Scraps for Thought
Mom kept a canvas bag in the bottom of her closet. It was stuffed with fragments of fabric. The pieces were left-over remnants of gingham, corduroy, and flannel, with occasional slices of satin, that she’d sewn into garments, her Singer machine a productive hum of handiwork in our household. Denim, khaki, and wool that we outgrew and was deemed unsuitable for a hand me down also got deposited into the savings sack. In wintertime, when bags bulged, she and Granny combined their respective pieces to patch together quilts. Patterns were designed, a backing was framed with tobacco sticks, and they took to their corners in Granny’s living room, needled, thimbled, and threaded for bear. Great-Grandma Needham, aunts, and cousins came at times, creating a quilting commune. None of the women on Mama’s side were big talkers. A fire burned in the fireplace while Mahalia Jackson and Elvis kept us company through the AM gospel station. Precious Lord Take My Hand and Peace in the Valley can flat out fill up a room. I played underneath the wooden frame, a canopy oasis hideaway for my Matchbox cars and story books.
Turns out that much like nine years of piano lessons, I proved to be sewing resistant. I was exposed to both for a big chunk of my early life, I just don’t have a natural bend toward either. I appreciate great music, and I’m all about the touch and feel of fabric, especially the kind that covers me at night, keeping me warm through careful construction and sacred spun memories. The closest I get to playing piano is banging out melodies when Smokin Hot Love Biscuit and I write country songs. I’m a quilting poser through the piece bag into which I shove ideas. Here are some thought scraps that have been spilling out onto the closet floor of my writing den.
The word hippins popped up in a novel I was reading. Hippins, along with the corresponding image of the wooden, one-piece clothespins, conjured smells and feels into my very being, resurrecting my toddler years. I remember sitting in a laundry basket as wet and dry sheets were strung on and off a taunt, wire line. I don’t want to surrender my washer and dryer or move off the grid, but the fact that my children don’t know the special essence of air-dried sheets makes me a little sad.
I had a Reiki reading and the practitioner suggested that my over functioning, even to help those that I love, could cause thwarting of lessons and blessings. “It could be a block?” I asked. “The spirits are telling me, thwart,” she clarified. I’ve been toking on the thwart pipe for a few weeks. Surrendering the over-function feature of my personality is harder than it sounds.
2023’s word of the year, rizz, means smooth and confident. Rizzle, fo shizzle.
There’s a lot of talk about genealogy and constructing family trees. I’ve spent a good deal of my life ditching relatives versus scouting around for them. The pruning of my ancestral foliage is less Liriodendron tuliperifera and more telephone pole.
Writers have ongoing conversation about giving and receiving feedback. It’s a big thing. Someone told me recently that the most useful suggestions are those that we first find distasteful. In my experience, sometimes we request feedback, but secretly we’re holding out hope for exuberant, worshipful praise.
The original morse code message sent in 1844 was, “What hath God wrought.” Wonder how Sam Morse and God weigh in on AI and the internet.
In yoga, mountain pose is pulled off by being upright with shoulders back and hands down at the side, palms open. Our Yogi instructs, “Stand well.” That simple request grounds me, lengthening my spine, inspiring me to grow taller and stronger. What a magnificent ask– stand well.
As a writer and speaker, I was invited to read several essays at a women’s conference. The founder created the organization to help women build one another up. In her opening remarks, she said, “Throughout my career, I’ve had good and bad experiences with men and women, but only women have stabbed me in the back.” Since I heard this statement, I’ve been conducting an informal social experiment asking others to verify or dispute this quote through experience. The yeses are disturbing.
The same week that I was schooled on back stabbings, I learned a new noun, mudita: taking delight in the happiness of others; vicarious joy. More mudita; less knife-wielding.
SHLB and I catered an I-Do-B-Q with Smithfield Bar-B-Que in Morehead City. The manager, who wears a big smile along with his pressed shirt and necktie, gave stellar customer service. He confirmed the day before the event. Everything was on time and hot. The assistant manager rolled the order out on a special cart and placed everything in my car, (including real glass bottles of sauce,) taking good care with the beans so that they didn’t “slosh” on my seats. Employees were bright and happy and there was a crowd of customers in the clean, well-lit dining room gnawing on chicken and Q. It’s a standout in the rhetoric about workers and morale. The flow of the engagement waterfall starteth at the top. Standing well, Smithfield. Standing well.
Carlton Pearson would have turned 71 on March 19. Once a Bishop with Oral Roberts Ministries and leader of High Dimensions Evangelistic Center (mega-church,) Pearson fell from the pulpit’s grace when he denounced the reality of hell. His personal epiphany came while watching coverage of Rwanda on the nightly news. Pearson wondered aloud to Peter Jennings about the eternal fate of the Rwandans. God answered Pearson’s question with, “Is that who you think I am?” In Jerry Maguire manifesto style, Pearson took the message that God’s love is for everyone to his congregation. All the chosen children did not say, “Amen.” Pearson slid swift and hard down the church leadership slide where the label of modern-day heretic waited for him when his feet hit the dirt. Pearson’s later years were spent spreading, The Gospel of Inclusion, professing salvation for all, not just Christians. He passed in the fall of 2023 at age 70. This isn’t about whether I agree with Bishop Pearson, but about being aware and alive in convictions, about living with full tilt intention. Pearson felt a truth spoken deep in his bones. He listened. He believed. He took courageous action. There were personal and financial ramifications in walking the belief road less traveled. Happy Belated Birthday, Carlton. I hope you’ve met some nice Rwandans in heaven.
When Riley was in third grade, she came home and told me to XYZ. “Examine my zipper?” I asked. “Mom! How did you know that? Shannon made it up.” “Baby, Noah said XYZ on the Ark when the zebra’s stripes were unzipped.” Riley sighed and I hugged her, comforting the concept that there’s little sacred and new under the sun. Perhaps being new to me is sometimes Goldilocks kind of just right. I’ve been trying to embrace that we all do our best at discovering the fresh to us nuances the world offers up.
I still own a few quilts that my family made. My favorite is Mom’s friendship pattern constructed when she and Daddy were engaged. I guess drunken bachelorette parties have replaced this tradition. It’s a sign of the times that my paternal grandma stitched Mrs. D. A. Dunlap on her square. Her name was Nora Belle Maness Dunlap, but to Mom she was always Mrs. Dunlap. Most of the ship names on this quilt have passed on, the stitches they made in our family and community, a little frayed, but holding steadfast and strong.
I’ve never really been a matchy-matchy complete set kind of chick. I have an assortment of dishes and my landscaping leans toward a wild and eclectic blend of flowers and plants. I’m a fan of rusty and repurposed. The older I get the more I subscribe to the philosophy that the real, unedited world is as messy as it is glorious, pieced together from fragments, sewn into life’s framework, standing well.
