My Life of Convenience

Needle and thread, 

once as necessary 

as hammer and nail. 

There was a time

when clothing, sewed by 

a seamstress or tailor, 

were sewed by hand 

needle and thread 

dipping and diving 

through fabric 

    ~ perhaps silk, 

    ~ denim

    ~ or even a flour sack. 

Those days are long gone, 

my needle and thread 

still needed for replacing 

a button, mending a hole 

in socks, or lifting a hem

in my convenient life. 

“Most of the time occupied in sewing. It seems as if 

there was no end of that branch of work in this house.”

~ Ellen Birdseye Wheaton, diary 1851

Again

Again

“I’m too old to start again.” Standing at the mirror, a full length one at that, Adele agreed with her reflection.“So, we won’t. We’ll start something much bigger. Just you and I.” Adele Marie Wilmington had been a successful business woman. Retirement came to her with a surprise. She, and her staff, thought she would be carried out the door before she would accept retirement. The clothing design company had been her baby. From her mother’s kitchen table designing ball gowns for paper dolls to school fashion shows and on to a Master’s Degree in Fashion Design, she never stopped looking at clothes and fabrics. Often quoted with her directive to staff: “You can’t have one without the other. Fabric makes the garment and the garment makes the fabric.” There was one day when she knew she was done with the whole business. She had a special love for natural fabrics: real cotton, real wool, real silk. Business models had made it necessary that she bowed to the synthetic world of fabric. So much so that even business felt false and synthetic. When she heard herself being called a legend, and ‘the grand dame of fashion’, at first she was proud but slowly she heard it in a different light. For some she’d been put on a pedestal, for others……well, she saw the smirks, overheard one or two snide comments about ‘too old’. Most of her contemporaries had either retired to Florida or some island in the Caribbean. Unfortunately she’d had to attend too many funerals. The C.E.O.’s she dealt with were young enough to be her children and even one her granddaughter. The day she retired, she came out of her office above the cutting room floor and called for silence. A very large room, it took the supervisors time to rush around and have all scissors and measuring tapes put down. The models, in various states of undress or draped in Adele’s cherished fabrics, impatiently did as they were told. She spoke into a microphone “I have an announcement to make, but first I want to thank everyone for your hard work. I know some of you have been here since I began this company. Your leadership bringing everyone else on board has been invaluable. For everyone else who has joined us, you have made this company what it has become. My dream.” A catch in her throat, she hesitated, dabbed her eyes with her ever present delicate cotton handkerchief. Continuing she said “Today, I am retiring effective 5pm. I will no longer be in the office but will work from home until I decide who should take over from me. My secretary, Annie Fitzgerald, will be in charge along with the floor supervisors.” A gasp rose from the floor in unison. Then the murmurs about who and what and why today began. Adele clapped her hands. “Everyone, please, return to your work. My office door will be open for anyone that has questions or concerns.” Her secretary had been informed that morning of an ‘announcement’ and had a light lunch and coffee ready for her employer. Adele’s office, at the level of a second floor suite, had a small balcony where she retired to after the tension of her bold action. There, looking out over a city park, she breathed deeply of the air that felt fresher, even with any traffic fumes. Her shoulders felt lighter. She hugged herself, preventing herself from cheering to the people below, like Scrooge on Christmas morning.

Now here she was at home, her shocking white hair pulled back in her signature bun, wearing a long, flowing white silk caftan, gold slippers showing her pedicured toes. “What big thing are we going to do?” She and her reflection laughed out loud. “We’re going shopping for crayons and paper dolls. If I have to go to Toronto, Vancouver, Paris or New York City to find just the right ones, that’s what we’ll do. I have to find myself all over again because none of us are ever too old for that.”

“It’s never too late to go out and get that feeling back.”

~ Loretta Switt

Re-Dressed

Clothed in snow and frost,

trees in wintertime glitter

            ~~~

In freshening spring,  trees are

scented and dressed in pink and green.

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.”

~ Kahlil Gibran

The Rule of 5

I don’t like rules

they don’t like me

they do have their place

in the world of my home

for the stack of papers

that need filed and fixed

the ironing waits

‘til I need clean clothes

so five at a time

each stack gets done

I don’t always play by 

the rules that I’ve made

but once started, momentum

takes care of the rest.

“Any fool can make a rule

And any fool will mind it.”

~ Henry David Thoreau, Journal #1

Laundry Day

 

Socks and undies,

towels and sheets

jeans and shirts

sweaters and napkins

sloshed and spun

dried and fluffed

smoothed and folded

until the next laundry day.

“The laundry has its hands on my dirty shirts, sheets, towels 

and tablecloths, and who knows what tales they tell.”

~ Joseph Smith, Jr.

Childhood and Summer

I had no clothes line ~

just the heat of the day

a light breeze and

a card table chair

Two items that escape

the dryer with each wash

became sun-dried, warm and 

smelling of childhood and summer.

“Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could.”

~ Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons

Ordering Disorder

Novels, textbooks, and poetry in shelves, on mantles and under lamps. 

Odd gadgets, cutlery and paring knives in kitchen drawers, 

Clothing worn and still tagged, linens and towels in closets and drawers

Knick knacks gifted or purchased at random

All shapes and sizes, needed and someday purposes 

Classy personal computers

Shiny laptops that just come along for the ride

Cell phones in pockets, purses, iPads or tablets

the ultimate junk drawers containing 1000’s of pieces of junk mail, emails from friends and family, old bills, pictures swallowed up like socks the dryer. Emails and essays, bills and documents, photos, schedules and calendars neatly saved in categories and folders, filed and ordered.

So which is easier to declutter?

Books stacked around in loose categories?

1. Keepers,
2. Maybe keepers
3. Donate…..

My computers? 

Signed out and closed up, 

not a file or folder in sight ~

neat and tidy as possible!

“I like  working among ‘creative clutter’. 

It gives me a sense of activity and achievement.”

~ Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel’s Journal - No. 1

Forgotten Clothes

sweaters dresses and slacks, 

forgotten, like dust bunnies 

migrated from under beds and dressers 

into closets and drawers ~

hung limply on plastic hangers, 

laid flat in cedar drawers

weighed down by time ~

saved ‘for good’  when 

each day must be a good day.

“You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. 

It helps you get up in the morning,. 

It’s a way of life. Without it, you’re nobody.”

~ Diana Vreeland, columnist and fashion editor

(September 1903 - August , 1989)

Catalogued Memories

Catalogued Memories

“Every year…every year, and I miss it.” Ed shook his head. “And now look at us. There’s just no spirit in it this year.”

“Ed, dear, what are you talking about? And shaking your head like that? You told me you had a wonderful day. Now you look like you lost your best friend. Supper’s ready, come sit down and eat.” Emily set the dish of mashed potatoes by the roast she had prepared for supper. “Now tell me what’s troubling you, dear.”

“Oh, it’s really nothing, Just an old man lost in the olden days. But tell me this, Em, when was the last time you saw a Sears Catalogue or an Eaton’s Catalogue? Here we are, stuck in the house with each other - that didn’t come out right - I love being ‘stuck’ with you. We’ve been at each other’s side for, what is it? 61 years?” Ed helped himself to a little of everything, adding an extra spoon of mashed potatoes and Emily’s delicious gravy. 

Emily folded her napkin on her lap. “Well, let me see. We always got the Sears Catalogue. My girlfriend on the other side of town got the Eaton’s Catalogue. We’d sneak them out of the house and meet at the skating rink. We did take our skates with us, but it was just for show. We’d get some hot chocolate on the curling rink side, sit at one of the corner tables and make our Christmas lists. She was my best friend and, I’m ashamed to say, we lost track of each other. But I remember those times at the skating rink. Now, we just go online and order whatever we like. We can send it, with out even seeing it, wherever we like.”

“You’d better eat your supper, Em. It’ll be getting cold” Ed chuckled as he swiped up the last strips of gravy on his plate with his bread. “It didn’t take you long to get lost in the olden days. You and your friend probably looked at all the pretty dresses and shoes…..”

“And the jewellery. Diamonds and emeralds and rubies that our parents never could afford. Too fancy for small town wear!”  Emily returned to her plate, a smile on her face. 

~~~~~

Supper over and the dishwasher washing, Ed and Emily had retired to the living room with their coffee. They pulled out old family photo albums of Christmas’s past ~ old black and white photos their youth, coloured pictures of their children growing up. If anyone was listening, they would have heard laughter and crying, whispers and shouts of joy. “Do you remember that, Ed?"  “Oh my, my - look at you, Em. The year you were Mrs. Santa Claus because Santa Claus was down with the flu.” Ed smiled and kissed his wife. “And here we are still waiting for a delivery man to come bringing Christmas presents to be wrapped. Even without our old paper catalogues - but they were so much more fun.”  Emily nestled her head on his shoulder, one arm around her as they kept paging through an album. “We may be stuck here together, Edward, but we’ve seen a lot of life.”

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”

 ~ John Banville, The Sea

The Other Guy

 

Understanding

    the other guy’s

        position is awkward

Lying down

   Standing up or

      Sitting down

Has there been

   deepening darkness or

      steady light?

Has there been

     hope for tomorrow and 

         courage in each day?

Are we warmly dressed for

   summer or winter

        rain or snow?

Understanding 

   the other guy’s

      position is difficult.

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. 

Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.”

~ Marie Curie

Hidden - Chapter 1

Hidden - Chapter 1

Pearl knew that it would be impossible. She was so ordinary compared to just about anyone else. Even her expensive clothes were bland and too ‘suitish’. Looking in the mirror didn’t help. Her forever curly mop would not be tamed. Every morning her ordinariness chastised her. Approaching either Evan or Ethan seemed hopeless and just a school girl dream. What would either of them see in her? Evan riffed on the piano just like Jerry Lee Lewis. Ethan was just gorgeous and always well dressed. Pearl was meeting her best friend Charlotta for lunch that afternoon. Together they would make their plans for this Valentine’s Day. Neither of them could face one more Valentine’s Day alone.

“It’s never hard to act ordinary if you feel ordinary.”

~ Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

It's Time ~1

It’s time to do ~ time 

to peel the dusty sweet onion

made of favourite old clothes,

wavering musical eight tracks and

still shiny journals full of knowledge

to put memories in their places

where they will always slow swirl 

around the edges of change to gradually 

settle into the soft silt of the past.

“Life is like an onion. You peel it off one 

layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”

~ Carl Sandburg

Turning - CHANGE - Theme for November 2019

Turning

Customary clothes and coins…

Habitual steps to…….

Always a struggle…….

Naive beginnings…….

Great and simple……

Effects are not what…….

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, 

but no one thinks of changing himself.”

~ Leo Tolstoy