Best Gift Ever (or) Good Salve for a Breakup

Recently, I recounted the story of the greatest (material) present anyone had ever given me. I think that the story, the thought that went into it, the personal care and love, and the general human good will of the effort has inspired much of my own gift-giving. I aspire to set off such a chain reaction of care with my own thoughtfulness.

Here's the tale:

Several years ago, I was embarking on a journey to visit my on-again-off-again boyfriend. We had been discussing and planning our most final break-up to date. It was a hard sever for me. We had spent much of our relationship long distance, but we decided to spend one last weekend together before finally throwing in the towel. We both knew it would be over when I drove home on Sunday evening.

A dear work friend, not even someone I saw on a regular basis, heard about my weekend plans and devised her own. The night before I left I stopped by her home, at her request, to pick up a mysterious cardboard box. She instructed me to open it only after I had finally said goodbye to the boy and was on the journey home, by myself.

That anticipation, itself, was the first part of the gift. The weekend should have been entirely horrible. It was bittersweet moments of temporary happiness butted up against trading back belongings and saying goodbye again and again. But every now and then, I would think of the box on my passenger seat, my mysterious driving companion, and feel anticipation rather than dread.

When I finally did pull out of the drive, my old lover waving in the rearview, I could hardly wait to pull over to read the card on top of the box. It contained instructions for the contents. Open, the box turned out to be full of many different gifts which were layered and labeled in chronological order. I was to open each gift a a different point at approximate 30 minute intervals during my 5 hour drive.

I do not recall all of the items she had packed, but here is a sampling: bar of chocolate, small geode, harmonica, postcard, mini vodka, silver owl earrings, cuticle cream, a seed pod, baubley green bracelet. And little notes and kind, pithy words to go with each. She suggested I play my own song with the harmonica- I laughed my way through Piano Man. A suggestion that I pull over for dinner and have a nipper- oh yes, I did. I wore the earrings immediately, and fell in love with sea salt chocolate.

Something magical occurred. As the miles ticked by, I stopped crying about what HAD happened and felt a desire for the immediate future.

In fact, on that long drive away from a bad relationship, I think I may have fallen in love with love again. I saw clearly for the first time that love is about freely giving of oneself, and -more importantly- it is not confined to romantic relationships. Sometimes, in fact, love is truest in the challenges of a friendship that perseveres despite no marriage of commitment.

To this day I keep waiting for just the perfect time to crack open that geode. And I think of my friend every time my nephews blow through the harmonica. Though the two of us are hardly in touch anymore, I will only ever think fondly of this friend and be grateful for the example she set for me. Man has such great capacity for kindness. If only more of us invested such time into creating love packages for near strangers.

Creations for Kids

It's been awhile now. I've been busy with life and travel and now WORK. I've taken on a friend's maternity leave at a housing non-profit in downtown Dayton. I work in a skyrise building with tundra-like central air. The offices where I work are on the literal 13th floor, but it's one of those buildings that do away with the unlucky floor completely. So when I get in the elevator I press the button for the 14th floor. Every morning, a lie. I enjoy the work I do, it is easy and repetitive. The people are kind and the best of it all: I get to wear madmen dresses and not feel totally out of place. I enjoy pretending that I'm Doris Day smiling through the workday and having a cocktail in pjs at night. It's a paycheck, and it gets me out of the house. I'm game.

My time has also been swallowed by a couple visits from my sister and the kids. I've really enjoyed making wedding gifts this season, but it's fun to toss in a couple non-nuptial crafts here and there. Kids are good inspiration.

After seeing a couple versions of summer bonnets on Etsy, I made a paper mock up of a reversible bonnet for Lily. The final product took some tweaking. Her head was not as long crown to nape as the baby doll I had modeled it after. But it turned out, and it's a nice way to keep the sun out of her eyes on these hot summer days. She didn't rip it off her head- that's success!

Isaac, the eldest, has inherited his grandparent's (and aunt's!) thrifty sensibility. He walks in the door and the first thing he wants to do is show me a shoe box full of pens and markers he bought "FOR ONLY A QUARTER!" He sits me down and shows me his winnings. Isaac has a real competitive personality, much like his aunt. He asked me to help him calculate how much money the pens might have cost him brand new. And then, when he saw the zippered purse Nana keeps her pens in, he asked me to help him create something of the same sort for him. The pen case turned out to be more like a satchel because of the size it needed to be to fit everything inside. He did have some real gems including a pen with a mini Trouble game on it. That creepy joker pen is not my favorite, but it's safe and sound in this lined, monogrammed pouch.

Summer's full-fledged in Ohio and the sky is storming with quick changes in weather. I feel good changes in the works for me as well. A tan and more days full of fun, creative tasks will make sure of that.

I Was Framed! - Craft's "True" Intention?

I like to make things that have a look of antiquity about them. In my mind, if a thing already looks like it has lasted the pass of time, then maybe it will be valued more for its supposed longevity and showed closer continued care. I'm sure I could come up with some blatant exceptions to this hypothesis: the extinction of the VHS, ageism, press board furniture. Still, I think there's a reason for the resurgence of homemade (or homey-looking) things in recent culture. DYI crafts are things made with meaning rather than Ikea-assemble-it yourself-junk, or purchased off the shelf. The "old-fashioned" quality that appeals so much to our generation is the time and feeling put into the craft.

Maybe, it also has something to do with the impermanence of the era in which we live. Most of our photo albums are online, you can't shuffle through those memories in your hands. One crash of an email provider, and 10 years of correspondence is gone- like it never existed. In a world where so much is available at our fingertips in a second, there is very little that we actually touch and keep forever.

I must admit that there's a selfish desire for immortality in my creations as well. I know I may grow apart from even my dearest friends from my 20's. But if I pore over hundreds of stitches in a personalized embroidery now, it may be harder for my loved ones to forget me later. With my gift staring them down from its perch in their reading nook, I have a greater chance of friend retention. "Think of Sarah," the stitches call, "She sure was great, huh? You should give her a call sometime." Now you know the real root of it. I don't really give presents, I just make preemptive friendship investments. It's purely selfish.

I chose the frame for Amy and Scott's wedding sampler from a collection of antique frames stashed under a spare bed in my parents home. I had hoped for a little more gild and a little less arts-n-crafts but I think it worked out. The greatest charm of it was my discovery of the frame's previous occupant: Meet Claudette Colbert, the 1930's starlet of "It Happened One Night", screwball comedy actress, and Kennedy Center Honor Recipient. This picture depicts her as pretty fair, but she actually looks a little more like the bride in her other portraits. Fate, perhaps?

I hope you know me well enough to know I'm not really a big, conceited jerk. If you don't, well, be forewarned.

An Eye for An Eye? - On Osama

I don't generally enjoy sharing my opinion on political matters. I dodge conversations about upcoming elections. Generally, this is because when I'm with my family I tend to be the "far left" black sheep. Yet, somehow, with many of my friends, I tend to be the more conservative of the gaggle- even if only by a social issue or hesitancy to commit myself to a side.

But today, I feel strongly that I don't feel good about how people are responding to the death of Osama bin Laden. I don't claim to be the only one effected by this news this way, but it does seem that an inordinate number of people are celebrating this man's death. It conjures up a scene of an old-timey American hanging, perhaps following a witch hunt. (Not a perfect analogy, but do you understand where I'm going with it?)

I do not think this man should have been free to continue to wreak havoc on ours and other nations. I do not even really know that he is the cause of havoc in our nation or simply an overzealous terrorist seeking fame and blame. I don't think he's an innocent creature and I think he deserves punishment. I think, however, that murderers like him need to sit with their mistakes for the rest of their life. What punishment is death? It is much more like release than incarceration.

My freshman year of college at Kenyon, there was an amnesty group who had set up a folding table outside the cafeteria. They were advocating against the death penalty in Ohio. I wrote my representative a letter urging him to consider an alternative. I don't remember my words exactly but I know I shared this true thing with him: My aunt was inconceivably murdered by a man who took his own life in the cop car that was supposed to drive him to jail. Had he lived, I want to believe I could have forgiven him. As it was, he died with all of my anger towards him intact. I didn't want that man to die anymore than I wanted my Aunt to die.

America needs an opportunity to learn forgiveness. I'm not suggesting that anyone FORGET. But, what lesson is learned by the murder of a man, or by 2,753, or 4,452, or even 1,033,00? A man's death is nothing to celebrate. An attitude of humility and forgiveness and a genuine desire and effort to stop killing people, that would be something to fly a flag for.

The Beginning of MY "Wedding Season" - 2010

All at once, it seemed, in the summer of 2010, my friends from college and the life beyond began to get hitched. I had experienced a similar rush directly out of college of Kentucky friends from childhood. That, however, I could explain as a regional fluke. But my liberal college friends? I was certain they wouldn't beat me to the "altar". (as if it were a race!)

Both brides of the summer of 2010 were old roommates of mine. For Alison, I made a quilted table runner featuring paper umbrellas like the one that we had hanging in the dining room of our 5th street apartment. We spent many nights having family-style dinners in that room, candles lit, bottle of wine between us. I hope the runner makes appearances during such - and more romantically inclined- dinners throughout her marriage.
Sam and Jon's summer feast wasn't a wedding per se, but I couldn't miss the chance to embroider these dish towels with leaping lambs. I imagine these towels will clean up some of the tastiest messes in the world.

Inspired, in part by my mother's habit of crocheting a blanket as wedding gift, I began my own tradition. I started embroidering and sewing gifts for my friends and family. Call it cost-saving, call it off the registry. I call it personalized. I hope that the things I make end up being around for years, and not in a drawer but covered in stains from overuse.

A Wedding A Month - April Edition

As Promised. I am unsure if one has been opened yet, so I won't post pictures of that yet. Amy & Scott had a fantastic wedding full of excitement and exuberance that I associate with the two of them. The ceremony included (amongst other charming bits):

1. A walk down the aisle to "Be My Baby" - one of our college band's (The Quick & Dirties) most requested songs.
2. A dog ringbearer.
3. A flashmob brass band playing a rousing version of R. Kelly's "Ignition".

I decided it was NOT rude to give a wedding gift to my friend Eli, another Beloit guest at the wedding, 8 months after his North Carolina wedding which I was unable to attend. His bride and he had a farm wedding and I wanted to capture the simplicity and beauty of some of the pictures I saw from the event in a small embroidery. It wasn't until Eli opened their gift at the reception that I found out Amanda had spent months collecting blue Ball Jars for decorations.

The image also reminds me of summer nights of collecting lightning bugs in a jar and watching them blink lazily, on and off on and off, from my bedstand as I fell into sleep.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: (pun intended) A song has been driving me for several months now. It often plays on loop on my computer and when it's not playing there it's looped in my head. When a song acts like a virus in your body, I tend to believe there is good reason for it.

Evidently, I heard it over a year ago for the first time but didn't pay attention. The occasion was a dormitory desk shift with one of my best friends at Interlochen. We were sharing songs that were moving and shaking us at the time- an easy thing for music to do when your heart is primed by the loneliness that ResLife jobs create. I guess that, like I do when I'm overwhelmed with my own emotions, I didn't so much listen to her but wait until I could play her MY song. (I'm sorry, Juliet. I'm working on this.) Either way I did discover the song this winter, just in time. Maybe it wasn't time for me to hear it last winter considering I obviously wasn't ready to listen to it.

The song is Ryan Montbleau's :: "75 and Sunny" Listen to the whole thing through, the sound of it is repetitive, yes, but the lyrics are so potent. One verse is especially important to me:

"And I’ve got a best friend. She don’t drink or smoke like I’ve been known to. She’s got religion. She’s a one-woman dynamo and lights up every room she goes to. She says the light that’s there won’t go nowhere, no way. She don’t spend every second smiling, but she’s learning something exciting every day.

She’d rather be 75 and sunny than 29 with a chance of showers all the time. She’d rather be old as dirt than new as any $9 bottle of wine. Or to be thawed at 35, mama, stoned with her back to the wind. You better believe she’s living for the moment but her moment is the whole damn thing."

I hope people see me, know me and still think of me in this way. I'd like to be known as someone pressing to see the positive in each situation- someone who carries a light that no one can extinguish. Not just an artist, teacher, musician or aunt but an advocate for hope and and good will.

Wherein Art Fulfills Me

Forget everything else. Forget the time that's lapsed. Forget any promises I made to you or to myself. The only expectation I ever plan to hold myself to is to not give up. Today, that is shown by a half-thought, half-paragraph intro to a post about nothing much at all. Nothing much but something I can be proud of. And that's really something.
I am still a lady mostly unemployed, unfortunately. But my time fills itself well. I am busy with friends, with family, with church, but most intentionally with projects. I do love projects. As someone who has had several short trysts with unemployment before I have learned some decent coping tactics. I haven't found a cure for the restlessness or the frustration. BUT, I have found a way to secure some relief: MAKE THINGS.

After my community college course was over (Oh, by the way, I got an A.) and I had completed my video, I felt great need to have a new assignment to set my sights on finishing. Lucky for me, I've got a new set of deadlines to meet during the spring/summer season of - have you guessed yet?- WEDDINGS!

March belonged to my college pals Liz and Andrew. They are one of the all time greatest couples ever. I couldn't just get them something off of their registry. A soap dish wouldn't cut it as a representation of my love of their union. These complementary, customized aprons and "famous food couples" cotton dish towels did the trick. And dying the fabric, designing the images, researching fonts, and embroidering kept me busy and feeling productive for the better part of a week.

Take that unemployment.
Stay tuned for April's installment- coming soon!