Make Something with Yarn

I immediately felt that phrase when I saw the picture of the above crocheted trivet on a way cool artists blog last night.

Noticing the vibrant colors I wanted to make a similar beautiful thing however it’s extremely inconvenient that I don’t know how to crochet. I can only weave using words, spinning my own yarn, one of the numerous tall tales that swirls around me in fragmented sentences.

Sometimes so fragmented that my friend, who has the patience of a saint, will abruptly say, “Finish your thought with words.” The guilt I feel in his confusion slams me into his reality. I would hate having to understand spontaneous not understandable phrases fraught with excitement at the prospect of a new arrangement of words.

Words whirl, that’s just what they do until they become attached to some emotion that I am trying to convey and then the space I’m in gets crowded with unspeakables…..half sentences that trip out of my mouth with right words, wrong words and animation that vibrates from my being.

It matters not if Love is attached although it does appear that while some words make it out intended to share some just echo around my heart unable to be free and exposed for what they are. Amazing. I remember dropping everything and running one day to a hatbox in my closet that’s filled with letters, notes and cards, 20 years after my Grandma was gone. I had the most disturbing thought that maybe she didn’t know I loved her. She was positively Victorian and I was a bit afraid of her yet I needed proof or it would have tormented me. I did find a card I had written to her and she saved, saying I love you……

I suppose that exemplifies that inner yarn can be so deep that it takes a while to unravel. Knotted up emotion that arrives only when the fabric of the yarn is soft and not pulled in too many directions.

Forget about it if there is fear attached. Then words hide as I hide from confrontation and the unpredictable reaction of the common man. Predictability predicates whether or not it’s safe. A yarn that’s tied to instability is colorful but not always able to hold it together.

That’s what this is about anyway, reaction to a trivet that was put together beautiful, remember? My reaction to a trivet and the desire to spin a yarn or a design that sparks a yarn in my heart. The stitches that hold it together are made with the same hand that takes it apart. And Monday………I will take the step and buy myself some yarn and a crochet needle. Just because.

THREE O'CLOCK SON

Crazymaker, Sweet Thing and Keeper of My Heart sat at my country French kitchen table in the late afternoon. The three o’clock sun streamed through the lace curtains and spilled onto the black and white tiled floor where the dog lay sleeping. Crazymaker, who recently learned that his Mother occasionally read tarot cards, dominated a conversation that was speckled with laughter regarding the cards. It had been her deep secret. Long ago as a child her own Mother, Crazymakers Grandmother, had surprised her with ‘Gypsy Witch Fortune Telling Cards’, much to Mothers happiness. She would read them but as she became more adept, Crazymakers Grandmother began to warn her of becoming too attached to the clues and direction given in the cards. Grandmother, rooted in her Pisces habit of giving mixed messages, next gifted her eleven-year-old daughter with a ouija board. Right from the beginning it seemed more of a novelty, something that incited skepticism. The child worried that cousins and friends who may have wanted a certain response were directing the spelling of the answer. More than that, she was superstitious and secretly concerned that something unseen in the room would assert itself, so she was a bit afraid and did not trust the board. The cards were different. The pictures intrigued her and sparked her imagination. An inner admiration of readers who could provide insight and comfort began to form in the child. The cards invited inner dialogue between the seeker and the reader on a level that Mother, even as a child would normally be unable to access. Trust could be found in a candlelight room, in the symbols from esoteric astrology books or the revelations of the cards. Trust was in the element of Air, perfumed with the smoke of incense, in which thought itself lives and creates magic when it shape shifts into form.

The world of Crazymaker was rocked by the knowledge that Mother read cards. It was evident with his loud voice comically mimicking his vision of Mother on a moonlit night reading. He had his audience in Sweet Thing and Keeper of My Heart and he was not taking any prisoners. No one really knew what Crazymaker believed in or trusted but it was not his Mothers’ world. He alone gave Mother reason to reach for the cards or as it happened for the cards to reach for Mother.

Over 40 years had blown by and the fortune telling cards kept in a corner desk by Mother as a child were long forgotten. On a winter’s day near her birthday, hearing Mother was ill, a friend stopped by with a small paisley bag, a thoughtful gift from a beloved friend. Mother opened the bag to find a new pack of tarot and the ghost of an old memory, the warning to be careful with the cards. She was delighted but the memory created a bit of reluctance to handle them. She did welcome the cards in her heart yet kept them in the beautiful bag in her closet. Everyday she saw them but at first was too sick and then too busy. One day she was healed enough to be in the kitchen to cook and while reaching for a pot, the cards called to her. She had been thinking of the dinner she was preparing when she became aware that she needed to get the cards and ask a question. It was such a strong feeling that she left her stew simmering on the stove and walked directly into her own heart. That is the creative genius of the cards, to allow one to use intuition and think with the heart. Since that moment the cards have again called to Mother. The third reading enabled her to use the Celtic cross pattern during the reading and through that pattern weave a story of present and future.

Crazymaker, Sweet Thing and Keeper of My Heart mirror each other and reflect a world different from the world Mother experiences. It is not necessary to be of the same world only to appreciate and provide illumination, just as the three o’clock sun illuminates the room with the conversation of the three sons, silhouetted in soft light, shape shifting the present conversation and future thoughts where nothing is really black and white, not in my kitchen anyway.

Curiouser and Curiouser

The price of being oneself. Is there a scanner anywhere on the planet that can check for the amount? Now that’s an opening sentence and question with so much possibility… and terror. My inner world resonates with alchemy of the soul unable to express the uniqueness of me. I recognize everyone’s inner world is rich and unique to them alone. Being able to share some of it creates intimacy and dissolves lonely into a pool of long forgotten tears. Alice, in her Adventures in Wonderland cried from fear and frustration of being larger than life, trapped alone and not sure who she was, created a pool that became a recreational place for antiquarian creatures and woodland animals. In the middle of swimming, she noticed a mouse and struck up an accidental dialogue about the inner most fear of the mouse, which may have reflected her own anxiousness, even as she rephrased her conversation to distract and comfort him. Good thing the dodo, lorry, duck and eaglet swimming nearby did not speak. Who knows what direction the conversation would have taken. Maybe that’s what I need, a distraction from my fear of lonely and the price of being myself. If only I could go to Macy’s and scan a cosmic bar code imbedded in my DNA to get the true price, the price that reflects what I ultimately pay for being myself. After all Macy’s is where so many housewives of NJ buy shopping bags full of happy. I was there myself two weeks ago partaking in a momentary fix. I suppose that’s the clue word there, momentary. I’m learning to live in the moment. I’ve noticed that much of my writing in Serendipity draws upon past experience and memories. Hidden in the spelling of serendipity is the word Serenity. I would like to find a way to access Serenity, not just on paper within another word but within myself, and be able to express it allowing the rippling effect of the energy pool to effect positive change with the dodo, duck, lorry and eaglet swimming with me. I’m thinking that letting go of everything that’s past and living in the moment is the way to access Serenity.

These comments are just thoughts from a housewife in NJ living on the alternate side.