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Day 7, some of everything

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here i am, this morning, in front of the fire.   The Wonderbird happens to rest just on my thigh, just above my knee.  where i can admire it.  and i do.  What is it, i am wondering that i LOVE so so so much about this little three pieces of stitched cloth?  like really, LOVE.?

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and i'd grated a potatoe yesterday to make hash browns.  pressed the moisture out with this dishtowel and then left it on the counter.  this morning i used it on my lap as a napkin when eating infront of the fire….and there..on my knee

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the beautiful stains from the potatoe juice

and after going to the hardware i took off the plastic from the long south window of the Room.  it will get cold again, a few days, for sure, but i am DONE with plastic on windows.  and i WASHED them.  vacuumed the shelf.  rearranged the baskets.

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AND of all things, dusted the leaves of this hanging plant.  i do NOT do well with indoor plants.  this one doesn't care.  it just lives.   and then…011

so..all this.  in this kind of Permanent Campsite home i live in.  and i cut this out from the New York Times this morning…

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it is an article about the latest generation of Lost Boys (and Girls) in Sudan.  i have some kind of unknown connection with Sudan.  with these children.  there is a picture of a girl there in a frame on my shelf now for over 10 years.  and i look at this child.  part of me looked so closely at the cloth in the photograph.  how cloth plays such a part in a life.  how cloth here emulates some sense of home, of personal space.  just a thin layer.  on sticks.  and this is an example of what i am trying to say when i say that i feel that the life i live has such a disconnect from some of the things that work at my Heart.  so..now, this boy is pinned to the wall, with the Dalai Lama.  and i try to make some little sense, some little order of the Feelings that arise.  and i look around me and see such incredible LUXURY.  and i think of my grandson who is 20 something and can't somehow make something out of himself.  and i FEEL this stuff.

 

 

 

 

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38 responses to “Day 7, some of everything”

  1. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Sometimes there is great turmoil with too much choice…. (thinking of your grandson) Our luxury can confuse us to no end if we don’t have a true sense of self and a soul connection, don’t you think? I mean, the boy in the Sudan… so many, many people around the world… oh, you know, you know, no need to go into it.
    Its good when something speaks to you so intensely – like your little Wonderbird. I like the sound of hashbrowns, haven’t had those in a very long time. I’ve been doing some clearing, too, feels good. Blessings to you today.

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  2. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i was just over at your blog, i think number 68th to comment…
    i don’t know, V…i just don’t know. Luxury is a kind of real burden for me. even my minimal luxury. i don’t know how to carry it, really.
    hashbrowns. oh. yes. i would feed that boy hashbrowns. and i would tell him i would exchange them for help with the Goats. SEND ME BLESSINGS..i need them. i WANT blessings. Blessings, please……..

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  3. mimmin dove Avatar
    mimmin dove

    I can relate to all this, especially the last, you can’t imagine. So many advances in the world but life for many gets harder and harder for wildly different reasons…and I have never made hash browns, do you just fry after squeezing out the juice? and wonderbird reminds me of a very cute flying fish xxx

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  4. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    mimmin…you know…if i knew of a way, i would do this.if i knew how. i would take someone or someones from there and we would figure out how they could be Here. there, you need mosquito netting here, not. no mosquitoes bringing malaria. and though i can’t provide a Lot, i can Give more.
    yes. you squeeze out the moisture as best you can. i
    plop them in the dish cloth and roll it up and wring it out…twist it. then fry. crispy.
    Wonderbird is so goofy. and yes. i often think of his
    fishness.
    Thanks for showing up tonight. xoxoxo

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  5. kat Avatar
    kat

    May I say that I, too, love that little bird/fish? There is a wee hint of the face of a wizened old soul there, too. You captured this being just at the beginnings of its transformation. In the capture, you leave the possibilities still ripe, rather than frozen, though.
    I understand your dismay about the youngster. I have found that there are many who, at 20 today, have not nearly the amount of wisdom that a 20 year old had acquired forty years ago. I echo what Valerianna said – there is so much more choice than before. Youngsters can surprise you, though. Remember the possibilities your transformational being is showing you. (Can you hear the blessings fluttering outside in the wild? They are seeking you ~)
    Pleasant dreams ~

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  6. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    It seems good, very good, that you’ve taken the plastic down.

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  7. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    Everything feels for everything else…and home–your home feels it too==all of it, with you and because of you. it is the perfect campsite and reminds me of Isaak Denisen (Karen Blixen – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Blixen – Cached – Similar) Oh–if you’ve ever read her, (“Out Of Africa) you would know.
    The thought of adopting a lost boy–well, quite a thought. What a shame your 20 something grandson wouldn’t like a sabbatical with goats for the Spring and Summer. If someone is meant to come join you it will happen…you will be led to them.
    Meanwile…gloth…the life of you and cloth that lovely little embelishment be she fish or fowl…she’s charming.
    And I’m done with Winter too though it’s not done with me yet.

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  8. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    there is so much here.
    i especially love the trailing stitching behind…wind?
    i kill any plant i bring inside & i have TRIED.
    and i am thinking of the baby blankets that become the thing they can’t sleep w/o & drag around & of the secret wad of cloth that i touch everynight before going to sleep…40 yrs. now.

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  9. Nance Avatar
    Nance

    It’s the hole in the potato cloth that I love. The potato cloth is well used…. We get that way too as we get used up. I’ve got a few holes that will be mended and I hope I continue being used and worn and mended til I can’t be anymore.

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  10. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Yesterday afternoon, needing to take a break from planning, organizing, packing,waiting for some news from my sister, I sat by the warmth of the kitchen window,feeling the sun on my back, needing to quiet myself. Picked up one of my dyed cloths and decided to stitch a little. As I did, I noticed a few tiny holes in one corner of one of my walnut dyed pieces and how the small pieces of indigo striated cloths were fraying and I thought it is luxury to stitch, not out of necessity, not out of the need to mend and then I realized that mending was exactly what I was doing, mending worry…

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  11. patricia Avatar
    patricia

    there was an article some where. children’s bed rooms. and they ranged from a picture similar to Sudan Boy to utter, decadent opulence. then yesterday i was reading here, to Boy. reading the children’s farmer’s almanac. an article about what 6 year old boys could do in 1800’s. Plow. Shear sheep. Give hair cuts to younger siblings. build fences. and i wondered–which way are we going here? how on one hand we seem to have so much MORE, yet how it seems to be undermining us as organisms. i don’t know. but i do know i LOVE the vunderbird.

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  12. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    a “smile” thought…maybe in the midst of the
    re incarnation..??
    and yes…there are always all the possibilities.
    fluttering, like those blessings. yes.

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  13. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    it takes me so long to get used to it when i put it up.
    and feels like such a release when i pull it down.

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  14. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    yes..Isaak. there are similarities.
    i am just going to have to live with that possibility..
    that being open to it, it can come.
    the grandson…he comes now and then. but it’s a
    LIFE of his own i would wish for him.

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  15. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    the “secret wad of cloth”. that’s a story there…

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  16. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    isn’t it just the most elegant hole????
    yes. how that’s just the way it is. worn. and well
    used, us.
    that dishtowel is just now getting to the place where
    it is beginning to really develop into itself.

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  17. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    i can picture this. see you there.
    i hope word came.

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  18. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    how to think of that!…it is really something. Plowing,
    shearing, building. i don’t know what to think either,
    but with all the kinds of things i do Now, that are
    similar, there is such a good sense of accomplishment, of
    satisfaction. so much of what there is Out There now
    seems so shallow. BUT…the point is, i hope, that
    when we want it, we look for it. that’s what i’m also
    hoping for him.
    your boy is in good hands with you.

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  19. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    quick immediate thought: we think of all the stuff we have as luxury, and for me at least, owning stuff feels more and more like a burden; like we’ve been told a lie, like owning a house is freedom, whereas it’s really a debt you owe the bank (and we know how kind and loving they are)I don’t want to sound cynical or bitter, but I oftentimes think these days: in western society we have become trapped in our materialistic society, with so-called choice and no Real freedom. Or maybe it’s just me

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  20. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”
    just a line from Me & Bobby McGee by that wonderful wild strong voice of Janis Joplin… she still sustains me … straight from the heart no holding back

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  21. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    much more important than my ranting: I love your bird!!!!!and the plant that survives indoors!!and the potato stains and the promise of new plants and the boy lying there in you place, love it all

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  22. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    love Janis

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  23. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    you are right. at least for you and yes, also in my own
    experience. back in my other life, there was a big house.
    a modest one, but a big house on a street in a nice city.
    and then add to that creating and being part owner of
    a very nice book store on yet another nice street in that nice city while creating myself to do Art Therapy for
    spinal cord injured persons, while still working part time at the University Hospital; all these Mores, that just
    created More until none of it made sense any more.
    at least this odd little life i’ve found makes sense. to
    me. not so much to a lot of other people.

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  24. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    i was married to a Chicano male counterpart of Janis.
    nice to watch but it’s a hard life.

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  25. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    oh but he could sing!

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  26. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    no. it was how he lived.

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  27. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    ((((Grace)))) I would love to hear the stories one day!

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  28. Julie Avatar
    Julie

    I love Janis (who could not just burst into smiles at that little “hee hee hee” giggle at the end of “oh lord, won’t you buy me..” ) But I think you, Grace, are free and not because you have nothing left to lose. Because by your description, you seem to have found everything that was lost.

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  29. jude Avatar
    jude

    i have [lactic on my windows this year

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  30. jude Avatar
    jude

    plastic that is.

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  31. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    oh good you clarified. i thought, huh????lactic??????
    huh???
    i really really DO NOT like it. i think it’s probably
    toxic. but then, i’m old. if i had young kids i would
    not do it. But it makes the difference between tooooocold
    and just cold.

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  32. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i read your words and think. Have I? found Everything?
    no. not everything that was lost, but i have found many
    things i never had. sometimes i don’t know what to think about it at all. there is lots of Wondering. but
    i do know that it’s good NOW. There were times when it
    was not good at all. when the feet had nothing to stand on. and how odd a sensation That is. but
    hmm.
    but what.
    but it’s ok. and what i DO know is that i wouldn’t change it, today, for anything else “out there”. it’s good. it’s very very Good Enough.

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  33. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Patricia, this rings so true to me. Yesterday I was at an all day training…the children’s center where I work is becoming Reggio-based. Part of the Reggio ideas is that children are capable & competent. I think this has been moved away from in the recent past. Yet, I saw a 20 month old grab a smart phone and start ‘scrolling’…flicking his thumb across the screen to move on to the next photo. I don’t know…you just sparked some thoughts.
    Grace, this creature is beyond…

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  34. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    The best…Janis and this line! A favorite song 🙂 Yep, sustains…

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  35. Dee Avatar
    Dee

    stuff is stuff… it feels like the kind of wisdom I am most hungry for right now.
    I clip wildly divergent images from various places – sts. hanging onto them for years, too… Images are food. Images give us energy and challenge.
    I have an image of a woodblock print of a cardinal holding up his finger to his lips in a gesture of ‘sshh’ right above a Vogue model wearing the most decadent and beautiful dress…
    the bird is the kind of stuff worth having

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  36. grace.porvida@gmail.com Avatar
    grace.porvida@gmail.com

    Dee..i read your blog today and wondered what you are
    doing/thinking.
    yes. i have images that i have had for maybe 30 more
    years. they are to me equal to anything else i hold
    as
    important. sometimes,
    critical.
    i have also thrown out pounds of these. different times.
    burned them.
    There’s a book: Living Into Art Journeys Through Collage
    Lindsay Whiting
    but also..i have to say that this cloth that is Working
    me right now is the
    best
    i cannot wait till i really get going with it. and it
    answers All the questions. it’s a woodblock print and the
    new generation of fashionistas of the Soviet Union. it is
    old gourds and nursing homes. it’s Everything. and
    interesting of all, is that it’s not any recognizable
    image. even to me. except for the image of “god” and the burning bush. but even them…vague.
    and it might be the most important cloth yet. Because
    it is not FROM anywhere or anything other than itself.
    and i don’t know any other way to talk about it yet.
    LOVE to you
    and thank you for these words. they reiterate things in
    my own mind…..

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  37. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    you owned a book store, I’ve always wanted to work in/own a book store….

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  38. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    part “owner”…there were 3 of us. and i don’t know about there in the Netherlands, but here it was just at the
    time of the internet taking off. but…still people like
    to come in and just spend time wandering, touching books. smelling new books. i thought it would be great too, but
    it is a
    store.
    i was not good at retail.
    and my one partner is a gifted business woman along with
    being a gifted lots of other things and we had our
    disagreements. i wanted to “live” in a bookstore, she
    wanted to create a business. they are two very different
    things. i think if i were ever to want to reincarnate in
    that world again, i’d have a small used books store. by myself. keep it simple. but then again…that’s hard., keeping things simple.

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