Author: jeanne (Page 84 of 120)

I'm just your basic complicated simple red dirt girl who feels most beautiful when wearing skirts that caper and earrings that dangle. Entering into my Second Life (my tenured phase, I call it), I tell, write, stitch, and perform stories about this time of life when the mythological (and downsized) empty nest is now filled with aging pets, aging parents, a retired husband, and the knowledge that you're living on the finite side of infinity.

magic

April 25, 2012 / jeanne / 0 Comments

Stitches

stitching.
battening down,
i call it.

riding the thread
to places
unknown
and known but forgotten
and known . . . but maybe not really.

rhythm
soothing
surprising
and still
relaxing in its predictability.

up and down

space for pondering things like
being taken care of
and
self reliance
and
my children
and
my female ancestors
who spent a goodly
part of each day
stitching.
thinking
about fine lines
distinguishing
humility from self-deprecating humor,
for example
and how easy it is for us
to believe the worst in ourselves
instead of the best.
why is that, anyway?

back and forth

thinking backwards about what was,
forward about what if,
and right now
about what is.
or what i sense
is
is.

in and out

thoughts flying.
captured
then released.
remembered
then forgotten,
marked
then erased.

stitches
knots
woven
frayed.

cutting through

April 23, 2012 / jeanne / 9 Comments

Scissors1

I’d like to add his initial to my monogram
Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?

There’s a somebody I’m longin’ to see
I hope that he, turns out to be
Someone who’ll watch over me.

i’ve been a feminist all my life, and yet . . . these lyrics to the george gershwin song always bring tears to my eyes.

always.

do i strive for self-reliance because of feminism or is it borne of disappointment and enough experience to know the truth behind the old saying “if you want something done right, do it yourself”? does it matter? and even though most days i want to be a self-reliant woman, i am not ashamed to tell you that way down deep, i want to be taken care of.

at least sometimes.

“can a woman be self-reliant and still feel betrayal and abandonment at the hands of another?” i recently asked a friend of mine who enjoys these chewy conversations as much as i do. of course one question begets another then another, such as: is self-reliance really the goal, and if so, what does desirable/healthy self-reliance look like? and: how has the journey to self-reliance hurt women? helped women? and last (for now) but definitely not least: say we want to be held, to be seen, to be taken care of (at least on occasion). is that possible to go hand-in-hand with being self-reliant? which, of course, leads us to still more questions about asking for help, vulnerability, worthiness . . .

you get the gist.

join in if you want. share your thoughts, your questions, your stories. the more the merrier . . .

~~ ::: ~~

today’s altar is dedicated to cutting through it – whatever “it” is, staying with “it” as long as it takes.

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staying . . . again

April 22, 2012 / jeanne / 9 Comments

Process

when i hatched the idea for 365 altars, it was on the fly – an impromptu project that appealed to me in many ways and for many reasons. (we’ll talk later.) but then i began to think too darn much, and before long, i’d thought myself right into the sideline bleachers. but here i am, back today with renewed commitment to persevering, even in the throes of uncertainty.

and to mark this occasion, i choose this particular cloth-in-progress. i’ve been working on it a good little while – in fits of starts and stops. i get to a place of blankness and stop, laying it down to work on something else a while, then like magic, i see what to do next with this cloth, so back into my hands it flies until the next blankness.

such is the nature of creativity, me thinks, ephemeral cauldrons swirling with alternating bouts of certainty and uncertainty, stitched together with a commitment to “simply” stay with it until the blankness is a certainty that you’ve reached the finish line and you raise your head to see a path, a doorway, breadcrumbs leading to what’s next . . .

~~ :: ~~

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seepage

April 16, 2012 / jeanne / 5 Comments

Seepage

from In Real Life‘s post on facebook today,
an adorable photo
and this caption:
“Why are you trying so hard to fit in
when you were born to stand out?”

and this good question from sandi faviell amorim of deva coaching:
“Question, play, challenge, inspire, nudge, shine => that’s me.
How do you express your greatness?”

let’s just call this
all the encouragement
i need . . .

i am tired of
being told
to be a cookie cutter
woman
by governments
and schools
and cultures
and religions.

i don’t flock
and i don’t herd.
not any more.

(don’t say i didn’t warn you.)

:: ~ ::

Today’s altar is this little altar cloth,
dedicated to the precious,
refreshing,
one-of-a-kind,
unstoppable
irrepressible
one-of-a-kind
individuals
we all are.

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tumult, 2

April 12, 2012 / jeanne / 8 Comments

Tumult2a

sometimes when you just keep going
when you just keep grappling
when you just flatout refuse to stop,
beautiful shiny
colorful jewels
spill forth
from the very epicenter
of the chaotic
tumult.

the chaotic tumult
is ragged,
rough,
it is seldom
mistaken for
pretty.
or comfortable.
and the shiny treasures
that spew –
they’re nondescript
and indecipherable,
at least at first,
but still
they shine on,
beacons.

:: ~ ::

Today’s altar is this altar cloth,
dedicated to the treasures that
sometimes spring from
tenacious tumult.

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tumult

April 11, 2012 / jeanne / 8 Comments

Chaos1res

i am agog
with images,
and i want to stitch
most of them
but sometimes
(more often than not)
when i pick up cloth
and thread a needle,
i see blank.
it’s neither white
or black
just the color
of nothing.
and then i worry
if i ever really
saw any images
in the first place
or if this is a sign
that i’m not to stitch
the images.
maybe i’m just
going crazy,
overestimating
my creative capability.

things swirl
and grow.

who do i think i am,
anyway.
(there’s no question mark
because that is no question.)

i refuse to live
in nothingness,
so i turn my hands loose
to grapple.
to gather
and join
fabrics.
and to give
my hands
space
without interference,
i set my brain
aside in a playpen
and turn it loose.

or do i?

is that even possible?

i remember the delightful
conversation i had with my son’s
girlfriend this past
sunday morning.
she regaled me with
the overlay
of her undergraduate
humanities studies.
at the essential core
was identity
and from there,
each year was
spent reading about
and pondering
identity in
specific contexts.

i want a copy of her
syllabi
(is this how you say
“more than one syllabus”?)
(i’m fluent only in
english and southern,
you know.)
when she can dig it
out of storage
so i can forge
down that same
trail.
will i find myself
there in the books
she read
so many years ago?
will i finally know
who i am
and
why i’m here
and what i am
supposed to do
on my stay?

do i make too much of this?
where “this” is
my self,
my life?

why can’t i just be satisfied
to be here,
to take one day
at a time,
living it
wherever it takes me?

am i too big for
my britches
in even considering
that i’m here for a
particular purpose?

is that too high falutin’?

who do i think i am?

is that the voice of
my big, bad
you-ought-to-be-ashamed-of
ego?

and as if that isn’t enough,
i’m on the verge
of a new identity,
one that has me
swirling
and pinging
and tumbling
in emotional
and existential
angst.

:: ~ ::

Iris6

my mother loves irises,
and they are beginning to
fill her backyard
with color.
seen through my macro lens,
they appear as
an entryway.
perhaps not a yellow brick road,
but a road nevetheless.
a road leading into
the unknown.
into possibility.
into Mystery.
an altar
of the finest
most inviting
(if not the most unsettling)
kind.

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nourishment

April 9, 2012 / jeanne / 8 Comments

“where were you and what were you doing when you heard about world war 2?” i ask my mother. i’d never thought to ask her that before, and i can’t tell you why not, but at least i ask her now.

she tells me that she was at school, so she didn’t hear about it till the day after. says she was 13 years old, so most of her reaction came from watching her parents. she can still remember the look on her daddy’s face, she says, then she goes on to tell me about how her mother preserved food – a lot of food, even canning biscuits and water. “if she’d thought about it and we had a place, i’m sure she would’ve built a bomb shelter,” mother says, and though she was remembering down one road, i remembered how i set about building a bomb shelter in 4th grade, complete with food and pillows and books and board games and safety/preparedness drills.

i knew my grandmother canned food – her pantry was always filled from her larger than large summer garden – but i never knew till that day last week that grandmother and i had preservation and planning for the future – our future and our loved ones’ futures – in common.

[insert face-size smile]

don’t you love stories that connect you with your ancestors? that help explain quirky characteristics about yourself? what questions would you ask one of your ancestors? you can do it without sitting next to them in the car, you know. just get our your pen and paper, write the question, then be quiet and see what appears.

one of the best questions i asked my now-deceased daddy is “what would the 40-year old you like like the 40 year old me to know about being 50?” (hint: you don’t have to ask living people face-to-face, and you don’t have to ask only deceased people these questions that your inquiring mind wants to know.)

:: – ::

p.s. my mother also told me that because of world war 2, there weren’t many school teachers to be found, so they had to take the fella who got lost walking the 3 blocks from boardinghouse to school. she also told me about one c harkness, a young woman who daddy asked out once. but, mother hastened to add, they never actually went out. i’m thinking there’s more to this story. stay tuned . . .

:: – ::

i spent this afternoon cooking and filling the freezer of my son who lives in denver (note: far too far away, if you ask me) with vegetable soup, lasagne, and spaghetti sauce. (that’s when i remembered the story my mother told me about grandmother preserving food in anticipation of possible ripple effects of world war 2.) today’s altar is about nourishment . . . from stories and food and love.

Nourish

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longing

April 3, 2012 / jeanne / 10 Comments

Dress2

i adopted it this weekend

Dress3

it was the stains that convinced me

in stone

March 30, 2012 / jeanne / 16 Comments

PetrifiedPinecone

a petrified pinecone.

yes, really.

to see this pinecone
is to see an altar.
a special space
that’s nestled inside layers
of fierce protection
from the outside world.
a space filled
with layers
and lightning
and shifts
and color
and sparkle
and spaciousness
and i think yes,
that’s what an altar is.
a place –
even a place
in the center
of the usual daily hubub –
where we can go
to mark a space for ourselves,
where we can define
(perhaps to ourselves)
what’s most important
right here, right now,
where we can lay claim to
our most sumptuous selves.

:: /// ::

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Of Mere Being

March 19, 2012 / jeanne / 15 Comments

OfMereBeing7

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze distance.

OfMereBeing5

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

OfMereBeing3

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

OfMereBeing6

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

~Wallace Stevens, 1954~

Thank you, Karen Sharp.
I couldn’t find words to thank you for the gift you sent,
so I stitched an altar cloth for it,
and today it is my altar . . .
that feather you sent wrapped in your note.
so much more than a feather and a note.
divine energy.
alchemy, i’d call it.
alchemy through the experience of seeing.

///

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