Tag: Time

Life’s Tapestry

Published on by Ann’s Aliens3 Comments

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.

My Snow

Published on by Ann’s Aliens2 Comments

This morning the sun shown on a grey receding cloud, and the winds didn’t arrive. I’m sure they will later, but for now, my small dogs are not pretending to be kites when they go for an outing. My garden is finally, and officially, dead. Well, some of it will be back in the spring. I love perennials, they are repetitive, tough, colorful, changing and much less work. I water them, feed them and ignore them. That’s also my recipe for orchids and african violet care.

The annuals of winter are frosted leaves on a forest floor, snowflakes (if we ever get so lucky), and neighborhood children still in the snowsuit phase. The laughter they give sounds like pearls, or tinkling icicles, or even perhaps, silence. Silence of a winter fog makes the world shake. People rush for their covers, but not me. I like to stand outdoors with the wind in my face, a sweater, sometimes even my shoes on. It’s bracing, something some will never understand. I grew up in Minnesota. Winter was magic. It was pure, untracked (until school kids and dogs created trails), and I felt at home. The cold has always been a sign of peace for me. Trouble goes indoors, fighting takes too much energy, and there is hot chocolate stirred with a candy cane.

I like the end of football. The pause before baseball is only momentary, but that pause gave me skating, sliding, and skiing. I watch other people have fun doing these things these days. The contemplation of the rules of winter never bothered me when I was young. Coat, hat, gloves, scarf, hood, layers of layers beneath the overcoat, lined boots and double socks were my attire back then. San Francisco was tempting wonder which had all of these things within a few hours drive. Virginia was an even greater surprise. My first winter in Virginia, it was in the 50s, like this year. There was no ice, snow, bracing air and I wondered that there was a place on earth like it. Then came several winters of note, two with the high mounds along the community roads that reminded me of snow forts, snow ball fights, walking the ridge to see if we had to touch the pavement on the way to school.

So, what did I do for Virginia snow? I shoveled sidewalks for fun. I was one of the first out the door, if it was light enough with a broom. I actually had to find a shovel to buy. It was bright orange plastic, easily shattered and didn’t live long. It was a needed winter sacrifice. It took me until April to find a good sturdy shovel that would last.

My husband hates snow if he has to go out. He drives a truck, with two trailers usually. He can plow through the snow, but it is amazing at how many small cars rush to get in front of him only to panic because they can’t see, found ice or found fear. Huge brown truck, itty bitty cars. SUVs are worse. They think they can outrun and out perform anyone else on the road. Some are 4 wheel, but not all. They forget that for an SUV to stay on the road, all four feet should be on the ground. I meant four tires, but you get the picture. I loved the old commercial of the “living” SuuVEE giving instructions on how to survive. I loved teaching when there was snow. Feet up, fire lit, eyes on a new book or grading papers that all too often I had fallen behind on. I kept the TV on a music channel. My boisterous children went out to play and returned an hour later for board games, cardboard box castles, and dragon attacks. The dogs were the dragons, my daughter a princess of the castle, and my son a knight in shining armor. My daughter saved the dragon, the castle and my son laughed. He always laughed. He was golden sunshine, but my daughter, she still is her own mystery. Snow.

I have so much to do to be ready for snow. It’s a good thing it isn’t in the forecast yet. I have the removal of the holiday decorations, cleaning, sorting, throwing and napping. The naps are most important because I dream of winter. My past is filled with winter memories. My father leaving at 3 am to make ice for the city children to skate on. It had to be freshened every night to create a safe place with no toe holds dug in. My first ice skates that had been in the warming trailer for over a year with no one claiming them. You rolled up socks and put them in the toes so they wouldn’t slide on your feet. Sliding on ice in the street on the way to school. Stomping through slush that made me feel like a giant. My high school hockey team making the playoffs one year and the band going to play to support them. My mouthpiece and horn never did warm up completely. Walking to college classes with a -20 degree F wind. The campus closing for an entire two days because of 30 inches arriving with wind and a bad attitude.

I’ve been told I live in an alternate universe from the rest of the world. That’s okay. I was always a bit of a dreamer. No, not true, I was always a dreamer. Winter didn’t require friends to make me happy, it just did. It still does. Sleeping dogs and a feisty cat keep me company when I am alone. One catches snowballs. One tunnels. Frankie, the cat, lifts her toes as she walks onto the deck and turns with a sigh of disgust. She doesn’t like cold feet. I lift her, hold her close, and she and I watch the birds. First thing in the morning is the bird food. Then the cat and dogs find their feasts in ceramic bowls I made with love for old friends now memories. They like the bowls.

The sun will set before I am ready, tonight. I’ll keep an eye on the weather channel. I’m hoping for a winter wonderland.

Leesylvania Park’s Jetties
Norma’s Birds

Parenting

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Parenting

Unlike most, my nemesis is not an evil company or disease that takes your life and turns it upside down. No, my nemesis is my son, my beautiful golden son. He was a good boy as a toddler, picking up his toys and going to bed in the evenings when I declared it was bedtime for him. He would snuggle under his blanket with his stuffed bear and close his eyes tightly declaring he was already asleep. He ate everything on his plate, new foods included. He was perfect.

That perfection led to school, where he knew everything without being told. That led to not doing the daily work the teacher’s required. That led to failure on his report card, although all of his tests were As. I taught youngsters in the fifth grade and watched over them like a mother hen. No one watched over my son’s work, although I tried.

I caught him in the garage when he was in high school building a time machine. That’s what he called it anyway. When confronted about why he was building a time machine, he did respond to me.

“I’m making it just in case I need to go back in time and correct my mistakes.”

He worked on the machine to the exclusion of every thing else. He stopped eating, going to school, and doing his own laundry. His face grew gaunt. The luster fell out of his golden hair, turning it to a dish water blond. But his eyes grew in excitement with every new turn of his project. I was called to the school for conferences, but I went to seek answers. They told me that I would be jailed if I couldn’t get him to school on time. The conversation was not pleasant.

“Son, you have to go back to school. They are threatening me with jail time.”

“Mom, I’m so close to finishing this. I’ll make it right soon, I promise.”

I was arrested a week later. The judge sentenced me to two weeks in county jail with a fine of $25,000.00. When I told him I had no way of paying the fine, he said I could stay in jail until I came up with the money. Of course, I appealed his decision. I was allowed to go home until the jury trial.

“Son, I have to pay $25,000 now. Why won’t you go to school? They are incarcerating me!”

“Mom, I’m almost done.”

The morning of the retrial, I was fidgeting and worried. I had no lawyer, none would touch the case.

“Keep your kid in line and you won’t need a lawyer,” was the response I had been given.

We rose as the judge and jury came into the courtroom.

There was a door slammed shut as a handsome blond man came in with a pile of paperwork. He stepped into the bar and presented himself as my attorney. After being acknowledged, he waited for his turn to speak.

“Your honor, this woman has been a good parent and there has been a gross injustice here in accusing her of any of these charges. I have here the school records of her son, from elementary school through high school. The record keeping has been atrocious. I would like to present these records to show her son’s consistent attendance in school. The school records had him enrolled in one set of courses when he had been assigned to a completely different set.”

I couldn’t even speak. I was confused. I was also exonerated.

At the trials end, he gathered his materials, winked at me and left. I went home, the garage was empty but my son was sitting on the step with a cup of tea for me.

“I finished it, mom.”

I am Ann

Published on by Ann’s Aliens1 Comment

I am Ann, small daughter of a common man
named for a small Ann of a former fiancee,
While my noble mother looked on at the small bundle
My father had delivered. She smiled and then napped.
My father whispered magic words for my ears,
I was a musician like he was
I was a dreamer and star gazer.
I was his magic, his daughter who loved
Who followed squirrels, flowers, people.

I am also Hiss, I am his mother, his wife, his sister
His niece, his daughter, his granddaughter,
I was the one who filled in for the unnamed
Who had friends but lost them when the sky became blue
When the sun glowed red.
I am Hiss when you look for the world that is hidden
In games and on chess boards.