windthread

And it might feel like that for a while, i'm thinking.  Just later of the Same Day.  This Day might last a while.  Like be elastic,  stretching on.  For a While.    There is so much.  First, the Death.  Death.  Here one minute, gone the next.   Just that sudden.  Like Jude says,  Poof.   I actually said that to her when i first got there last night,  she and i in their "Chapel"  just one of the rooms they set aside for such moments,  and i sat in there next to her,  stroking her hair as i did a lot,  and i said that.  Hey, Betty,

Poof.

I had been there, earlier in the day because i had been forgetting to bring her new pants and socks and i had remembered and thought,  OK,  no time like the Present,  and drove into town to Walmart,  the only place we have here for such things,  and got her 5 new of those pajama kind of bottoms the kids wear which are the best for her and then took a long time picking out socks.  Took an index card with her name on it and my stapler with me and left the bags in the Nursing Station to give to the woman who puts name labels on clothing…the iron on kind….on Monday, which is tomorrow.  I hung around with her for a while.  She was mumbling as usual,  a kind of constant string of pretty much syllables,  not many words, really,  but i gave her a glass of cranberry juice and cheered her on to " Just Chug it!"  until there was that gurgling sound at the bottom of the straw and she did.  She got to the gurgling sound.   She was her  new usual self.  How she's been for months now.  Nothing remarkable.

They,  the night staff,  had done her regularly scheduled catheter change some where in the night,  nothing remarkable there either.  She was feisty and pinched Travis,  the much loved CNA,  certified  nursing assistant,  as she often does.  He's a big guy so there's a lot of surface to pinch.  Her pinches leave marks.  sometimes draw blood.  Anyway…nothing unusual.  and then,  the next time Travis did rounds,  within the hour,  she was gone.  She shared a room with 3 other women, one being Virginia who i've mentioned before who i love,  who would have known if there'd been any kind of struggle and have called the nursing staff.   So i think she just died in her sleep.  Or died in some quiet state.  She just died.   This is a mystery.  How suddenly,  it's the moment.  And you let go.  How prior to that moment,  you are as fully Engaged with Life as you can be.  But then,

you are not.

So her son got there,  who i have acknowledged to him that i think of him as a brother sort of person,   and we waited till the funeral home person came and placed her on the guerny and followed them to the Funeral home.  Some paperwork.  Then her son and i decided to just walk.

it was so peacefull.  Nothing going on at all in Socorro New Mexico at 3 something A.M.  not a single vehicle.  And we walked all our "trails"  that we had walked with her over the years before she ended up in the Old Folks Joint.  We told stories.  We went to her house which is a couple blocks away from the Funeral Home.  and stood outside.  because it's rented now.  and we talked about her Rose Bushes.  We talked about stuff about her that was good and stuff about her that was not so great, but so totally her.  And it was almost dawn when we were done.

Up until just recently,  Alz. B.  was 3 times a week.  She started with every other week,  cleaning her house and doing gardening for and with her 12 years ago.  Then became more and more.  Till 3 times a week at the Old Folks Home and then because of my request,  twice a week.  

Betty and i had a little of a contentious friendship from the beginning.  Lots of "debate".  Betty was, in my opinion, a snob.  I didn't mind saying that to her.  And one of the examples of that was her constant harping at me for being a "cleaning lady",  when my intelligence and education were "beyond" that.  I would point out to her that i made the most money for the least amount of time being a cleaning lady.  And that was my reasoning.  I wanted as much Freedom as i could glean.  I could have worked 8 hours a day at Community Mental Health or cleaned her house and hang out with her,  which her son paid for,  for 2 hours and end up with the same amount of cash.  But she would say "where's your Pride?'   So things like that.  We would argue a point and then later in the day she would call on phone to see if i was mad at her.  No.  never mad at her.  Just standing my ground.

But that whole chapter of my life is over now.  12 years.  So many days a week but constant Awareness and Thought.

And according to the Understanding i accept as Real,  she is working her way through the Bardo.

So, I remain with her for that.

 

and i fooled with these so random scraps on this piece of cloth off and on all day.  Stitched those very few stitches,  really nothing much at all but they felt so good,  the needle going in and out

 

 

and this is what this all will mean to me in the not too distant future…Time.  This will be the LEAST amount of TIME i have ever worked.   I will have FIVE DAYS of being able to stay here.  Stay HOME.  FIVE DAYS.    I am going to be 69 years old this year.  It's about TIME.  Don't we

think?

and as to the silent/not   This is the place where i am the most of who/what i am.  This blog.  There are people in my everyday world,  children who are in my Life but from a distance.  This is the place i am most Myself.  Me.  grace.  and ALL the comments here,  are from my family of sisters.  That is REAL.  and i wouldn't trade that for anything.  for Anything.  I KNOW you,  those of whom i have met through this cloth stuff.  I know you like family.  Like sisters.  and in many ways, Better than sisters.  I do not filter here.  This is it. Boring or not.  It's what IS.

and i am very very grateful to it all.  It's kind of Amazing, really,….Yes?  Yes.  Yes it is.

Love,

 

Just to say right away,  no.  I am not changing things here.  And more about that later.  Right now it's 11 something am and i am going to go sleep some.  

In the middle of last night i received the call that Alz. B.,  Elizabeth Louise McIntosh had died.  So spent the rest of the night into early morning there.

and then i just finished watching the March in New York LIVE from Amy Goodman, Democracy Now and with perfect timing,  the 1/2 ton of Alfalfa was delivered.    So to sleep for a while and then get up to a different world.

I'll be back later.

 

so…finished.  Maybe i'll do more stitching…just double split back stitch…on what is here now,  but probably not.  She might wear these pants once or twice.  Will out grow them by Thanksgiving.  and I'm not much into stuff that will be kept forever.  This is their only child.  So not a hand me down.  Just a ….well….a gesture.   Just a gesture.  Kind of in place of words,  from this Grandma.

 

and i worked some at basting randomly the loose pieces just so i can take to the Laundromat.

And absorbing the meaning of Change,  the meaning of Just Going from Jude's  Post today,  i think about all that has come to me in the last few years.  How much i have found in Relationship with cloth…she refers to this as Sympathy….but i don't use that word.  I would say Relationship.  How much i have come into Relationship with cloth, thread, string.   Dye.  There's a lot to think about.

and since the new Way will be silent,  i think about how much i have loved the comments in the segments.  How they have meant almost as much to me as the Posts.  Many Eyes.  Many Hearts.  and this is something i think i might miss a lot.  I think so.

 

So….that's it for today.  Sonny the truck is back home and running like a mustang.  SUN is drying the land, moment to moment.  Tomorrow a new half ton bale of Alfalfa comes.  Life goes on.

so.   After all this watching Weave,  i am ready.  Just need to figure out the "loom".   This rug i have had for a long long time.  I don't know how it's undoing happened…don't remember.  For a long time it was on the seat of the truck.  Then it came off and has been on the shelf in the Albatros.  It needs to be washed.  Lots of  Things on it.  But it's what i want to make.  Back to This:

"Collectively,   Americans discard two quadrillion pounds of used clothing and textiles into the landfills each year."  Wiki how.  2010

and then from a blog that i have just recently found,  Bealtaine Cottage:

"don't throw it away.  There is no away"

again, So.   

i brought it in this morning and  tacked it to the Big Beam.   This corner will tutor me.  Between it and having experienced Jude's Considering Weave,  i will be able to make my way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This just makes me SWOON.  As i used to say about drawing,  this is better,  like way better, than Sex.   yes.     And with the beloved Thrift Shop,  Ten Cent Tuesdays,  there is a Glut of fabric.   What they have is not just locally donated,  but they haul it from somewhere.  I still haven't asked where that Somewhere is.  But they Cull periodically and bring in new stuff.   There is an ENDLESS supply of Cotton.   I called the hardware this morning and he said yes,  they have spools of cotton string,  Postal String.   Am thinking this can be the Warp.

 

From the Other Side.  It is 28 inches wide and 4 feet long.  A good size.  and i counted one line, the dark line and could count 120 strings of warp.  This means that there were an equal number "hidden" by the weave Over.  So.  240 warp strings.  That's a lot.

i'm on a mission.

 

Progress.  Giana Lily Alluvial Fan's  Fishing with her Dad pants.  Pants.  Not shorts.  She is only going to be One Year Old.  These are Pants.  waist to cuff pants.  The River on the right leg will go on around.

 

when it comes around, it will go under a Sun and a Moon….both of Deb Lacativa's magical genius.  So i give her,  this little girl,  what i love too….  Tomorrow it will be done and i can put in the mail with her Tin Tea Set.  Every fishing trip into the mountains of Colorado needs a Tin Tea Set.

 

bland.  isn't it a great word for the meaning it carries?…bland?   so….in general a bland day.  It's the HUMIDITY….i constantly forget humidity,  it's almost unknown here except during times like these and it puts this layer of well Humidity on everything that for me, slows things,  dulls things,  thickens things.   It was Music Thursday and a very excellent one.  Alz. B.   sang and patted away with her hands in time and trilled away with Shirly and her mandolin who does the Celtic ballads  but aside from that it was a very dulled just going day  but i'd woken up this morning with Firm Resolve to get rid of the two futon mattresses and get a bunk bed.  I looked everywhere online,  there are no furniture stores here,  and jeez.  But i hate to admit it, but Walmart has a metal one.

Cheap.

but it will serve, i think.  I just need to go from Full to Twin.  Feel SO claustrophobic in there.  And, really,  all i do is sleep,  so…it will serve.  Most likely.  

 

and a little on the baby's Fishing Girl Pants.  Need to finish tomorrow.  She has a 9 inch inseam.  Is that sweet or what.  Had her mom measure.  (who didn't know what an inseam was)

 

have this much of the thrift shop shirt left….i guess i will need to make her a pinafore apron someday when she begins sous chef ing with her dad.

 

i cleaned up the table and these three scraps wanted to stay together.

I feel kind of brain dead,  flatlining……………………………………………………rain………………………………

and i almost forgot to say.  After all that anxiety,  all that comotion,  it might very well be that the BIG GIANT SCAREY STORM CELL has shifted just some and will miss us tonight entirely, head for Carlesbad in stead.  All that for not so much.  yup.  

 

 

woke off and on all night.   And finally this morning at 3a  and could not go back to sleep.  Very dark Out There.  Could not see.  Constant rain.   I tried several ways to wait until light….i tried to read,  i tried to draw,  i tried to clean up the sewing table,  i did dishes i'd left last night.  i thought about cleaning house  but dogs always go Out when i use the vacuum and they couldn't.   All i could really do is Listen for Them.  Also knowing that whatever i might hear,  there was Nothing to be done about it.

so i sat down and just thought about these kinds of moments that feel like the brink of the end of the world.   And how i actually know that it is not possible,  that whatever might occur will just be whatever it is and there will be Just Going from there.   But the discomfort of it is Wasted Energy and i would really like to go beyond it.   To really just skip  the end of the world part as soon as i feel it rising up,  to just be able to let it go immediately and move to the sense of Just Going.

So i ended up making this

an End of the World Pocket.

 

the denim actually is stitched to be a pocket.    Whatever it is,  today formless anxiety about the wellbeing of the Goats,  mostly the bucks,   needs to be written on a piece of paper,  placed in the pocket.   and walked away from.      Tomorrow is supposed to be the BIG Storm Day but then  by Saturday it will have moved on.   And i think on SUNday i would take out that piece of paper and look at what i wrote.   And i think put it back.  Let this be a permanent place for this kind of Useless Worry.   See how often something occurs that would be "pocket material".   And it would be important to always put the date.   

I don't know.  But it's what i did today beside washing out feed bowls and rearranging hay bales that Tay had arranged in her own way to create a space out of the rain while still outside.  

And once i got it all stitched,  i didn't need to use it.  Just the making of it was Enough.  So one more hard hard day and then we begin the just going.   And the priority will be to mend and extend the buck hut.  It's all i can really do.  Except to really realize that things are not "normal" anymore.  to not assume that things will be as expected.  I had thought i had time,  like through October to shore up the buck hut for winter.   But No.   And too,  this might not happen next year either,  but what i need to understand is that it Might and to not put things off.  To really prioritize.   And the Goats are number ONE.

 

 

 

This was yesterday morning in the Way Back.  Their stump is getting very beauty full when wet now.

 

 

This morning.   I moved all the feed bowls into the Middle Pen which is soggy,  but no standing water.   There were a few hours of this afternoon when the Beloved SUN shown and now there is a great dullness at the Rim.  More.  So, ok.   and Hey Ho.

 

I had put off posting last eve only to be surprised by a Sudden Electrical Storm.  So…went to bed.

It rained all night, is still raining this morning.  According to the forcast,  will rain all week,  with the most intense storms on Thursday.   I cross my fingers that the ditch banks hold.   The arroyos will Run strong and the week after,  will be interesting to see what they bring down with them.  Often some interesting stuff.  Bones, old car/truck parts/old tree roots.   I'll go back and visit the RIVER again.

Tay is undaunted and pursuing her new area of interest,  archaeology,   digging in the rain.  Her coat is interesting,  water just rolls off.

 

 

 

these three things i have not seen in many years.  The childs tea set tea cup was last used to mark a buriel of a dog,  Tootsie,  who died i guess almost 20 years ago.   

 

I can't believe and am so grateful that she found this shell.  It's very unusualy marked.  Off and on i had been sad that it went missing.

So if i don't show up here in the next days, it's because of storm activity.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~it's only 7:45 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~and it's 
DARK

 

 

Sometimes SunDay is the day before the next ones.  That's how this one was/is.   i couldn't focus much today,  i drifted.   There was so much that i wanted for this day that i ended up letting it just drift.  Too Much wanted…couldn't pull it off.  So, ok.

this was very interesting.  I don't have any idea how it happened,  the the "face" acquired more angularity and there is a bridge of the nose.  Nothing i did.  And i photographed it several times today and still…same.  So it's not the particular light of the day.  I don't know if they are visible, but there are blue stitches coming down from This Breather's place of Origin.  I will finish those but then i think that's Enough.  Enough.  and i'll move on.  

i'll wait to write more about Yerba Mansa.  

 

                                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

came back to look at what i wrote, put here.  Because, really,  i never know…it just comes out however it is.  and i looked.  Looked at the small beings at the bottom,  the human being and the animal being, which in this case could be either the Dog or the Goat…..and this is how it is.  We are small.  But we stand straight and Face.  So,  this cloth is GOOD.  it says what it needed to say.  Ok.

 

 

the information given here in quotes is from a print out of a web page   Medplant, new mexico state university which i printed out quite some time ago,  like years, and then again last May.  But when  i looked for it this morning,  it no  longer is available.   So…the quotes here.  Because i liked it very much and there were good photographs.  it is by Andrea Medina Summer 1999 and Fall 1999.

"Yerba is spanish for herb and mansa is the feminine form of the spanish word manso meaning tame, tranquil or calm.  I have found no information as to why the plant has been given this name and it has not been reported to have a sedative effect.  Yerba mansa does well in an arid climate though it must have plenty of water and is found growing in wet marshy niches..

Yerba mansa, a perennial is characterized as having a white spiked basal inflorescence surrounded by striking white bracts that are often mistaken for petals.  As the plant matures, it will develop red to purple stains on all of its aerial parts, the entire plant turning brick red in the fall.

Yerba mansa roots at the nodes of strong rhizomes and it has a mass of spongy looking roots, a combination which makes this plant a challenge to harvest.  Yerba mansa is very aromatic, the roots especially are said to be reminiscent of a cross between camphor and eucalyptus.  The plant has a distinct musty, spicy scent,  our noses led us to the stands in the Rio Grande Valley long before we actually saw it.

The broadleaf foliage is lush and spongy.  While gathering i discovered a wooly bear caterpillar, Estigmene acrea of the Arctidae family rapidly consuming huge portions of the leaves.  Estigmene acrea, commonly known as saltmarsh caterpillar, is an agronomic insect that poses a threat to cotton, alfalfa, and lettuce growers in the Mesilla Valley.  There is evidence that a minor infestation may reduce the chances of boil rot.  Presently, the catterpillar is in capitivity as i am curious to see the resulting moth".

So.  That's enough for now.  More tomorrow.

I have some un~Understood affinity for this plant.  I tried to grow a start that was given to me some years ago by the same people i went with today.  It didn't make it.  But i dyed some cloth with those "brick red" dried plant parts and got a very beautiful red/amber cloth.  Once.  And then… for reasons of circumstance,  i never tried to grow it again.  But i also never forgot it.   It is in my mind often.

 

 

these are mostly dried stems and  "blooms" .  Most of the plants were still green.  i boiled them for maybe 10 minutes.

 

a small bundle of muslin and one of linen.

 

 

Now Time and SUN.

 

 

 

i feel uhhh,  well,   ummmm not good,  i guess is good enough to say it.  i feel like we didn't honor the plant.  But though i tried,  it was just an almost hurried thing.  Mike,  Thelma's husband is edgy always and in a hurry to accomplish things.  Thelma's dad,  who was born in this Place as was all his family as long ago as anyone can remember,  is full of humor and kind of devil may care.   His wife,  the fourth member of this harvesting party wasn't feeling well.  They are old.  Like Old.  At one point i tried to say something about honoring the plant and her dad said.."What?  are you part Indian?,  i thought you were just Weda (blondie)" .  And i am wondering in this moment if i am too hesitant to uhhhh,  insist on things….?????  But i'll work with this tomorrow morning when i plant the two plants i brought home.  Work with this with THEM.  I don't know.  And i will go back now,  now that i know where they are and do it a different way.  So, maybe i should let it go for now.

 

propagates by runner

 

you don't visit the old ones here without taking a gift.  Preferbly something you have grown or cooked.  So i took eggplant, yellow hot peppers and a very succulent red onion that i didn't grow but came from the farm market i visit on every other Monday.  While cutting the eggplant,  i saw this one.  How BEAUTY FULL,  the marks, the flaws….i see a Grasshopper king driving a chariot .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

finished the kantha and as i did,  there was this odd sense of familiarity and suddenly, i knew…how amazing,  that i didn't  click before….i know this Being,  just in a different Form

 

 

She who Watches Over the Goats.   She's on the big living room window,  the West window, the window of the Rim.   You see her here surrounded by the oh so Fine and Beauty FULL veil that Yvette sent me….and this Breather…she is just a different form of this Goat Watcher…more well, Primitive,  by that meaning further from  "civilization"  that humanity knows today…so more primitive…as in Before.  ,  this  Breather.  

and then suddenly again,  i looked at the old one,  the Grandmother that i have had for years and years

 

Abalone.  you can see the two dremel holes i drilled so i could Wear her back in the day when i was younger and decorated myself,  i guess to make a statement of some kind.  She was my statement. 

So i see today that what comes now is not new.  But rather on going from so many years back and that Lifts me.  I float with this understanding.

Today was a great and fine day.  The morning. stitching.  then noon on,  OutSide,  clearing debris and working side by side in an odd way with Tay.  She occupied herself wholeHeartedly.  When i would pick up sticks and drop the in the kindling basket,  she would take them out and redistribute.  When i pulled unwanted weeds,  she would too…with her teeth and fling them with a snap of her head.  We worked.  Side by Side.   Big feelings about that.  She is a Fine Fine Being, this dog Tay.

and tomorrow morning i will go with Mike and Thelma who used to own Southwest Native Plants here.  but gave it up because they are not really business types,  …  we are going to Thelma's parents home that is along the Rio Grande and looking at the Yerba Mansa that grows of its own accord there.  Depending on the point in its cycle,  i may bring some plants home to put in on the north side of the house where the outside faucet drips when i water.  I had tried once before but put the plants in places too dry.   So.  It was just the Best day.  The Best a day could be.