i could say it was an Odd Day. Which it was. But Unexpected is a better word. Jenny didn't feel well, so didn't come. I made banana bread which is out of character. but then, Alyssia called. She was ready to go through the books i have there. Did i have time? Ok. it was on the Video thing. Took an unexpected….hours. Her new book shelves. in her Room. Her house is now a group of Rooms, with Jeff and his kids, her and her kids. All have spaces of their own and then there are the community areas. She wanted the books out of the large community area (was living room). So…the light portable bookshelves in her room. Last night there were just those two books there in the Message pic she sent…the Volume l s of the Dalai Lama's 7. Today we went through almost all the books that i brought from my life before Here. One by one, she picked them up and we looked. Said things. specifically about the books and then wandering off from that to so many other places. She ruffled through them looking with me at all the things tucked in them…notes, letters, all manner of things and where those led to. I don't want to spend time with this here. But it took Hours. Kids went in and out, we took time away while i cooked rice. Came back to more of it until they had all been looked at. Handled. Categorized. Shelved.
and somewhere in the late middle of it all, she surprised me. She said that she would like me to make one of the Art Dolls i used to make, there was a magazine we were looking at that had an article, she would like me to make one now, with what has happened with all the cloth work since. one that bridged Then and the now of Cloth.
she doesn't ask these kinds of things.
i have thought now and then what the difference might be. How they would be so much more now. What that would feel like, making this difference. There's that, but for her to ask this……….
A while ago, maybe a year or two, i got this roll of plaster cast tape. It's what i made the mask faces of the "dolls" from. Because she had mentioned making masks of our faces now…like i used to….i made them of her face for life sized figures when she was around the age of Emrie. It's just been here.
i said i didn't want to make more of them, that i could not say why, but i didn't. She said she was asking me to make ONE. For her. Just One.

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