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9:30 a.m.
I'm sitting by the back window, cup of coffee warming my hands when suddenly, I see through the camouflage of brown brambles and bare trees, two deer—one female, head down nibbling whatever nourishment still thrives under layers of dead leaves; and one male, head down sniffing the female’s nourishment. They are a couple, I think. Just as suddenly, a train passes along the trestle as it does everyday in 15 or 20 minute intervals. Today, the train stops though and awakens the sun to shine on me through my window. I raise the blinds to allow full access. The deer continue nibbling and sniffing. The train continues to stay. The sun continues to shine on us. It is tableau. We remain in our respective roles for 20 minutes or so. I marvel about how my body slows, is neither thinking of what I need to do nor caring that I don't. I do notice that the female deer is almost impossible to see, her camouflage so correct as to save the next generation. The male is brown, but deeper, more noticeable. Finally the female deer decides to sit. She uses three jerky movements to settle herself. The male deer stands a few more seconds, then joins her in sitting. They are opposite each other, only inches between. His ears remain upright, twitch, listen. She is more relaxed, continues chewing. I smile because it looks like she’s chewing a stick of Juicy Fruit. We are montage making a miracle; Olorun (the sun) shinning down on Òsóòsì (the hunter, deer), Ògún (iron, technology), and me. My fixed schedule looms but I can not move. It's as if the miracle bids me relax, desires that I bask in the majesty of Olóòfin's (God’s) natural manifestations, His/Her/Its science and technology. After about 20 minutes more, train sounds begin, the grind of metal on metal urge forward movement. As the train slowly departs, the deer stay, are not frightened by the train’s big noise, have become familiar and comfortable with the reverberation of iron. The sun hangs about. The deer and I receive continuous shots of vitamin D. After more minutes, a new train arrives. The deer glance up, appear to watch its arrival as children do, in states of wonder. I turn my face to the sun, directly in front of me now, smile, hold the miracle. Physically, spiritually and intellectually, I experience majesty, say: Mo júbà Olóòfin! Mo júbà Olorun! Mo júbà Ògún! Mo júbà Òsóòsì! Only then am I released and refreshed enough to fit myself into the schedule Spirit has planned for me. Most often our schedules prevent us from spending moments with miracles. Like the train, deer and sun, let us revive ourselves again. What are your miracles? Translate the experience into your knowledge of majesty. Share them if you'd like and happy creating!
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 Redwork in Blue - in progress This morning at 6 a.m., I was awakened by the sounds of screaming. I looked out of the window and saw nothing. Then I noticed what I thought was a white garbage bag lying in the street. But suddenly, the bag moved and I heard the awful, in-pain screaming again. The white garbage bag was a woman lying in a fetal position in the street, not the sidewalk, in the street. Oh God. Her intermittent moans and screams. A woman alone and in distress. Then I heard the man's ugly voice, "Get out!" and remembered, not lying in the street moaning, rather, in my bedroom on the floor. At least I had the privacy of brick and mortar. But it wasn't privacy, it was the luck of the draw. I called 911. I wrote on my calendar, on the June 21 block, “go back to work today.” I figured, first day of summer, refreshed by the newness of life. In this blog, I have written about artists needing to feed their creative wells because, well, ideas get used up. I was feeling used up and took a long stretch of time off, decided to do some reading. I consulted goodreads. But what does reading have to do with quilting? With layers, texture, background, character, plotting (thinking), color, surface design, interior grace, letting go of ego, letting in of Spirit, and it was so beautiful yesterday. Perfect. Sun. Gentle breeze. A trip to the library and Gwendolyn Brooks’ first and only novel titled Maud Martha. “Copyright, 1953, by Gwendolyn Brooks Blakely. Copyright, 1951 by The Curtis Publishing Company.”  Redwork in Blue - in progress There is a description of Maud Martha added to the inside, glued onto one of the book’s front pages, typed with a manual typewriter: BROOKS, GWENDOLYN. MAUD MARTHA. The story of Maud Martha Brown, a colored woman - daughter, wife, and mother - who lives in Bronzeville, a neighborhood of Chicago, told with the intimate understanding of a woman who has made a life-long study of negroes. Retail Bookseller The book is so old, and I think, valuable, that it is housed in the third floor restricted section. Someone has to go back there and get it for you. I look at the book’s old fashioned reddish brown hard back cover, the back in the day check out card stuck on the inside pocket documenting that the last time someone checked out Maud Martha was September 13, 1972, when fines were “One cent a day on juvenile cards and two cents a day on adult cards for each book kept overtime.”
In Maud Martha, Gwendolyn Brooks opens with: “What she liked was candy buttons, and books, and painted music (deep blue, or delicate silver) and the west sky, so altering, viewed from the steps of the back porch; and dandelions.” In Maud Martha, Gwendolyn Brooks ends with: "But the sun was shining, and some of the people in the world had been left alive, and it was doubtful whether the ridiculousness of man would ever completely succeed in destroying the world—or, in fact, the basic equanimity of the least and commonest flower: for would its kind not come up again in the spring? Come up, if necessary, among, between, or out of—beastly inconvenient!—the smashed corpses lying in strict composure, in that hush infallible and sincere." I go into my sewing room, look at the Redwork in Blue quilt hanging lonely on the design wall.  I finger my hand embroidery, remember my numb fingers as I told myself, just 20 minutes more, then you can take a break. I try to remember where the quilt wanted to go and why I had stopped driving it there. “Hmm,” I say aloud to no one. Or maybe I am apologizing…to the quilt for her loneliness, that fact that she is unfinished. Next, I am reading Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton, BOA Editions, Ltd, 2000. In Blessing the Boats, I am reminded of honesty, the integrity and fearlessness needed to create. You just gotta put it out there. Say, “Here, this is what I made.” From Blessing the Boats:
 My girl, Ice. How painful is insecurity. In not knowing. In our intermittent moans. I pick up my guitar. Her name is Ice and she talked to me, said, “So what you just decided to learn me last year. If you listen, really hear me, I will sing to you and you can mimic me.” And so I became accepting, like a child, and thankful that I stopped listening to insecurity, just in time. Insecurity woulda ran me over again, its booted foot kicking me in my ribs, leaving me on my bedroom floor in a fetal position, muddy footprints all over my soul. From Blessing the Boats, Gwendolyn Brooks writes in “study the masters,”
So maybe I'm misinformed. Maybe this isn’t a blog about quilting, only. I decided to listen to the masters, Gwendolyn Brooks and Lucille Clifton. This is a blog about us and our internal Maud Marthas and Aunt Timmies. A blog about how to iron, perk up our own dried edges, how to dream, how to remember and decipher, how to think in multiple languages, how to hope and ritual chant so we can better recognize our hot irons need to strike. This is how we make things. See and read information about the completed Redwork in Blue Variation here.  |
AboutThis is a blog about how we make things. 
cathleen margaret
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