lullaby

I dialed the number.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, bip, beep, bip, bip.......
So many numbers,
and I reached A Voice that instructed me to press a number which I gamely did,
and I reached A Similar Voice that instructed me to press a number which I gamely did,
and I reached A Strangely Similar Voice that instructed me once more to press a number which I did,
although a little warily,
and then I was put on hold.
Not just put on hold.
There was music.
My glazed eyes cleared with a jolt when I realized I was listening to Brahms Lullaby.
Really?
A lullaby?
Was this a veiled threat?
An indication as to how long I would be on hold?
No,
just a Classical soundtrack, Pachelbels Cannon came next as I snoozed on hold.
I've found myself thinking about that lullaby though.
About comfort and music.
And so, I am going to share a lullaby with you too.
Is there a voice more soothing than the voice of Fernando Ortega?

large or small

I nearly wrote a story about this picture a few weeks ago. The children of winter are my older brother and sisters.
That story remains untold because today, all I can see are the houses behind the children.
Buried behind the snowbank is the home of our childhood, but it is the darker house in the background that startles me.
Although the photo predates stucco siding, I recognize the home of our neighbors.
For some reason, I always saw our homes as a sort of duo, a set. There was The Little House, ours, and The Big House, theirs.
What is startling me now, is the size of The Big House.
How could the very large home of our neighbors actually turn out to be a really rather small house?
I know this is so common that it is almost a cliche, this childhood miss-perception of size,
but being common doesn't make it any less powerful or amazing.

With the eye of memory I can peer through the darkened windows, into the rooms beyond and large or small, that house has a very big place in my memories of childhood.

like incense

I can hear the traffic beginning to pick up steam for the day but all is still and silent on my street.
Well, except for the crows. They already are on the move.
And except for the geese riding high against the morning light.
Oh, and a small black squirrel sprints for safety.
A woman returns with her dog from a brisk round the block march.
A man stiffly clad for winter pedals stiffly by.
In the distance the first siren of the day wails.
The morning light has washed across the sky.
We waken, we rise, and a plume of woodsmoke ascends like incense.

water color

The sky this morning is the color of a robin's egg, the distant mountains faded denim. It is early and everything else stands against them, against the light as a silhouette. In the moments that I sit and gaze eastward, the apricot sunrise shifts and climbs cloud by cloud, like a water color wash.

and fruitful

Those of us who have sewn since we were hatchlings, don't really need patterns for basic things like bags. Have you ever looked at something hanging in a shop and thought to yourself, 'Ppfffff, Who needs a pattern. I could make that.'
But the thing is, we often don't.
Out of sight, out of mind.
A purchased pattern can sometimes tip the scale in our favour and prod us on.

I had a yen to make something quick.
In the yawning abyss of my sewing closet, I came across a vintage bag pattern.
It looked quick.
And simple.
I had four fat quarters of navy/cream calico.
They had been languishing with no sense of purpose or direction in life.
I ironed and cut,
pinned and stitched,
turned and quilted,
stitched and turned again,
and voila!
A bag that has a sort of sashiko vibe.
My underemployed fabric woke up and smelled the coffee.
It seized the moment.
Well, actually, i seized it, but the four prints are working well together.
They have a happy and fruitful future of usefulness.

thing of beauty

A wooden bangle and a wooden cuff bracelet, both lucky thrift shop finds.

There's just something about wood. It's so smoothly patterned, so warmly colored.

'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.'

natural

Cinnamon.
I could smell cinnamon.
I jumped up and ran to the kitchen.
I yanked open the oven door.
I gasped.
Just in the nick of time.
Just barely in the nick of time.
Cinnamon biscuits, brown and bubbly.
As I placed the steaming pan atop the stove to cool, I remembered my sister.
She had mixed up a batch of cinnamon buns.
She had stirred and kneaded and rolled and cut.
They were soon in the oven, rising and resplendent and she was on the sofa reclining and relaxing.
She was tired.
The couch felt so soft.
The air was sweet and warm.
Just a few more minutes and she would rise and pull those buns from the oven.
The apartment was deliciously quiet.
So quiet.
Quiet.
She slept.
Perhaps she dreamt of home, of kitchens fragrant.
Or of wood smoke on the autumn breeze, or campfires, the air thickly acrid....
She woke with a start.
She could smell cinnamon.
She jumped up and ran to the kitchen.
She yanked open the oven door.
She gasped.

Her voice was still tinged with regret as she told me her tale days later.
They had been the best cinnamon buns she had ever made.
She could tell.
The charred remains were so plump, so well risen.
Those cinnamon buns had started out with such promise, but ended up looking like relics from Pompeii; a natural disaster.