? As a person who in the past has overdone the retail therapy thing, I have to say that no, it’s not ok or rather, it depends. Think about it Grace you thought so carefully about buying a piece of fabric that was drastically reduced and added it up in your head and thought, yes I can do that! I think this is ok – not because it is you and I love you but because you worked out you could get it without having to live on bread and water for a week and found it beautiful. If it was a choice of sustenance and fabric, then I don’t think that is so great. Also and this relates to nancy’s link i think there is a difference between things we desire having spiritual value and having healing value. Sometimes it can really help to buy something lovely and non-essential because it makes you feel good. Here endeth the sermon according to Robyn (who will own up to a fabric stash going back 30 years and many, many boxes).
    Sorry if I carried on but Grace maybe you knew how beautiful it was going to look after going in the indigo vat? This was not meant to be personal to anyone, not even the dear dog who stayed so still while you took the picture and maybe as you showed in all the lovely pictures, it goes wherever it is put!

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  18. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    Chinche isn’t much for wearing cloth. but that’s ok.
    it was the same little square that went everywhere. i
    saw one more place where it could look so good this
    afternoon. will let it roam.
    and the question is, too, Why? what IS it about
    certain bits of cloth that magnatize so? did i see
    something like this in childhood?

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  19. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    she is a very good dog. she was just wondering.
    it’s a good “exercise” to place incongruent things
    around…lets me see them differently, or, more.
    xoxo

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  20. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    i wish it did have little legs and feet

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  21. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    “or rather, it depends” and each of us would define the
    depends part. the reason i hesitated buying it was
    because of 2 things: first that i had committed to using
    only Thrift Shop cloth, recycle, and second, Xs and Os to
    China, cloth made cheaply is often at the expense of
    the myriad woman who create it, who work for virtually
    slave wages.
    Sometimes i buy expensive stuff. an example is a
    Chod Drum, most recently. i wanted it. i bought it.
    but that’s also why i continue to work. i work so i can
    have stuff, this Internet service, for instance.
    but i also don’t think that either the buddhist drum or
    the cloth or the internet connection has anything to do
    with Spiritual.
    and truthfully, probably if that cloth was $10 a yard
    i might have gotten a yard anyway. i don’t know Why.
    i just really really really LOVE it.
    and yes….it DOES “go” whever it is put.
    isn’t it all just so interesting?????????????????!!!!!!!!!

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  22. nance Avatar
    nance

    its like that piece of fabric from the skirt… i love it. maybe i had something like it in childhood. maybe i had it in another dimension. i wonder about it from time to time. but i don’t have to know why. i can accept it in the present. try as i may, i have to admit i am attached to some things. otherwise it wouldn’t be so hard to de-clutter. it is my challenge to do so though. can it be possible to love too much?

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  23. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    “too much?”…i don’t know.
    I just really love the wondering.
    and maybe one can love Wondering too much, too.
    hmmmmm.
    but…here we are, late, bedtime, and i am still
    pretty much preoccupied with this small piece of cloth.
    it’s sitting here on the shelf in front of this screen
    with its little vibrational hum while O’Keefe and the
    woman from Butan look on.
    XO to you………

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  24. Wendy Avatar
    Wendy

    I don’t know the answer to the question; I always think it has something to do with some unknowable alignments, like cogs linking up, something or someone reminds us of something, refreshes some memory, tweaks a new thought out. Always a movement.
    But I wanted to say how much I like the little cloth changing contexts; it’s like that little bar used to reveal scale in photos of objects in museums! I had no idea the photo of the lemur with the gleaming eyes was so so tiny!

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  25. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    I call it the glow factor… call and response with extra sensory perception … Crows are the focus these days so I am always watching out for them, their calls bring me to attention, to look up from whatever I’m so very busily doing and watch out for the magic that’s afoot (and it’s always around when I take the time to notice) A feather drifts down out of the sky straight into my hand or another is stuck in a fence right at eye level as if it was put there just for me but of course it’s not! it’s there and I am aware of it, the crows are there & I am aware of them, they are aware of me, we interact with each other, if we interact with gentle kindness & magical thinking, the world becomes a more friendly & humane place… or that’s my take on it!

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  26. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    Oh and I love that fragment of lizard drawing & how your square brings attention to all the details that surround it !

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  27. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    i don’t know about the loving us back- but things hold and reflect things that we love. look how that little square carries the story from place to place, holding a little more with each place it pauses.

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  28. jude Avatar
    jude

    i don’t think we need an answer, which is good because there probably isn’t any. and i would have cut that little cloth on the bias and framed nine squares of it. because, well you know my thing with nine.

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  29. Acey Avatar
    Acey

    you know your question made me stop and realize that I don’t believe I’ve ever stopped to wonder why where love is concerned, except maybe in retrospect concerning a couple of particularly vexing old boyfriends. Usually when I love a person or other other sentient being or object of some kind I am too filled with gratitude that I’m able to feel love and spontaneously express it to ask why. Maybe now I will, at least sometimes…

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  30. Jacky Avatar
    Jacky

    aahhh that little travelling patch…having such a wonderful time…it looks very happy. Floating around, I wonder where it will choose to stop.
    Jacky xox

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  31. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    wENDY…the “lemur” with the gleaming eyes, that’s how
    i imagine my inner self to look. when i first saw it,
    i thought, HEY!!!, that’s ME!!!…funny huh. and the
    series of photographs from that old Natural History
    Publication…i LOVE. i take such good good care of
    them.
    the cloth is going on an adventure outside tomorrow.
    xoxo

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  32. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    Mo..i love that. the Glow Factor. it’s as good as
    anything to say it is. Just love it. May i quote you?
    would always give Credit….smile…..
    i have something i’m sending you soon about Crows. it
    might not make one iota of sense to you, but….

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  33. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    i hadn’t thought about it that way. it does, doesn’t it.
    maybe that’s a CLUE!!!!! i can draw lizards better than
    anything else. i think because of the
    love
    ?

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  34. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    well, isn’t that IT?, then, the loving us back…being
    reciprocal?

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  35. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    i do. nine you.
    i don’t need an ANSWER, but i guess i am wanting to
    know more about love.

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  36. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    oh Acey….you commenting means either this is a post
    i should regret OR one worth posting. i had debated.
    WHY, i wondered am i doing this. but it’s me, and it IS
    about cloth, and what i am doing with cloth, so,,,,,
    People, as in personal people, animals, as in personal
    animals…there is no question. i just love them and
    that’s it. humankind…i have a complete and spontaneous
    love for…just in general, and that’s it. Even the
    creepyness.
    what i’m thinking about are the uhhhhhh, well,
    Incidental Things.
    like this junky cotton print cloth from China. WHY?
    the more i admit it, the more i love it. and what IS IT
    i MEAN, by saying i LOVE it?….???????? this is what
    i am interested in. this kind of love. like if there
    were a fire, i would want to save my China cloth.
    Tomorrow i will begin taking the little square outside
    and putting it with some of the Plant People that i also
    love. i want to see them together. i want to see what
    that FEEEELS like, what it “tells” me, if it does.
    I thought about all this while kantha~ing the Diaries
    Cloth this afternoon. kantha~ing i “love”, too. Love.
    WHAT DOES THAT MEAN….to me. i use the word a lot.
    Thank you for coming here….and guess what,……love,

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  37. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    i think it’s mission is just to be a floater
    xoxo back

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  38. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    hey there’s no copyright on the glow factor… it’s just how I find my way in the world… say for instance, if I’m lost in a strange city I just look for the places that feel warm and give off a bit of a shine. That’s how I find my new home whenever I’m looking for a place to rent, as soon as I see that glow I know it’s the one even if it’s in amongst 100 other listings in a newspaper, same with meeting special friends, there’s that instant connection, a recognition of kindred souls, cats often connect that way when walking down the street they’ll kiss you with that slow blink or how websites like yours and Jude’s and India Flint’s just shine with warmth and real soul and oh so many others… you all just shine…
    to quote Clarissa Pinkola Éstes from her Letter to a young Activist During Troubled Times
    “…One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires … causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these — to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both — are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.”
    Namaste

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  39. Robyn Ayaz Avatar
    Robyn Ayaz

    Well that will be interesting! I love the light in your yard, it kind of makes everything look pale and interesting, like sun-bleached bones and shell and coral. Your cloth should go perfectly in either colour.

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  40. Acey Avatar
    Acey

    well I wrote a really long reply-to-your-reply about a favorite pencil that I adore and have loved for years even though it’s just a regular cheapy 8-to-a-pack, nothing-special pencil. Just a little stub by now and hardly significant on sight alone. Also said various other things. But it all seems to have vanished. I wonder alot about the opposite of what you’re wondering about – I wonder about the ease (and at times very profound levels of vehemence) with which people throw around the word “hate”. I read about hatred for some innocuous little part of life or material thing that it’s easy enough to avoid and think: really? You HATE that? It must suck! So I was thinking about this just now as being the most significant part of the reply that disappeared: maybe using the word LOVE a lot – or the current trend of love love LOVING things in triplicate – is a kind of psychic antidote to all the casual hate that gets thrown around?
    don’t know. but I pretty much like the idea. give me a week or two of chewing on it and I’ll probably wind up LOVING it…

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  41. jude Avatar
    jude

    i woke up and thought. love, it is a story, the story, that’s why.

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  42. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    Usually the things I “love” connect me in some way. And that’s a form of making… I’ve been thinking about this post for awhile. 🙂

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  43. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    because it’s the story.
    yes. and when i read your words just now, there
    was a flood of images for
    cloth
    making

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  44. ali Avatar
    ali

    to me it’s a mystery, the why of how something, often textiles, call to me in some strong but unclear way. maybe it’s a visual connection (some fabric says “grandma” to me) or the tactile meeting of color and pattern. the only clear thing, to me, is that, like a lost or abandoned animal, cloth/fiber/fabric sometimes beckons to go home with me. it is what it is. usually I listen, not always. and yes, to your point about the fabric we buy that’s made in China or India or Bangladesh or Vietnam–so troubling and complex in myriad ways.

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  45. Robyn Ayaz Avatar
    Robyn Ayaz

    Hey Grace, I love the way your post threads go on and on and its just like you have put coffee on and different people are dropping in and chewing over this “love” thing. Looking back I think I was focusing more on the buying than the loving – of the fabic you love – probably my past catching up with me!! So many wonderful thoughts here – simple and complex – thank you.

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  46. Doris Avatar
    Doris

    I believe that some things fill in a little hole in my soul and it feels good to look at them and touch them. Sometimes the hole is closing itself by being in touch with this thing and then I can put it out of sight. Sometimes the hole is still there but after a certain time I can bear it and the thing makes me smile in rememberance. The same thing with memories and music …

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  47. Doris Avatar
    Doris

    I believe that some things fill in a hole in my soul. And when I look at it and touch it ,my soul close this hole after a time. Sometimes the hole is still there but the thing helps me to bear it and after a while when I look at it I smile in rememberance.
    It is the same thing with memorys and music …

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  48. judy keathley Avatar
    judy keathley

    there are so many things i want to say —but i have no idea really what they are.
    i so appreciate all the words written here.
    i can at least say that.

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  49. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    yes! it’s like this, the stub of a pencil.
    what is it?, i wonder. and really, i am thinking,
    How Lucky we are to love something odd and nondescript.
    and i guess that’s why i think it’s worth thinking about.
    because it feels so extremely LUCKY.
    thank you for this clue………xoxo

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  50. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    …sunbleached it is and what it DOES do, is sets
    everything…
    everything….
    apart from everything else. things ARE and stand OUT.

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  51. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    some for me too, but some only connect me to them selves.

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  52. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    that Glow Factor
    i think often of the women who work there……..

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  53. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    the coffee is ON.
    am really caught by how simple and complex are the same.
    Thank YOU………you help me continue

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  54. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    do you think maybe it’s like feeding the soul?

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  55. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    good enough, you came
    that’s good for me.

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  56. Toni Avatar
    Toni

    GRACE! I LOVE how your patch of fabric is NOT just a patch of fabric anymore. It became a label which identifies your beloveds. And having done that, even if I saw just the patch now, it means “Grace’s love” and really that means “Grace” and it is so big and meaning-full in spite of its humble reality.

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