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Life’s Tapestry

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Woven strings hanging on walls in castles tell us the tales of knights, kings, queens, hunting, war and the need to protect against drafts in large buildings. I’ve been to museums in many places and admired the time and effort to achieve these beautiful tapestries. Then I went to Morocco. Somehow the guide brought us to a carpet dealer. I think there were relations or crossed incentives for each carpet that could be sold to a tourist. They were beautiful, colorful, all handmade by members of what they told me was the Berber tribe, desert people. I am a sucker for a well presented adventure, so we bought one. It was golden, and it became one of the wedding gifts for my daughter from us. It also inspired me.

I was at a fragile state in 2014, both mentally and physically, and I wanted to leave a footprint of who I was in case anything ever happened to me. So I started my own embroidered tapestry. It’s 40 inches by 48 inches on monk’s cloth. It tells a tale of what I love and who I am. It isn’t finished by any means yet. I’m embroidering every single tiny square with flowers and bushes. Add to the gardens and moving up you will find the lighthouses, great lakes and finally arriving in space; beautiful, colorful outer space. I need to add my home, my dogs, more gardens, some fish. The Potomac River and the Mississippi are sure to turn up somewhere. There is no pattern to rely on, and some of the stitches are better than others. It makes for a contrast of the changes in my life. Sometimes I am well organized and a perfectionist. Other times I give a lick and a promise, and just make sure something is on the canvas. The contrasts are so me.

I have to finish this before my reunion in 2019. I started it at the one in 2014 where I was mocked for taking on a project like this. I thought I could finish it in a year, but it has to be done for the next reunion. If nothing else, maybe it will show how my life has twisted from promises of finishing things to finishing things. I have a book to finish this year as well. That will be on the tapestry somewhere I’m sure, somewhere where the fairies and gnomes live in my heart. My dad used to say, “Annie has only one foot in reality, and she hops a lot.” He was right. There will be a hopping Annie with a jump rope and a bit of tar on her knees in the tapestry as well.

A life is worthy of a tapestry. All lives are worthy of the woof and warp that give us flavor. If I could create a tapestry of the world, I would need a much bigger monk’s cloth and a lot more time. I would create the lines of peace and friendship I hope to see develop more fully in the world. I would take the violence, hate and prejudice and cut their threads from the pattern. The three sisters of the fates would be as cousins to me as they weave their patterns. Perhaps I could convince them to cut those threads that I chose to cut as well. Perhaps, but today I will work on my tapestry and try to make it as truthful as possible. I may even become an antique someday and the tapestry, too.

Are there threads you would wish to see on my creation? I’d love to hear from you.

In between the Spaces

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Blog #2

I live in between the spaces on the page. Illusion has to balance with what I am trying to say without force feeding you the reader. So I blend a careful recipe of what life has shown me to be true with a way of letting the reader hear a story. Ultimately, the hope is that the reader will take home some of what I have written to think about. There is no guarantee of that, of course, because as soon as the words leave me to travel on their way, readers see what they know in between the spaces. It makes for a great deal of excitement when the two views find each other again.

I knew a beautiful woman with bright blue eyes and a smile that never deserted her. She lived in Minnesota and was a librarian for a college of women. She never ran from learning, in fact she often ran towards it with a smile that increased by the second. Rikki Tikki Tavi was her role model and I’m not sure she ever met a snake that she didn’t understand. She had a singular motto, “What can I do for you today?” She was an unusual species of woman, more concerned for others than herself. She would be an excellent model for a character. Honor, loyalty, someone we all hope to meet someday. It’s the essence of a character that appeals to most of us. When someone like her appears in a story, we know something good will have to come out of it.

Then there is an antagonist who will do everything to undermine the stability of a life. Perhaps an old boss, or an abusive husband, or someone that lives in the shadows that is unpredictable and out of focus at the beginning. It could be written as a fairy tale character, or an insect. Notice I don’t list the villains I know, that would be imprudent. But a story can’t live without a conflict, the more unusual, the better.

Then there is the protagonist, use me. I’m a mom, living with my husband, a grown child, a couple of dogs, and a cat. I’m always running to get to the next thing that needs doing, and somehow I’m always late. Somehow the keys slip to the bottom of my purse. I forget presents for people who really could use them. I’ve been young and middle-aged. I’ve been able and unable. I was Super Woman, but that didn’t work out so well for me. School was never a place to be avoided, I knew everything at one point. Well, I thought I did. So, sometimes stories are me mixed with other traits. I find it amusing to torment my poor main characters. It’s only fair. I know how to torment them best.

I like to watch people and imagine meeting them. Would they interest me, hold that interest and pull me into their lives? The good ones might. Some of them might be predictable. I’d love to meet people like Bryce Harper, Mr. Werth, and others from the Nationals. I’m a big baseball fan. I’d love to meet the grounds people at the National Zoo. If a driver on one of the Metro trains that runs through DC ever started talking to me on his or her way to work, I’d listen. You never know where your story will find you.

I did find a story. In-between the spaces of my notes, an idea started forming. I saw it in a few of the poems I’ve written. I’ve been chasing it for ten months now, and it’s almost to the very end. Just like this blog.

See you soon,

Ann WJ White

 

Finding a Voice in a World of Words

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This is my first blog. Oh, I wrote about my biography when I got a wordpress.com account and it’s all true. The problem with that is that I think all of the time. I think about the news, old friends, gone friends, long nights and short days. I write poetry to work my way through the wiggle room that we need to hide enough of our emotions from a world that might not understand them.

The news these days is full of fear mongering and hatred. Envious of Canada, France, Germany and Norway, I wish I could solve the fear. Humans turn to violence and blind devotion in the face of the unknown, but I hope our survival will show us as developing creatures of conscious. Dogs need homes with people who love them. Cats adopt us and quickly teach us their rules. They believe themselves to be the adults in the relationships and mindfully shepherd us to dinner, outside, to bed. Humans, though, find solace in company of other humans. When they don’t find sympathy and love with humans they are open to other species. We even created pet rocks.

Growth never stops for us. We try out new foods, ways to clean, ways to travel, and somehow we retain our identity in the first focused moment when we say, “I am.” This is usually followed by a listing of traits, education, important people in the world, interests and hobbies, and what we are to our families. We determine what is nice and what is cruel. Ever defining those things, those moments, we learn to say no or yes. We become confident or stumble into the shadows  looking for a cure.

The universe, while being neither cruel or kind, is interpreted as being both. Philosophy governs interpretations which inspire world leaders. Then the world brings in a sound stage and attempts to bring you to who you are. It’s uncanny the feeling of being in front of a group of people. Some will like you. Others will be baffled that although you speak the same upbringing and language, you are off your rocker. I’ve been off my rocker for years.

I thought I was a patient woman until I had to put up with myself. I could always advocate for others, but never worried about doing it for myself. That made me a target for bullying as a child. I learned that bullies are always around us, but my father told me to learn to like myself. If I could do that, I would be able to help others.

When you find yourself diagnosed with a severe, chronic or fatal disease or condition and your body decides to pull pranks on you, you had better be a person who likes themselves and is patient. That was a hefty lesson. I dropped things. I fell down. My brain became a clutter of insecurity and the harder I pushed myself, the more I couldn’t do things. You loose your edge, become fatigued. In fact, the fatigue is more a lassitude, and leads to your going through the stages of grief as if you had just died before your eyes. You don’t die, however, you become stronger. You take your time and pick up what you drop, including yourself. The small victories become huge victories, you see the little things that make up life. You pixilate yourself. I even bargained with myself about my expectations.

I tried to be normal, but that didn’t work out so well. I tried to be serious, only to find myself the butt of my own sense of humor. I fell asleep in the classroom only to find out that I do snore loudly. Doing that in front of the director of Language Arts was not the best move during my career. So now I am regressing to who and what I loved at the age of 12. I am writing. I am looking for the small bits that make me smile, and the larger realization that I am not done growing up yet. I will never be done growing up.

I’m a lucky woman. I have a family who love me, a home, a set of shibas who spend their days being my primary sense of companions. Joined by the cat I alluded to above, I’m not as isolated as I could be.

I haven’t said what is wrong with me. I don’t need to in order to let you understand me. Besides, I’d start joking about things and I’ll do that in another blog. Be aware that I am not alone. There are many of us who look healthy, but aren’t. Who look drunk or lazy, but are just having an out of body day. If it is me, I’m probably on a trip in outer space and have left a puppet to hold my place.

It’s nice to meet you, and I will be back soon. Happy Holidays and nice to meet you.

My name is Ann White.

The Soundtrack Under the Sea

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Deep beneath the sea
a symphony plays.
Sea horses drum,
Fish grunt,
Small snails sing songs,
Nearsighted manta rays
flying beneath the waves
for eighty years or more are
conducting those
small chorus sounds and alliteration
march to the waves before the sea stars
settle to the bed of stalkers. Later,
The bull sharks come and search
to find the meanings
of the great reef
at the end of the world.

At Bat

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Just let it come. It’s looking for you.
Stand still, head steady.
Breathe. Inhale.
Focus on the pitcher,
The ball will come.

Don’t worry over balls.
They weren’t for you.
Focus your eyes.
Open your eyes, larger, larger.
The mound moves.

The pitcher moves.
Slow motion, hand curving.
Eye on the ball.
One third of a second and
You swing.

You can do this.