+ Her Barefoot Heart
Commandment number one of any truly civilized society is this:
Let people be different.
~ David Grayson
~~~~~~~~~
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.
And pssst: there’s a pinterest board, too.
My heart quickened when I opened the latest issue of HandEye Magazine to read an article penned by Yumiko Sakuma about Shobu Gaskuen, a rehabilitation facility in Japan for mentally and physically challenged individuals. The facility opened in 1973 with residents working on projects as subcontractors. Then, when a new director came aboard in 1983, there was a shift from taking orders to making their own creations. Being fluent only in English and Southern, I have written a friend of mine (my thesis advisor, actually – a woman whom I absolutely adore) who lives in Japan for help in translating the web site and helping in finding out more about the organization. I am gobsmacked, as you might imagine, cheering right out loud when I read this sentence in the article, a quote from Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada who has visited and written about Shobu Gakuen: “The artists at Shobu Gakuen are free of value judgment and conventional ideas about what art should be. They live in a freer world than we do. So in a way it is natural that what they make is beautiful.” I see Nancy stitched and drawn and written and woven all through that sentence.
Oh, and those 3 brown things to the left of the stitched version of Nancy’s drawing? They are buckeyes. For good luck.
~~~~~~~~~
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.
And pssst: there’s a pinterest board, too.
Her 108th drawing:
My 108th stitching:
Day 2 of the Storytelling Festival started with a car pulling into the parking space right beside us. “Hey,” called out the smiling woman driving, “didn’t we park next to y’all yesterday, too?” They did. How’s that for a needle in the haystack moment?
I didn’t sleep so good last night, and during one of the many wake ups that punctuated the night, I hatched an idea. An idea that pulls together several things I love. I’ll tell you more later, but listen: after we parked and made our way to the bus, I spied a man’s work glove. Husband was kinda’ channeling his dad this morning, so I just bent over, moved the glove from the road to the sidewalk, then kept going. But as we waited in line for the bus to arrive and ferry us over to the storytelling festival, that glove called out to me, saying “Hey, remember your idea? I’m where you start.” And nothing would do but to run back (and I mean run because we were third in line, the bus was coming, and remember – hubs was already not in the best mood), pick up that glove, and tuck it in my pocketbook. We didn’t lose our place in line, and I smiled all day thinking about that special find, reaching in and patting it every now and then. Found some other objects during the day, too, as you can see in the photo. It was a good day for found object loot. There’s a story in these objects – you know there is – and it’s already brewing. Hey, take a close look at that turning leaf – do you see the face? Here’s another shot:
~~~~~~~~~
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.
And pssst: there’s a pinterest board, too.
First, she draws:
Then I stitch:
If you like stories, take a few minutes to trot over here and help yourself. We’re at the storytelling festival this weekend. I bought myself a thimble for this year’s souvenir – an old, well-used, dented, and tarnished thimble. Seems about right.
~~~~~~~~~
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.
And pssst: there’s a pinterest board, too.
She draws:
Then I stitch:
It’s tired out tonight. Will be sitting, stitching, strolling, and storying the next 3 days. Stay tuned . . .
~~~~~~~~~
Nancy 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.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.
Today’s Envoy is Laura Fincher.
Laura says:
Reminds me of grandmother’s hat. She never went out without it. I still have the hat, though it’s a little crushed now. This drawing also reminded me of a circle in a circle and how life is a circle and we are running around in one.
——-
I met Laura when our children were in third grade. I was elected to some PTO office, and I “convinced” her that she wanted to serve, too. Thank goodness she’s never held that against me and continues to love me anyway. Laura met Nancy once . . . Many years ago, I brought Nancy home for a visit, and I took her over to Laura’s house for lunch. As we got to the door, I remembered that I’d completely forgotten to cue Laura about how proud Nancy is of her “pretty red hair.” Not to worry, though. We knocked, Laura opened the door, and as Nancy crossed the threshold, Laura hugged her and said “What pretty red hair you have.” Well, don’t you know that from that point on, Nancy didn’t have another thing to do with me. For the rest of her visit, she was glued to Laura’s side.
I also find it interesting and endearing that Laura photographed the so-called wrong side of the cloth. The side showing the uneven, imperfect stitching and the knots. (Yes, I use knots.) I used very thin cloth in this project because it seems fragile and ephemeral and near-transparent, just like Nancy. And like Nancy, the inside – the so-called wrong side – is just as unapologetically visible as the so-called right side. Whether intentional or not, I’m quite touched and not a bit surprised that Laura did that, given the sensitive, intuitive, wise woman she is.
~~~~~~~~~
Nancy 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.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.
Today’s Envoy is Margaret Gillaspie.
Margaret writes:
On the day I received “Nancy’s Magic Bird” we had been on I-95 and were surprised to see a beautiful American Bald Eagle fly across the road just in front of us. Could this drawing be responsible for our sighting of the beautiful Bald Eagle?
Later that same week, while sitting on my deck in the evening watching the birds at the bird feeder, there was a loud rustling in the trees. I was startled to see an owl perched in the tree . . . Nancy’s magic again? I think it must have been.
Thank you Nancy, for sending your magic my way. Thank you Jeanne, for sharing.
——-
I first met Margaret at a Toastmaster’s meeting when she regaled me (and everybody else) with one of her speeches. We became fast friends, the kind of friends who can see each other once or twice a year and still feel close, picking up right where we left off the last time we saw each other. Once a realtor – our realtor, to be more specific – she’s now retired and enjoying her adorable grandsons, sharing the most entertaining little ditties about them on Facebook. Go on, click the link and become friends with her so you can enjoy her day brighteners, too.
~~~~~~~~~
Nancy 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.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.
Did you ever feel the need to deconstruct something?
To tear it apart?
I had that urge today,
so I ripped up this skirt
I bought in a thrift store a while back.
Bought it cause I liked the fabric.
As I snip and rip and pluck,
the fog recedes
and as though taking a cue from the leaves as they begin to turn,
my imagination begins to turn
to display ideas for this project.
Which necessitates another trip to a nearby thrift shop for materials.
Of course.
~~~~~~~~~
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.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.
The poet Rumi was born on 30 Sept 1207, which would make today his 800th birthday. I was first introduced to his moving, resonant poetry several years ago when a book of his poetry leapt off the bookshelf into my arms while visiting my son in Los Angeles. Hard to choose my favorite Rumi poem, but this one seems to fit today:
Be with those who help your being.
Don’t sit with indifferent people, whose breath
comes cold out of their mouths.
Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.
A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.
If you don’t try to fly,
and so break yourself apart,
you will be broken open by death,
when it’s too late for all you could become.
Leaves get yellow. The tree puts out fresh roots
and makes them green.
Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?
Ode 2865 Trans. Coleman Barks
Soon enough, they’ll start cutting these:
~~~~~~~~~
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.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.
We’re skipping through the numbers now,
straying off the chronological path
as Envoy packets begin to wing their way back to me.
Today, signatures of fall
and signatures of Nancy.
Together.
~~~~~~~~~
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.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.
This work by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.TheBarefootHeart.com.
© 2026 Jeanne Hewell-Chambers
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