Ruminations while ironing
This year of 2024 continues to overflow with good things. A longed-for wedding of those I love, visits from out of town and oversea guests to our home and then, driving along interstate highways back to homes of those I love. Day trips to downtown museums, restaurants with one I have loved for more than forty-eight years, and walks into our small town with quaint shops and a fire engine station with one who walks stoutly on two-year old legs, and wonders at all that is seen from leaves to cracks in the sidewalks. Suffice it to say, this May has been and continues to be a month of activity.
Yesterday, while tidying up this and that from the previous weeks, I started to iron a hand-embroidered tablecloth from more than fifty decades ago. Hand-stitched by me, in fact. As I stood in the small, quiet room with steam rising from iron on the linen fibers, I began to ruminate on time. When did I ever have the time and patience to do such a thing? It was before cell phones and streaming TV and online meetings. It was the past when intrusions were not pervasive every hour of every day. A time when not every little thing seemed to be an immediate call to action.
As a young woman, with wooden hoop encircling fabric, the rhythm of living in the quiet moments renewed the spirit, the mind, and the body while creating something tangible and concrete. Now, I struggle to find that place once again. So, the studio door closes. The blackout curtains are pulled across the windows. The laptop is shut down and the phone on silent. I sit with a book, pen, and paper instead of the needle and thread.
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