Accepted

It's been awhile since the last post. Good grief, that one really set me up for this one in an unforseen way.

Last evening I learned that a micro story I wrote has been accepted and will be in the next issue of the online publication 100 Word Story. Good news! My story "Final Tally" is a little gritty, and I wonder how it will be received by those who know me as a quiet quilter.

Ah, well, it is autumn. We harvest and sort during this time of year. Perhaps I will be culled in some circles, but so be it. "Final Tally" is my work and I stand by each and every word. Even the f-bomb.

Freakin' Out

Searching to discover “my purpose,” on a quixotic quest for understanding, unable to recognize the Holy Grail of creativity, I stopped to rest in front of a directional signpost on the book of faces, the wildly popular, often obnoxious, website where I wander. WTF?

A quote posted by a group reminiscing about the hippies’ peace and freak philosophy of the 1960s and ‘70s jumped off the computer screen. Brilliant tie-dye red, blue, yellow, green and purple swirling lights exploded and scorched my eyelashes. I caught my breath and exhaled. Freedom! A freedom path.

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”-Alan Watts

I wasn’t a hippie or a peace freak back in the day. I was a sequestered young mom living a traditional life more suited to the previous generation. Now? Not a hippie, but much less traditional. Definitely, a peace advocate.

A freak? Oh, yeah! I confess. I am a freak, a creativity freak, finally willing to pursue the crazy ideas that appear like comic book dialog in my brain. First project? A flag. Freak flag. Tie dye fabric. Patchwork quilt roots, but funky, with some appliqued and sequined red shoes. Not traditional. Far out, with words. My words. Fearless words for all the world to see.

July 21, 2013

Defining Peter Pan

Opening my dad’s old dictionary this morning, a prize from a Rotary Club spelling bee, the bold guide words Peter Pan jumped out from the top right corner of a page. Yes, the boy who never grew up has an entry in the 1971 blue cloth edition of Webster’s. Immediately above P.P. is the fisherman from Galilee. Jesus is on page 456. On impulse I checked to see if any female players in the stories warrant inclusion. Tinker Bell? Absent. Mary? No. Multiple numbered definitions would be necessary if that noun were listed.

Four score and two years have passed since the publication of my battle-worn Seventh New Collegiate. Online dictionary investigation doesn’t seem the proper theater to research any changes in the mapping of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Peter, Jesus, and Mary. A field trip to Better World Books to purchase a 2003 printing of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Eleventh Edition is my strategy. After I learn how the Peter Pan skirmish evolved, as I look up other words and compare the previous and current editions, it will be interesting to discover: what remains unchanged, what is added, what has been deemed irrelevant and left behind.

Haiku from the sewing room

Woe is the quilter
with wonky quarter-inch seams
unsew, unsew, un...

...quilt guild show and tell
vulnerability looms
church ladies do judge.

Early Arrival

Temperatures here in northern Indiana are averaging in the 20s, nearly twenty degrees  below normal. This little lamb must be a little puzzled. I saw him yesterday, the first one spotted this season. His Mama stamped her a feet a few times. She didn't like her baby having his picture taken.

Biscuits and Birds

Abandoned cabin in Ramsey Canyon, AZ 

Seeking a respite from one of the midwestʼs especially brutal winters a few years ago, we high-tailed it to Arizona. The Grand Canyon. Petrified Forest. Flagstaff. The ancient Anasazi site called Wupatki. Kingman. Quartzsite. Bisbee. Tombstone. Tucson. 

After settling in Tucson and quickly going broke at the annual fossil, mineral, bead, and gem shows, we met friends for the traditional pilgrimage to Pinnacle Peak for barbecue. Some things are just so corny you have to do it. Wear a tie and theyʼll cut it off and nail it on the beams, adding to their collection of severed ties of especially bad design. Driving to our friendsʼ home after stuffing ourselves, minus our thrift shop neckties, we all settled in the back yard to await the evening visit of the roadrunner. 

The next morning we headed out early, destination Ramsey Canyon, a Nature Conservancy site. It is a secluded gorge about an hour and a half south of Tucson. Forested with pine, fir, and maple intermingled along the steep slopes, sycamore grow on the floor of the valley where their demanding roots are assured of water access. All these trees are not far from arid desert plants. An intimate little canyon, during the bare-branch season the limbs extend as arms and hands into blue sky-soil. 

Home of up to fourteen species of hummingbirds, Ramsey Canyon is known as “The Hummingbird Capital of the United States.” While we didnʼt see any hummers the day we visited, I did spy my dream retreat, a tiny, tired, dilapidated shack melding with the trees and underbrush just a short distance off the main path. I have no explanation for my recurring affinity to little ramshackle buildings like this. The porch sags. The roof sags. The spirit of the abandoned old homestead sags. Itʼs inevitable when I see a secluded orphan like this I feel the urge to nurture it back to life. My immediate instinct is to go inside, sweep it out, fire up the trusty old cookstove I imagine waiting for me, scrub the rickety work table, and bake biscuits. Yes, biscuits. Not biscuits and gravy. I see just plain baking powder biscuits piled high on a white ironstone platter, served with fresh sweet butter and your choice of homemade raspberry jam or honey from the hives out back near the spring-fed creek. 

If you donʼt mind, set the table on the porch while I get a fresh batch of biscuits in the oven. I'll fill the feeders and get the binoculars, too. Then we can sit outside and count hummers until dark. You may sit in that big oak rocker with the cushion, if you like. Itʼs most comfortable for extended porch sitting and hummingbird viewing. Be very still and you may hear their tiny engines before you see them dart into view. Biscuits are ready. Help yourself while they're hot. More coffee? If you get chilly, pull that quilt off the back of the rocker and cover up.

Another Christmas Past

Already two weeks into January, the holidays are definitely over. I'm writing to pack them away for another year.

It's hard to get excited about major Christmas decorating without kids who believe in Santa Claus living in the house anymore, yet I still put up the big monster eight foot tall artificial tree again for just hubby and me. Oldies who refuse to grow up completely, we enjoy the thousand cheerful lights on those long December evenings, and also plug in the tree in the morning to brighten the start of the day for the neighborhood children walking down the lane to the school bus stop.

It's such an emotional time, the holidays. Getting out, and into, the boxes of decorations takes strength. It takes physical strength hauling the tree and a dozen big boxes up from the basement, climbing up and down the ladder to position lights, baubles, and tinsel. Yes, I really put shimmering silver strands on the plastic branches. But, the hardest part is the emotional strength I muster up to delve into the memories of decades of Christmases.

As I open the boxes, handmade ornaments and the hands who made them come to mind. Vignettes of my life appear. I tear up thinking of our first baby dressed in his little football sleeper and laid under the Christmas tree, our own miracle. Hubby's parents and mine are all gone. Grandparents gone a long time ago. Families are smaller for one reason or another. The year Santa barely got the Sears harvest gold toy refrigerator and stove put together before the kids came galloping down the stairs, and the year he forgot Guns of Navarone playset, which this year sold on eBay for $250.00. Our daughter in her flannel nightgown tearing around the kitchen table in her new clamp-on roller skates. The fresh turkey that smelled like it had been dead a year when I took it out of the bag to cook for dinner. Oh, the fowl was foul that year!

So, as I sit at my computer, hot tea and good music keeping me company, I wrap up the 2012 holidays, stash them in my heart-vault bulging with memories, wish you well, and go back to work on quilts for each of our grown children for Christmas 2013. I have a few blocks done already. The pattern? Tree of Life.

2/20 update: All 32 blocks are done and ready to be joined. Then add borders and off to            
                   longarm quilter to work her magic. Next up? Same quilt, slightly different
                   colors for the leaves.

truancy

I've been a blogging truant for most of 2012, but promise something new to wind up this year.

First New Year's Resolution? I will blog at least once a week in 2013. I will blog at least once a week in 2013!

Today is Poem In Your Pocket Day

In the spirit of #pocketpoem on twitter, I share this.

Defining Success

Each day I write a little something, believing one day

a wordsmith's bullet will hit the target. It isn’t easy,

resurrecting dormant vocabulary and proper punctuation,

diagramming feelings into prose and poetry;

however, I shamelessly aim for heartfelt truth

and fire off simple rounds. If the only upshot

my writing accomplishes is to cause the reader

(yes, you!) to realize you have much to say,

then, my posted ponderings become successful

when you set pen to paper, fingertips to keyboard,
and shoot your words into the bulls-eye.

Cathy Safiran

March 25, 2012

First Impression

Being a lover of winter, snow, and fairy tales, I was immediately intrigued when I learned of Eowyn Ivey’s first novel, The Snow Child, set in Alaska. Newlyweds in 1966, hubby and I bought the books Homesteading in Alaska, and How to Get Out of the Rat Race and Live on $500 a Year. That never happened. Still dreamers, Alaska is on our bucket list.

The Snow Child is a delight to hold. The paper is lightly textured and feels like cotton. An impish mysterious small figure peeks from behind the paper-white bark of a stark tree. A red fox peeks from behind another tree and watches the child. The dark night holds a sliver of the moon- or is it an eclipse? Perhaps an eye? I’m only on page forty, so I’m eager to discover everything that will be revealed in the story.

I inspected this book carefully before beginning to read. First edition 2012. The paper feels gentle. The type is the perfect size for bedtime reading by tired eyes. There is a handmade quality to this edition. The edge of the book is not surgically sliced at a hard ninety degree angle. The pages are slightly angled, almost divided in sections, like the sewn signatures of a hand made book. The cover beneath the dust jacket is white as snow and the end papers are dark-night blue. Lovely. A mother who always swaddled her babies, I feel Eowyn Ivey’s story is revered by the designers of her book and her publisher Little, Brown and Company by the way The Snow Child is presented. I know I am in for a treat!

Swaddled in bed last night beneath a wool blanket and down throw, our house as still as Jack and Mabel's homesteader cabin, I began reading The Snow Child and slipped with them into their world near the Wolverine River in Alaska. I read slowly, pondering Eowyn Ivey’s phrases, sentences, and skill as a writer. And, tonight, when I read from The Snow Child, I hope to again fall asleep with a tear on my cheek that sparkles as one of Alaska’s snowflakes.

Cathy Safiran

February 5, 2012

Off the Color Wheel

1952, Illinois, Kankakee, kindergarten. Ah, the headiness of it all. A blue plaid dress from J.C. Penney for the first day of school, something new that didn’t come out of a bag of cast-off clothing, hung pressed in the closet. My straight baby fine white-blonde hair became curly, thanks to a smelly Toni Home Permanent with crispy endpapers, rubber curlers in three sizes, and mom’s nimble fingers. Grooming? Check. Wardrobe? Check. Eager to step over the threshold of education? Definitely, check.

The original section of Steuben School was two story, built of Illinois weathered yellow ochre limestone cut into large rectangular rough-sided blocks. It looked a lot like the town’s stately library with bronze lion statues out front. A turret projected from a corner of the school between the first and second floors where surely Rapunzel lived before the prince rescued her.

The kindergarten entrance in the new red brick one-story modern design wing, built the year before to accommodate the first post-war babies, was only a block and a half away. A crossing guard, faithfully stationed at the end of the block twice a day, made it possible to walk alone, mom waving goodby from the front porch. Grown up at last. Free of my mother’s hand.

One day during the first week of school, our class marched single file through the hallways and up a short flight of steps to the doorway of an office in the turret and was introduced to Mrs. Red, our principal who did not look like Rapunzel. Sternly she informed us, this is where students who misbehave and do not repent are sent. Everyone’s eyes grew round, but somber Mrs. Red, stationed behind her massive desk, didn’t fool me. She had to be a good person because she looked like Kate Smith singing her way onto television in the afternoons with “God Bless America.”

The kindergarten teacher, Miss Cyrier, was young and smiling. The round tables with matching chairs fit me perfectly; my feet even touched the floor. A new soft chenille throw rug served as my mat for our midmorning break. Age five was tender in those days. Still regarded as babies, it was believed we couldn’t manage to stay awake for three hours of school. At nap time, I laid my head down, but never slept, always rested my head above the elbow, on my skinny arm of a pillow, and spied through slitted eyes at what the other kids were doing.

The excitement of art class occurred the last half hour every Friday. Miss Cyrier had an endless supply of manila paper stacked in the cupboard at the back of the room. We would line up, one table group at a time, and receive in our clean hands the blessing of one brand new piece of thick, creamy, drawing paper. I always put it to my nose, trying to inhale its essence. Then, back to the table. To creativity. Art.

Armed with the basic box of eight Crayola Crayons and the fresh sheet of manila, I was on my own. The word “sketch” was not in my vocabulary. Nor “draw.” Only “color.” At home I was precise, staying within the lines of pictures in coloring books. Little Lulu was my favorite. One transforming day, a visiting friend taught me to trace heavily with red, green, blue, or purple over the black outlines of the pictures and, as they say now, “Make it my own.” Unfortunately, there were no coloring books at Stupid School. I opened the box, pulled the Crayolas partially out, plastered the sheet of manila to the table, and stared.

Each Friday afternoon I daringly turned my paper horizontal and methodically drew the same wide landscape. Two inches of blue sky created with back and forth strokes and two inches of vertical green jagged grass at the bottom set the foundation for my house. It was the classic two-story, windows drawn in black with four square little panes, inverted V roof, and red brick chimney with the required spiral of smoke rising above, but definitely well below the blue sky. If time permitted, I would add a few pitiful attempts at yellow or red flowers by the front door. One day I became brave enough to add a bare tree and got pretty good at branches and twigs. My first sketches!

Soon came the day I never expected. Hopeful teacher that she must have been, Miss Cyrier issued her challenge: we were instructed not to draw the same pictures, not to copy from our neighbor, draw a favorite thing. She believed we could do it. Battle-tested Mrs. Red would have known better.

Yes! I was ready. To warm up, prepare for the challenge, I turned my paper horizonal as usual. Drew the blue sky and green grass as usual. Next, I would draw my favorite thing, but in a bright color. Without knowing, I was heading into dangerous territory. I shut my eyes tight. I could see my favorite thing behind my eyelids. There it was in all its magnificence. Trigger. Roy Rogers’ horse. 

I chose to draw Trigger purple. Crayon tight in hand, trying to transfer the image behind my eyelids to the manila paper, I began with the pointed ears, keeping them a little below the sky. Cautiously, I headed down the paper, curving at the base of the neck and onto the back. I decided since Trigger was in the corral I wouldn’t need a saddle, but would make a little dip where it would rest. Down, over, up a little bit to the back end of the horse. Whoa! Trigger looks like he’s got a big blanket roll there. I knew all the horse-talk from the TV cowboy shows. Another creative decision awaited. Take a deep breath, draw all four legs and feet, and stop. The tail would be easy and be drawn last. Okay. Easy.

Miss Cyrier suddenly interrupted to announce time was almost up and to finish quickly. Well, any hope of salvation of that portrait of Trigger ended right then. That crayon got nervous, squiggled down to the grass, across just a mite, back up, curve the stomach down, and then two front legs and feet. This was not going well. At some places on the legs the crayon marks met, leaving the impression of a horse on stilts. The head was, well, the image of my thumb. It just stuck off the body at an odd angle. I didn’t even have time to detail his eyes, nor put a smile on his face, and not even add a glorious mane and tail. But, I did manage to grab the red crayon and stroke on a half-inch wide red frame around Trigger in His Pasture. Time was up. I was nervous. Even I couldn’t recognize Trigger.

Miss Cyrier soon stood behind me, peered over my shoulder, and gave me my first true lesson in the world of art and art critics. I can still hear her scalding words to this day. “Cathy,” she said, “that is a very nice cow.” She evidently didn’t understand folk art, nor cows either. There were not any of the hanging milky-things under the animal in my drawing. Did she think it was a cow just because it was purple?

I didn’t think of Miss Cyrier much in the following years, but often felt a twinge of apprehension when a drawing pencil or marker was in my hand. Decades passed, three to be exact. Attending an auction outside of Kankakee, just several miles from good old Steuben “Stupid” School, one evening the auctioneer held up a piece that was destined to be mine. I was nervous, trying to anticipate any bidding competition and debating my bid limit. I decided to bid every dollar and piece of change in my purse. $12.50 I would pay. That was a lot of money then, when the kids always needed shoes. Within half an hour the object of my desire was on the auction block, derided with chuckles and groans from the crowd. I bid. I won. The only bidder.

“Sold!” called the auctioneer as he banged his wooden gavel on his auction wagon counter. “Sold for $1.00 to the lady who thinks she’s got herself a real prize.” The crowd roared. I remained unscalded, thinking, “You bunch of dummies don’t even recognize folk art when you see it.” Neither did Miss Cyrier.

Charmed by my good fortune, I rolled the little three by four foot antique hand-hooked wool rug and tucked it under my arm. Featured horizontally in the center of the rug was my kindergarten drawing: bright blue sky, half circle chrome yellow sun with darting rays, one fluffy white cloud, green pasture, and a smiling purple horse. It was even framed in red.

I wish I knew the woman who made the little wool rug. But, in a way I do, for I think of my little misunderstood purple horse drawn on manila paper and the underappreciated wool rug with a purple horse as distant cousins, both made by those who create what makes them happy, no matter how naive the attempt or untraditional the result.

going high tech

new Kindle device

came in quiet plain brown box

seems cold, clinical

no paper, no ink

examining wireless

lightweight plastic screen

seems impersonal

platonic relationship

perhaps I’m too old

staid in my known ways

secondhand, indie bookstores

wandering, browsing

ready, get set, go

I love new technology

bravely venture forth

at the coffee shop

firing up wireless

so much temptation

Alchemy

Members of a writing group I am in began writing sonnets, Shakespeare. Here's my humble offering patterned after the bard's Sonnet 18.

Alchemy--after William Shakespeare

May I propose to make a quilt with you,

Cut sadness from old wounds and scars untold?

Pray this lifeʼs garden bloom all lovely hues,

Before sharp frost sneaks in our beds so cold.

This stone floor boasts remnants of cast off clothes,

Cerulean skirt blood-soaked on the hem,

Black mourning suit tear-stained with old sad woes,

It seems a quilt from these canʼt be a gem.

I hear you can be very hard to please.

Dark nightmares I do not intend to breed.

Perchance for strange new brilliance I may tease,

And choose bright happy cloth but never plead.

I'll not hang tough nor tempt you more with pause.

Come here, slip 'neath this silken rainbow gauze.

Cathy Safiran

November 17, 2010

The Beekeeper

It's been a few weeks since I took this photo of a local farmer moving white painted wooden bee skeps in the back of his tractor-pulled wagon. Just through the trees lies his destination, a shaded spot suitable for this collection of white boxes which will be stacked and will house his bees. They are placed in a U-shaped area, a dozen structures as tall as a man, arranged in a semicircle beneath the shade of the spreading limbs. Beyond the trees are huge fields, perhaps several hundred acres of pasture and crops, which the bees call their own.

I've written about concern for the pollinators before. Though we have flowers and clover, and the neighbors have apple and cherry trees, I have not seen honey bees again this year. Perhaps they have chosen the life of domesticity. I don't know. But, thanks to the bee keepers the honey supply in our area is plentiful and the bees are productive.

Change of Plans

A couple of minutes ago when I sat here to finally post something new, I thought it would be about the cancellation of our Canada trip. Seems a brother of the friends who are our hosts has decided he will be going instead. Which is fine. Really. Though I did, and do, want to visit the wild and remote wilderness lake again I'm surprisingly not upset. For some unknown reason the decision to go is out of our hands.

Scrolling through the list of my photos, looking for one to post with a planned lament about our change of plans, I found my picture of Great Serpent Mound in south central Ohio which I took a couple of years ago. The sinuous switchbacks of the earthworks is always magnetic for me. The first time we visited I ran to the incline (the one in the lower right corner), prostrated myself upon the grass skin of the mound, and melted into the serpent. This sits above a beautiful river. Looking over the edge of the bluff, the towering sycamores are beneath my feet. It is a sacred place. Sacred trees. Sacred effigy.

So, instead of trekking north and across the border, we'll be home. Touching familar earth under our feet. Working in the garden. Whatever. It's all good.

Seize the Day

This week, immersed in laying out license plate letters and making a few signs, my mind kept busy spinning its threadbare story of how I don't have time or the ability to write.

So, this afternoon, feeling a little out of sorts because of my lack of haiku or verse this week, wrapping the last sign for tomorrow's shipment, the mini-billboard I held was shouting the real purpose of life: Carpe Diem.

I don't kid myself about my writing. I can turn out some decent haiku, occasionally a poem works, and sometimes feel deeply enough about a sycamore or person or thought to pen a short essay. Novelist, no. Mystery writer, no. But, give me a pile of old junkyard stuff, saw and paint, hammer and nails, and I'm prolific. As I pondered the Carpe Diem sign in my hand today, I truly understood time is not given to be wasted. And, there are many ways I write in my world.

A Personal Profile in Courage

This is National MS Week. Multiple Sclerosis. About thirteen years ago our lovely young daughter-in-law was diagnosed with MS.

Before MS she was a teacher, cross country coach taking her team to levels they never imagined, downhill skier, and back country hiker and camper. A little over a year ago she began again to participate in outdoor sports in a different way. And, she is still teaching by demonstrating bravery, tenacity, and hope.

Meet C., our beautiful daughter-in-law. Here she is, back on skis for the first time since her diagnosis, in December 2008. Our son said it was the best Christmas present ever and his smile reveals that.

C., you are a true profile in courage and we love you very much.

What's On My Plate

Finally, back to my blog. When I began this, I hoped I would be disciplined and post on a regular basis. Well, so much for good intentions. But, I did have good intentions to create a workspace in the basement and though not really complete, it's comfortable and in use nearly every day, if only for a short time. I still want to empty a couple bookcases down there and shelve all my quilt books and supplies. The wonderful thing about this space is silence. The only sound I can hear is the furnace behind the wall. No tv. No radio. I do have a mini travel dvd player that is rarely used but keeps me from feeling deprived.

The pieces on the plate are for an English Medallion quilt. The pattern is by Bettina Havig. So far the directions are precise and everything is going well. Knock on wood! I actually feel like a real quilter since I moved into this space. My work table from the second hand store cost only $20. The top was a little worn but that didn't bother me and I just applied a couple of coats of varnish and painted the legs. It's big enough for my old portable sewing machine which boasts the names of New Home and Janome. Must be New Home sold to Janome? I haven't checked that out. The only reason I chose that one is my hubby's grandmother had a New Home treadle which I have down there, and intend to get cleaned and running, in the cutting area. I forgot to mention I have an eight foot banquet table elevated with pvc pipe in an adjacent room. Lucky me! No bending over to cut. The other machine, the one pictured here, is a birthday present to myself a couple of years ago. It's a dandy little white Singer Featherweight. I swear when I switched to this machine my sewing improved dramatically. When I feed the little pieces under the presser foot they slide right in and through. No more thread tangling and pulling the fabric down and out of sight. It's so nice to have both machines always on the same table. Always ready to sew. Always ready to sew with a friend. :)

~~the 2nd photo is supposed to be here but haven't figured that out :(

The second photo is my batting covered wall. This tip I learned from a local gal who taught me to use the rotary cutter and mat and gave me the confidence that I can make quilts. Just like the old Colorforms plastic dolls, the quilt blocks stick to the batting and it makes a huge difference watching the quilt come together. Even the large center assemblage is just clinging without any pins.

It's snowy and cold here tonight. We are so blessed to be warm and safe.

Thanks for visiting.

Wheat Harvest in Amish Country

Driving the back roads of LaGrange County Indiana recently, I came upon a field of standing wheat shocks which were harvested in the labor intensive ancient way. The ripe golden wheat is first cut using cast iron farm implements drawn by a team of sturdy draft horses driven by the farmer. In this particular field the crop was raked into small bundles, hand tied with green twine, and then the small bundles stacked into the larger shocks shown in this photo. You can see a closeup of the individually tied bundles in the previous post. The raking, tying, and stacking is often the work of the women and children. The women work in a long polyester dress, apron, and bonnet. This is only a portion of the field.

The beauty of the scene is breathtaking.

And so is the work behind it.

Close up of wheat shocks

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

Here's a closeup of the wheat shocks in the above post.

If you look closely you can see the green string that holds each small bundle together.

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