was planning on taking pics to act as verification of what's going on in my head.  but, alas.  the camera batteries ran out.  and in accordance to the agreement with self, i have to WAIT until there is more reason to go into town.  but here:001fix
the "housecoat" from Jude's Boro 2.  originally i'd intended to make a robe from the concept of the basic rectangle.   but in keeping with what we NEED,  i didn't NEED a robe with sleeves, etc.  i needed something to cover the top half of my naked body when i wake before dawn and turn on the lamp and am visable in the windows of the Room.  who, i wonder, might be up at that hour anyway?,  and looking…but, oh well.  naked.  naked is , well naked.    So,  from a blouse that i liked.  very thin cotton.  sleeves, collar and breast pocket removed.  a very favorite sheet tea dyed for the bottom, cut into 3 rectangles…2 fronts 1 back.    2 strips of cloth that pulled my attention and the intention  to repeat on the other side of the front until i noticed how the very slight addition of cloth made it all heavier, and what i was looking for was as close to Nothing as i could get.  For hot mornings.    So, here we are.  one side only.  good enough.  and actually, really good.  i like it.  it works.  it's what i NEED.  no more, no less.  i love the combination of cloth in the strips..many are from you, Deb Lacativa….how they move in harmony with the dyed pieces from this place and the cheap but oh so appealing pieces from the walmart dollar table, designed by some person "over there" in China who would be a sister to me if i knew her.

002fix
i'd taken off the breast pocket, thinking that i would match this side with strips but then, when i decided not to,  well….hmmm.  what to do here?  i'd been sloppy in the removal and there are two slits at the top sides where the pocket was?????????????  something needs to happen here.

ok.  and then, this is calling.

003fix
it seems like forever since i just worked on a   Cloth.   a collaged story.  Magic Diaries, then Boro 2.  and these odd plain pieces have been on the wall.  i watch them.

and then,  so much in this world.  Alz B has gone to the Old Folks Home.  it's here in town, up the highway toward the mountains.  on Friday she went.  her family all flying in to witness this.  so my life will be very changed.  in many ways, she has been the center of it for a few years in an intense way.  before that, some.  and now,  not.    I will go, maybe once a week, maybe less.  I will go and visit,  taking my Mary Oliver books.  Reading to her.  She has always liked this and i am thinking that will continue to be the case??? ,  but I really don't know.  Everything has changed.  So, That.

and the Goats.  i'd intended to post a bunch of pics.  but the camera batteries died.  so here are the two little bucks of Lucky Star,  Los Dados,  Dice in English . 

010fix
i am spending time every morning and every evening with the Goats.  With the babies to keep them from their wildness that is innate.  Why would a goat want to be touched???  Only because a human being wants that.  For them, it is not important. 

Daughter DID come and we created another space, a pen, for the  three bitchy strong does.  this land is being patchworked for the needs of the goats.  Mending spaces that are outgrown.  Last night, just after i had fallen asleelp, i was woken by their voices.  the new pen wasn't secure and they were loose.  Milling in the dark.  it took a long time to convince them to return.  i held the advice of my daughter in my mind as i tried.  When i was trying to milk Ona and being really, a failure at that, she said " No Emotion".   just keep going.  Do Not have Feelings.  just keep going.

and ok.  so i did that in the Dark last night.  Calling to the  escapees, Come Come in a cheery hopefull voice.  it took a long time, but they did come and did go back into their new pen space and i secured the faulty fencing, in the dark.    I am learning a LOT.  i am not sure what i am learning but i am sure it is of Good Use.  and of Good Use for the Good of the Whole.

 

Posted in

36 responses to “nothing fancy”

  1. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Oh Grace…Your simply-what-id-needed coat is fine and fancy to my eye. I am impressed that the binding around the removed collar neckline is so perfect, that the placards down the front opening are so straight and flat, that the strips are kantha worked in places, and that you finished! I love this phrase about the material in those strips: “…designed by some person “over there” in China who would be a sister to me if i knew her.”
    Life’s focus is changing radically with the move for Alz B. And the goats (dice just charming)…..and “Just keep going…Have no feelings” really resonates for me…it’s how I learned to administer the hydrating infusion for a long term need on a dog I loved, and other sorts of unpleasant medicines on other critters in my care. They feel every thing we transmit, and upset emotions travel direct, Animals being so much more telepathically attuned than most humans.
    As always, everything you are learning is of good use, and I’m grateful for your sharing. I think of you at lonely dawns and when the nights are stormy. Right now, we have our fourth heatwave, but I suspect yours are hotter.
    PS “The Beautiful Woman” left me a phone message earlier this evening but I was out…I left a message in return ans hope to talk to her soon…and I want to find out what more I can post about her…her path…wisdom…maybe even meet up for a ‘reading’ and some more photographs.

    Like

  2. grace Forrest Avatar

    i just went out with the flash light to see if i really turned off the water to the hoses. and was again, AGAIN,
    amazed at how fast days circle. in so many ways it seemed like i had just gotten up. that the dark outside was not the End of the day, but the Beginning. but, not. time to sleep. SO FAST, life travels us through it all.
    and i love that the Beautiful Woman took her time. she is worth waiting for, yes?, yes. what is her story. we wait.

    Like

  3. deb Avatar

    I was so excited by the pictures of the little B&W kids.I’m struggling to make black and white cloth for the Karma cloth but Los Dados could be featured! more pictures! Now I have to read back in time to find out about the Beautiful one.
    From experience, both music and reading seems to reach into the past heart of Alz people and they feel it and respond to it.

    Like

  4. Jacqui Avatar

    Dear Grace
    I love the colours of your earth and sky in the base garment and the fabric of life in all its colours woven in the strips down the side. Are there brighter colours in this cloth this time? Symbolic of new beginnings and brighter things to come maybe? Much love to you. Jacqui

    Like

  5. Valerianna Avatar

    My, my… chasing goats in the dark… I wouldn’t be up for that, you’ve got the “keep going” spirit! The shirt feels good for warm mornings… I’ve got something like that on now, a soft batik jacket that I use as a bathrobe in summer. I got up, did qigong and sat at the altar before the heat, which is coming… not my favorite thing, oh well, keeping on.

    Like

  6. elizabeth fortes Avatar
    elizabeth fortes

    Dear Grace! I love your summer housecoat! what a lovely piece and the colours are soft and in perfect order. I also love how the darker rectangle leads attention to the tea dyed border. The eye is lead there, gently.
    I love to get my e-magnification pointer whenever you show pictures of the goats. Los Dados must be fun to watch and behind them your fence…! it is beautiful! In the top of the picture a yellow hot sky…..oh my….Thanks! love.e.

    Like

  7. Jennie Avatar
    Jennie

    The Morning Body Cover is elegant, Grace. Just right.
    On Friday I found an ivory colored Asian garment made of a crinkly silk, sewn of complex pieces and embroidered in white. A previous owner had stripped away the collar and trim along front closure, sleeves, and hem …leaving for me the delight of figuring out how to “finish” all those edges. The edges you’ve done will guide me.
    And amen to “No emotion, just keep on” so hard to do but the only way through.
    Peace,
    Jennie

    Like

  8. dee Avatar

    I adore the house dress – ‘As Close to Nothing’. I was admiring its asymmetry, already thinking that my comment wd be ‘keep it that way’, so I was happy to read that you’d already come to that conclusion. I see the nine patch above the removed-pocket as somehow perfect… it says, something was here, now it’s not, but I’m not pretending anything about its coming and going. Maybe I am making this all up. The thought of you out calling in your goats in the night really cheers my soul. Just as you, perhaps, don’t know what it is you are learning, I cannot articulate why reading about your chores and challenges acts a salve to the spirit – but there you have it!

    Like

  9. KaiteM. Avatar

    Your housecoat is beautiful and just enough to cover a naked body in early dawn, especially if she has to go out goating. My goat, when i had one many moons ago, would regularly climb onto the roof of my car and stand just looking.

    Like

  10. nance Avatar

    i want to send love to dear betty… so glad her family could rally round for this… it brings you to another evolution…. your life just keeps morphing into something different. now you will have more time/maybe less money? how will that be? more stitching more milking
    jenny is brilliant … no emotion… i wonder how you do that? i wonder how i do it too?
    your morning dress looks like you … something you would comfortably wear. if you had all the money in the world you wouldn’t be able to buy it!
    xoxo, dear you!

    Like

  11. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    well, i visited today. Alz B is not a particularly easy
    person for me to like. even before her descent. she is
    ummm, snobby. and snobby without any real thought, without any effort to see the multitude of possibilities.
    so, she and i had had a long and sometimes contentious
    friendship. but we stuck with it. a certain kind of case of Just Going. and when i saw her light up today when i
    appeared, i was glad that i’d not given up along the way.
    I have taken my CD of Zoe Keating…Into the Trees to her
    house, to play while we are doing other things. and she
    did love it. I have read Mary Oliver to her in bright
    mornings on her back patio. If and How that can happen at the “joint”, we’ll see. there are 14 women in the Alz
    Unit. and from what i understand in the immediate is that
    CHANGE is HARD. they like things the same. they like things to be reliable and unchanging. today, most were lined up in nice comfy chairs in a little arc infront of the TV that was playing Olivia DeHaviland and Errol Flynn in the Charge of the Light Brigade. they were facing the
    TV but i don’t think any of them were watching. B was not.
    but she was facing it. i won’t go on further here, that will be a seperate post, i think. But just to say, it was
    better than i’d been afraid it would be. She is letting go. No longer fighting her loses, but seemingly resting easy into them. We’ll see.
    B/W has a very particular appeal to me…and yes, i am
    watching on your blog, the Karma work…
    and Deb…i continue to feel such happiness working with
    your cloth..it is beyond perfect for me

    Like

  12. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    oh…HEY! Jacqui…yes. they are brighter and dominantly
    brighter, not just a flash here and there…, yes! you
    are right. i don’t know if they will appear this way in
    other stitching…but it was a real PLEASURE to place them here…i really don’t know. the piece that is in this
    post waiting is quiet again…there was a balance somehow in having that on the wall while working on the Morning
    Dress. and MUCH love back to you………..

    Like

  13. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i love this little image of your mornings…the qigong, the altar sit, the soft jacket…
    so good, these small images of our lives given like this…
    if you have goats, you need to just accept that there will
    be moments of chasing them, begging them, being refused
    by them, coming to terms with each other in various moments. it’s just how it is. and for whatever reason,
    it seems to be just right.

    Like

  14. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes…the SUN coming through the slats.
    a day this week, i will wear the housecoat out in the early hours of the day and take some pics that i have seen, but not marked yet. i’ll think of you

    Like

  15. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    ohhhhh, how i would love to see this complexity, embroidered white….and the edges were pure pleasure…i hope for you too…
    Amen, YES!, what a GREAT thing to work on…accepting
    All of it…mine, theirs, the reality of the moment…
    it’s really Something and SO totally palpable when the
    Shift happens…the Felt Sense of it….
    and Peace to you too, love

    Like

  16. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    “making this all up”…then keep it up. i like it.
    i LOVE that your soul was cheered and i love that
    these chores and challenges have meaning beyond me here…
    these happen to be mine, but i know that all of Us have chores and challenges and i also am convinced that in telling of these, however mundane they may seem in the moment is a way to tighten the threads of community, to hold fast to our lives as women. i like your comments a
    LOT. Thank you. and there YOU have it. Exchange.

    Like

  17. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    they love just looking…don’t they…i love how they love it. when the truck is still in after i’ve unloaded the
    alfalfa, they all jump into the bed…i need to get a pic of that one of these very fine days.
    i always love hearing how our days touch edges…xoxo

    Like

  18. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i watch her. being my daughter, having History with her in days of her younger times when we were so much more
    edgy with eachother…i marvel at her ability to understand the requirements of the moment. she is so good at that. and to listen to her say that is just the Best.
    she is right. the emotion doesn’t fit in the act of
    milking. it is un necessary comotion of energy. she has
    HAD to learn this because her life in the last couple years has required it…not just with goats. but that
    example of the night of loose goats in the dark. i came in the house at one point, saying to self..OK…i’ll just leave those crazy goats loose all night. I went out and
    opened their gate so they could go back if they would on their own and headed back to the house. but they followed me…all that noise, bleah, bleah, bleah so i sat on the porch step and remembered. Without Emotion. Ok. and
    out again…”Come, Come”, you say with a cheery lilt.
    and by then they were tired of the whole thing and came.
    gate closed. done. we slept.
    and no. i could not buy this Morning Dress for all the money in the world. to me, a complete beauty.
    i don’t know. am going to watch it for a while. i came home today with $23.oo to last till Monday. but i have
    gas, food enough, goat/dog/cat food enough. $23.oo might
    do it. OH, and the disbudding of the triplets on Wed…
    $15. so, $7. but what i really want is TIME. so, we’ll
    see. there is Always more work. but it’s TIME that is
    elusive and in this moment i see so clearly that it is
    a choice.
    xoxo, dear YOU, back

    Like

  19. Deb G Avatar

    Laughing as I think about why goats and children share the term “kids.” No emotion can be so important… Your above comment, yes the choice between time and what money might buy, that’s so huge. And your morning coat, I love how it is two distinct parts, top and bottom, with the strip to tie it together. I love how the things we’ve all been making have so much more personality than what might be bought….

    Like

  20. Nancy Avatar

    I have been coming and going here since you posted this. Reading and rereading…looking and zooming. The Morning Coat of Earth and Sky is perfect…is perfectly you. It is one of the most beautiful body coverings I have ever seen. The added trail of colors, trailing off are gorgeous. The ninepatch on your heart, a symbol of…of what? Of friendship and learning, of balance and beginnings. Possibly altered clothing is what you are meant to sell at the fair? Not this one of course!!! This one says Grace, simply and clearly.
    I love the words of the others here and your thoughtful responses. They trigger so much in my head and heart. I can’t even grab it and hold it still long enough to write it down.
    I love when you speak of losses and “resting easy into them”. This is a good reminder of how they can be handled. A reminder I will try to recall, as I have had many this year.
    I am agreeing with Deb. A co-worker and I once spoke of this “no emotions” when trying to help a fussy infant to sleep in a full classroom of infants with needs of their own. Detaching, yet still caring, works so much better. I guess with goat ‘kids’ too, although I’d never thought of that!
    I have thought of this garment and this post and your daily life when I’m Not here and I realize that I’ve ‘known’ you long enough to bear witness to your ‘just going’. I think of the Grace I bean to know at the beginning of Diaries and I see such a difference in how you ‘go’. It is a pleasure to have spent this time with you. It does my heart & soul good to visit you in your place/space.

    Like

  21. saskia Avatar

    oh wow, it’s good to be back, back home I mean and read the posts in my own space, the studio and not whilst traveling and trying to keep up with you all….(although i did fall in love with England again)
    I don’t know what it is about what you write about Grace, but it is just so heartwarming and real, yes real, that is why it is so great to come and spend time here and read about your everyday life and read everyone else’s comments, hi from me!

    Like

  22. lynda merry Avatar

    …”in telling of these, however mundane they may seem in the moment is a way to tighten the threads of community, to hold fast to our lives as women”…
    I love that you said this. I find so many parallels, for me, from your conversations here.
    xo
    Lynda

    Like

  23. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Hey, lynda…so glad to see you here. lately, the
    TELLING has become so important to me. not even
    particularly my own, but the uhhh, what’s the word…
    the oh rats…i can’t think of the word. where’s Michelle. like archtype, but different…anyway, the
    continuous flow of a certain thing through all time and On, just going… so, “that” of Telling. small things,
    seemingly inconsequential in a larger scheme but we know they are the details that make up our LIVES. LIVES.
    xoxo to you

    Like

  24. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Selling one’s Life. that has been a constant train of thought for so long now and i have reduced it and reduced it and now, maybe again.
    Thing is, and i am not a lazy person, thing is, just Living takes, or can take, all of a day. Every day. who would guess, in this culture where even now everyone is supposed to continue at some “job” more and more years. i think we are beyond lucky in understanding we can GROW
    food. we can Make a lot of what we need/want.

    Like

  25. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    nancy…yes. we have come to know Each Other. and i
    take this as such a gift. i feel like i know and am
    close to Us more than many in the world of face to face.
    Maybe because we Choose to give of ourselves what is
    at our core???
    What an interesting thought…altered clothing…that never occured to me.

    Like

  26. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    oh hi to you too. though i loved “traveling” with you
    in your blog pics which were Excellent, i like it when
    you are home. i like to come to your house too.

    Like

  27. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Here I am…and I can’t think of one word…but here are some:
    Not just this woman rising up in this dawn
    or in the middle of a dense night–all women
    rising to the cry of something that needs doing,
    something in need of relief, since before time,
    and unrecorded–all these risings of women
    answering to the higher power of care giving

    Like

  28. Doris Avatar

    I love your morning coat and I can nearly feel how it must be to wear it on a summer morning.
    And I love reading about your life with the goats for me it is like looking in a different world – so interesting and I admire how you manage this all. But beside all the differences I feel there is a lot of resemblance in the way you are thinking and looking at your life. It always gives me something to think about and it is like having a companion. That feels good.

    Like

  29. handstories Avatar

    your wisp of a garment- sky & earth & the tattoo of colors running down the front is lovely- in appearance & in usefulness.
    & Alz B & change & wondering what all this will bring to you?
    “show no emotion” is a phrase I’ve been coached w/all year, for being the right thing to do, why, oh, why is it sooooo hard?
    xo

    Like

  30. Doris Avatar

    This ” no emotion-thing” follows me during two days. I agree that there a things in your life just to do and not thinking and reflecting why und what it is about. Life askes for it also you have to accept and just do it and go on. And often it is better not to show emotions if you don´t want to be judged by others.
    But I think that you have to know your emotions in those moments, have to realize that you look at things with fear, disgust, anger, joy and so on. Then you can decide not to follow your emotions but just do what is necessary. If not your emotions will lead you secretly.. During my trials of learning meditation I got to know the method just to name the feeling that comes up and then I can let it go.
    Over the years I have learned to talk with me in the way of: Yes, I know this frightens me but I can do it, just make the first step. Or I know this person makes me so angry every time but I have to work with her so just keep calm and go on.

    Like

  31. Acey Avatar
    Acey

    so i got this far at last. the coat, yes. the goats, more so. funny i almost told a story about my first experience with goats in the dark. herding goats when they see no reason. don’t really know why people make such a thing about herding cats. think it is actually easier – at least if you have something they want …

    Like

  32. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Michelle….”something that needs doing………something that needs relief”.
    these are important words, words that touch thoughts that i am thinking

    Like

  33. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    “it is like having a companion”…i love the way these
    particular words say something…yes. it is. it is
    so SUSTAINING of one’s own continuing to be Felt and
    found to be Familiar by others whose lives are far away
    maybe, different maybe…but somehow the same.
    Thank You for these words, Doris…thank you

    Like

  34. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    so hard…i am Seeing something in the last some days
    that may tell something about this…still don’t know, but am seeing something…it might be because it is not about
    Me and other, or about Other and me, but about the
    Thing that is wanting to happen. so the seperate individual parts need to be let go of and the focus instead on what the Happening is?????
    in this particular case…it’s milk in the bowl. Milk in the bowl. That’s really what is happening here. or
    could be. ?????

    Like

  35. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i love that you came back again, still thinking…and leaving these words here…
    i am sitting with them

    Like

  36. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    oh HEY, Acey….
    WHEN THEY SEE NO REASON
    these are crucial words.
    how do we do things together, then? Have something they want can sometimes work. but sometimes, just asking.
    and they say OK. it’s happening with the girl goat Magic.
    i am asking her and for her, there is no reason. And,
    i have nothing she wants. Yet, she hears my asking and
    is beginning to say Ok. it is quite a phenomenon.
    So glad to have you here…thanks

    Like

Leave a reply to Valerianna Cancel reply