Category: Jeanne’s Barefoot Heart (Page 57 of 99)

she draws:

i stitch:

Nancy used one pen stroke in this drawing.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

she draws (with one pen stroke):

i stitch:

Art is not making a beautiful surface,
or drawing a realistic apple.
Art is getting to an essence,
reaching the senses.
~ Shoichi Ida ~

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

She draws this (using a single pen stroke):

I stitch:

HE SITS DOWN ON THE FLOOR OF A SCHOOL FOR THE RETARDED
Alden Nowlan

I sit down on the floor of a school for the retarded,
a writer of magazine articles accompanying a band
that was met at the door by a child in a man’s body
who asked them, “Are you the surprise they promised us?”

It’s Ryan’s Fancy, Dermot on guitar,
Fergus on banjo, Denis on penny-whistle.
In the eyes of this audience, they’re everybody
who has ever appeared on TV. I’ve been telling lies
to a boy who cried because his favorite detective
hadn’t come with us; I said he had sent his love
and, no, I didn’t think he’d mind if I signed his name
to a scrap of paper: when the boy took it, he said,
“Nobody will ever get this away from me,”
in the voice, more hopeless than defiant,
of one accustomed to finding that his hiding places
have been discovered, used to having objects snatched
out of his hands. Weeks from now I’ll send him
another autograph, this one genuine
in the sense of having been signed by somebody
on the same payroll as the star.
Then I’ll feel less ashamed. Now everyone is singing,
“Old McDonald had a farm,” and I don’t know what to do
about the young woman (I call her a woman
because she’s twenty-five at least, but think of her
as a little girl, she plays that part so well,
having known no other), about the young woman who
sits down beside me and, as if it were the most natural
thing in the world, rests her head on my shoulder.

It’s nine o’clock in the morning, not an hour for music.
And, at the best of times, I’m uncomfortable
in situations where I’m ignorant
of the accepted etiquette: it’s one thing
to jump a fence, quite another thing to blunder
into one in the dark. I look around me
for a teacher to whom to smile out my distress.
They’re all busy elsewhere. “Hold me,” she whispers, “Hold me.”

I put my arm around her. “Hold me tighter.”
I do, and she snuggles closer. I half expect
someone in authority to grab her
or me; I can imagine this being remembered
forever as the time the sex-crazed writer
publicly fondled the poor retarded girl.
“Hold me,” she says again. What does it matter
what anybody thinks? I put my other arm around her and
rest my chin in her hair, thinking of children,
real children, and of how they say it, “Hold me”
and of a patient in a geriatric ward
I once heard crying out to his mother, dead
for half a century, “I’m frightened! Hold me!”
and of a boy-soldier screaming it on the beach
at Dieppe, of Nelson in Hardy’s arms,
of Frieda gripping Lawrence’s ankle
until he sailed off in his Ship of Death.

It’s what we all want, in the end,
to be held, merely to be held,
to be kissed (not necessarily with the lips
for every touching is a kind of kiss).

Yes, it’s what we all want, in the end,
not to be worshipped, not to be admired,
not to be famous, not to be feared,
not even to be loved, but simply to be held.

She hugs me now, this retarded woman, and I hug her.
We are brother and sister, father and daughter,
Mother and son, husband and wife.
We are lovers. We are two human beings
huddled together for a little while by the fire
in the Ice Age, two hundred thousand years ago.

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

Nancy draws (using 5 pen strokes):

I stitch:

“Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float
a little above this difficult world.”
– Mary Oliver

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

Nancy’s drawing (made with 2 pen strokes):

My re-creation in stitch:

Today Nancy’s art became a bib
or maybe a tie for
Spring Chicken.
He is part of the menagerie I call
my yard jewelry.

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

Nancy’s original drawing:

and my re-creation in stitch:

I ordered a large ledger book. 300 pages, 11 x 14 in size. I thought I could use it as a sort of linen press, putting one cloth between each page to keep them flat and clean. The ledger book came today, and while it’s beautiful (I’ve never yet met a blank book I don’t love), my idea isn’t going to work, so back it goes. Oh well. I ‘spect two thick pieces of cardboard and about a yard of colorful ribbon will do just as nicely.

There are 5 separate pen strokes in this drawing.

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

Nancy’s original drawing (made using 2 pen strokes):

my re-creation:

Stitched this one while watching a documentary on World War II and how the Nazis exterminated people like Nancy because of their imperfections. The intent was to create a pure and superior Aryan race, but of course the Nazis dressed their depravity in a pretty dress. Said it was a humane thing they were doing, to put these precious spirits out of the misery of having to live with their deformities. And hey, it was not just the Nazis who felt this way. History shows this was the prevailing scientific, medical, and cultural thinking long before Hitler came to power. It was quite chilling, actually, to be watching this show while stitching Nancy’s drawings. And maddening – oh my goodness, it was maddening beyond description. I think not just about history, but of all the alien movies and wars and feuds, and I wonder: when will we – will we ever – stop being afraid of those who are different? Will we ever open ourselves to learning from those who are different? Will we ever stop conquering, dismissing, and exterminating just because someone doesn’t look or sound like us? Just wonderin’.

And wishin’.

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

Nancy’s original drawing:
(The lighter lines and “freckles” are bleed through from the previous page. There are 4 pen strokes in this drawing.)

my recreation in stitch:

Three days ago, Nancy was at the dentist, and when the burr being used on her teeth went missing, she was whisked to the ER for x-rays to determine if she’d swallowed it. Nothing showed up, and last we heard, she was back home enjoying hamburgers for supper. Such is the way of our Nancy who can’t tell you in words that something hurts or point to where something is amiss or feeling different in her body. She doesn’t run a fever either, which can make it quite interesting when things go awry physiologically.

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.