Exquisite Inconvenience

Greetings Dear Ones!

I have missed you! I apologize sincerely for the recent lapse in blogs.  I know it was only two (and some of you may not even have noticed) but I have been adrift on rough and wild seas.  I am writing to you now, battered yet resilient, amidst the rubble of the shipwreck of yet another “former” life.  I have sold my cozy homestead in the Enchanted Forest and moved to the wilds of Southern Vermont, where the kindly and beloved hermits of Hermit Hollow have taken me in, along with the sheep and dogs and mountains of clutter I don’t know what to do with.  I don’t think it’s appropriate to get into all the whys and wherefores at the moment—just that it seems to be part of a Grand Plan I’m trusting. 

As with all Epic Battles, the intervening weeks have been an interesting blend of the hideous and ludicrous.  Had Homer known such things in his day, he most certainly would have included in his sagas such tribulations as having the buyer’s bank lawyer research the wrong title, say it was not clear, and temporarily deny funding to the buyer; having the seller mend all the old screens in her attic (at great inconvenience and expense) only to discover that they were not even the screens to the windows of her house. There would be much screeching and gnashing of teeth directed at monsters posing as garage-door-repairmen who put “company policy” over customer satisfaction; most of the army would drop a KitchenAid mixer on its head at least once; and a very tired little witch would drive to Vermont with a fully loaded vehicle, arrive at midnight, sleep four hours and drive back to the cottage in the morning without ever unloading the vehicle! (And not even notice until she opens the door and wonders blearily why she cannot put in any more stuff…)

So! September, which always feels like the “real” New Year to me, packed a wallop! Many hijackings of time and energy propelled me willingly and unwillingly through a series of sheddings and Passages—all of which, oddly, feel like Births.  A dear lady is gone whose life needs to be commemorated with fiddle tunes and tears.  My daughter’s Birth was celebrated for a 22nd annum. (Last week, my own birthday was cancelled due to lack of interest but I seem to have aged a hundred years anyway, instead of the customary “one.”)  New Life, Deep Changes, Exquisite Inconveniences of Epic Proportions…these have Mothering written all over them.  The New tears itself away from the old, amidst much grieving and bleeding, so that it can go forth, rise in glory, learn a few new tunes, and then borrow your car keys forevermore.   Behind every New Beginning is a Mother—someone who claims “YES. Let’s do this. Let’s dive into the Mystery of ‘what if?’ and find out if it kills us.”

I have been thinking about Mothering a lot.

It began two weeks ago.  Inevitably, my slacking-until-the-last-minute collided with the one thing that could trump anything else I do—the needs of my children.  So, at 5 a.m., instead of writing a blog about all the pregnant bridesmaids I have been seeing lately or packing up my yarn collection, I was in the Emergency Room of the local hospital, being A Mother myself, and watching my nineteen-year-old blow the most dainty smoke rings using the mix of albuterol and oxygen the staff had given him to open his cramping lungs.  I was awash in all those usual “mothering” feelings—concern, fear, tenderness, pity, relief and VEXATION—colliding and cascading with their usual turbulence.  He had come home the evening before to help pack and been up all night with a full-blown asthma attack.  He had not had one for so many months he was no longer in the habit of carrying his inhaler—which was back in Boston. He lay on the gurney, blowing the smoke rings and giggling just to tease me, now that he could breathe again.  He saw my face, then got quiet and said, “Sorry Mum… No…really.  I’m really sorry for this inconvenience.”

THAT made me laugh!  Inconvenience indeed…

What is Motherhood, or parenting in general, but the most Exquisite Inconvenience?  Just ask all the pregnant bridesmaids!  It seems like there has been at least one in each wedding party we have done all summer—some poor girl who had no idea her belly would be this size when she ordered her dress six months ago.  “Can you do anything to disguise this bump?” they ask. As what? I wonder—a beach ball you happen to be carrying? A watermelon you can’t put down? “I don’t want to look this big in all the photos!” they whine.  [Side bar: WHEN are we going to convince the women of this planet that there is nothing more gorgeous that a radiant young woman swollen with impending New Life?]  “What if I don’t like this?” a pregnant bridesmaid asks, scowling at her mid-section in the mirror… I’m not sure if she is talking about the changes we are making to her dress or the ones Life is making to her Life.  “Oh, Honey,” I assure her, “the dress is going to be fine. And so are you.” But I think privately, “and you are going to HATE some parts of motherhood like you had no idea Hate could hate! But parts of it you are going to love beyond describing.  You aren’t going to lose yourself—you are going to find yourself.” “Yes,” says Prudence, “a Whole Lot of Yourself.  You may never fit into a size six again.”  I continue.  “You might have to forfeit your waistline and a perky bust for the rest of your time on earth but you will have hand-colored macaroni strung on yarn necklaces that will be nicer than any jewelry you can imagine, and one day, when someone does a turd in the potty, you will clap as if they had just won an Oscar. Your Joy will be Boundless.”  She wrinkles her nose in doubt. Perky tits for turds does not feel like a good trade to her. (YET.)

Talking about the ambivalence of motherhood makes some people uncomfortable.  It’s as if those who have decided to play the role of “Mother” in Life’s docu-dramas are to stick to apple pies, serving milk, and kissing boo-boos—never lifting the curtain on the horrors of hemorrhoids, insomnia, bladder incontinence or other Exquisite Inconveniences.  I say we need to claim it ALL.  Survival is the ultimate in Feminine Power.

Long before I had my first child, I was deeply suspicious of what motherhood would entail.  I had gone to a cafeteria style restaurant with some friends—the kind where you pick up your napkins and cutlery at the end of the line.  Without thinking, I brought enough napkins and forks for everyone.  Sure enough, they had overlooked this and were gushing with gratitude at my practicality and thoughtfulness.  “You’re going to be such a great Mom!” they said.  When I cleared the table, I heard “Thanks Mom!”  I started noticing when people talked about “great” mothers, they were not talking about women who slept until noon, hiked the Hindu Kush or brokered power deals in Real Estate.  They were usually talking about the lady voted most likely to clean up the mess. 

My personal concept of Motherhood crystallized the day of my grandmother’s funeral.  I was 32 years old, 32 weeks pregnant with my son, and had just been released from two months of bed-rest due to pre-term labor.  The only reason I was leaving the house was to attend the Life celebration of a beloved woman I adored and for whom I had been named.  My feet were too swollen to fit into any of my nicer shoes so my mother loaned me her black clogs, which were a size larger than mine and easy to get on my feet.  I wore a huge black raincoat over the maternity romper that would not have looked appropriate at a funeral.  (Why do maternity clothes make gestating women look like overgrown toddlers? We are having the babies, damn it, not dressing like them!)

My daughter, who at two and a half was going through “a difficult phase,” was dressed in a white gown with an ankle-length blonde wig over her sweaty curls, topped with a tiara and a magic wand.  Rounding out her ensemble were fairy wings and red glittery shoes on the wrong feet.  She had missed her nap and was in a nasty mood.  She was vastly displeased at having to sit with me on the hard pews and be quiet.  She alternated between doing an annoying, boneless sort of wiggling in my arms and swatting me with the magic wand.  Three quarters of the way through the ceremony, I had had enough.  She needed to go outside and stop distracting everyone. I grabbed her with more savagery than I am proud of, slammed her on what could be found of my hip after the belly had consumed it, and march-waddled quickly out the side door of the cathedral while she shrieked and hit me over the head with her wand.  As soon as I pushed hard on the heavy outer door, I froze.  I could barely breathe. A contraction gripped me and I knew I was about to wet my pants.  Somehow it passed and I made it outside, where it was pouring rain.  Another contraction hit. I would not make it too many steps before my bladder burst.  I scanned furtively for some bushes where I could relieve myself.  Up ahead, in the mist, I spied some large rhododendrons that would serve nicely.  Still balancing the raging fairy/troll on my hip, with no way to see my feet over the belly, I squatted in the bushes and tried not to fall over as I filled my mother’s shoes with warm urine.  “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do!” gasped Prudence Thimbleton in horror moments later when we crawled out from under the bushes and discovered I had taken my much-needed piss at the feet of the shrine to the Virgin Mary!  There she was, towering above us in the pelting rain, a gentle, sorrowful smile on her face—looking as many mothers often do, as if she knew she should admonish me but couldn’t keep a straight face.  I closed my eyes, slipped off my shoes, and just stood there in the pouring rain, holding a bedraggled but now-quiet fairy princess. “So…” I thought, “It’s come to THIS…”

Whenever I think about Motherhood, I cannot help but think of that moment—the panic, the pain, the irony, the humor, the weakness, the strength, the need for good shoes—it’s all there, in the truly Human intertwining of the Sacred and Profane—where we do our best and yet make a Mess—a mess no one else will clean but Us mothers—by that, I mean ANYONE who participates with the Divine Feminine in saying “Yes. Ok, now what?”  

As I parent myself through this next chapter and rejoin my Fellow Travelers on this journey, it’s good to remember one other, gooey truth of every Birth:  We keep the BABY—not the Placenta.  We thank all that which has nourished us and fed us to this point. It was necessary and non-negotiable. But to carry some things beyond the need for them, be they possessions, relationships, or ideas, would be um, either problematic or downright disgusting.  Burn them or bury them, thank them and bless them and move on.  Some things are absolutely Vital (i.e. Life-giving) until the moment they need to be shed—then to hang on to them means possible infection or death. The Past belongs to the Past.  (And so do all our clothes that no longer fit! Don’t drag them to a bewildered seamstress and expect miracles!) As Wayne Dyer says “The Wake of the Boat does not steer the ship.”   We each must ask ourselves, “Do I really need the whatever-made-me-Who-I-Was in order to evolve gracefully into Who I Really Could Be? Do I still require food or beverages or relationships which are potentially toxic? Do I really need FIVE spinning wheels, an equal number of sewing machines, and All these Shoes??? (Yes, yes, I really do!) (These astonished hermits have no idea what just hit them!) As someone who has just culled half of her possessions and needs to cull more, I understand how bitter these sacrifices can be—and how Liberating!

I’m grateful to be back in the shop today—looking forward to a new season of Mending and Stitching and lovingly (or grittily) embracing All That Comes!  I wish you, Dear Ones, Good Transitions, happy New Beginnings, Fond and Grateful Farewells, and plenty of Autumn Pumpkin Spice wherever you may be.  Thank you for your Patience and your Good Work.  I love you so much.

Yours aye,

Nancy

Children and Animals

If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”—Mark Twain

Greetings Dear Ones!

You might not believe it, but we are swamped (again) in the shop.  It’s almost as bad as prom season. I explain to a man that it might be a few weeks before we can get his five suit jackets tailored because we have so many wedding parties and bridal gowns with immanent deadlines to do ahead of his order.  It seems like half the county is getting married on September 20th.  His brow furrows in befuddlement.

“Weddings?” he asks. “Really??? People are still doing that?”  The combination of his stunned look and the ambiguity of his question hits me sideways and breaks me into giggles.  I don’t bother to clarify whether he means “I thought June was the month for weddings; who gets married in the Fall?” or “Really? People are still dressing up in thirty yards of silk and lace, eating cake with too much icing, and promising to love each other truly until Death grants one an end to the how-to-squeeze-the-toothpaste debate?” (From the Bottom! Insists Prudence vehemently. What kind of Neanderthal would ever do otherwise?)  I just nod. He shrugs.  “Ok then,” he sighs with reluctant acquiescence, “call me whenever they’re done.”

Yes, it’s Wedding Season in full tilt.  If there’s one thing that New England does almost as well as cider donuts and pumpkin lattes, its starched white steeples etched against cobalt blue skies, every shade of fire in the maples and oak leaves, and stunning old mills with waterfalls as the backdrop of wedding photos.  Throw in a horse-drawn carriage and some pumpkins and Cinderella-for-the-day could not be happier.   The photo opportunities will be perfect, especially when all the Ugly Stepsisters’ gowns (the gowns are ugly, not the stepsisters!) are hemmed so that their big feet and horn-like toenails with chipped summer pedicures don’t show. With all that magical pageantry going for it, you would think people would not have to involve children or animals in the matrimonial circus.   

BUT… NO….

People hosting and planning weddings are usually amateurs under pressure and they have forgotten the number one rule of Show Business: Never Work with Animals or Children. Especially children your siblings have given birth to!  That is, unless you WANT your rental tuxes returned with their pockets glued together by sweaty gummy bears.

Don’t think I am saying that children don’t belong at weddings. Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Weddings are about celebrating Family—of course they should be there!  It’s the best chance ever to mingle with fun cousins and get into just enough mischief to get a glare from an Aunt or Uncle but not a spank from your mother.  Children should be there to snitch olives off the hors d’ouvres table and sneak sodas and compare bike-riding scabs. Totally.  Just not in matching silk outfits they are expected to keep clean for formal pictures.   

One family of sisters comes into the shop to get SIX tiny, matching white dresses—each with about ten yards of tulle and a huge satin bow—tailored for six little girls under the age of four.  These sisters have a favorite brother who is getting married to a naïve woman who thinks it will be Just Adorable to have all the little niece-in-laws in her wedding.  (Have I mentioned that the ceremony is scheduled right smack at nap-time?)  The grandmother, who is in the shop to help wrangle the little ones in and out of their dresses, confides “I don’t know what she is thinking! They might as well set six live ferrets down at the end of the aisle and hope one of them makes it to the altar.”  The mothers look stressed out.  One child is climbing the grandmother like a jungle gym, another is eating crayons.  One has stripped herself of her clothes and is now wandering the shop.  One won’t take her dress off; the other won’t put it on.  These sister want to love their brother’s deluded bride, truly, they do… 

Another young bride comes in and says we need to make a waistcoat for her dog—she wants it to have a little pillow for the wedding rings attached to the back.  He also needs a matching bow tie.  He is going to be the ring bearer.  This makes total sense to me.  You can train a dog to do things.  They will have much better luck getting a dog down the aisle than six toddlers missing nap-time.  In fact, why does this chick even need a husband? If you want someone who will listen to you every time, do everything you tell them to do, and always be there for you for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, a dog is really your best bet.   Unless, of course it is a Jack Russell! But I’m not sure Jack Russells are actually dogs—they are more like tiny, spiteful people who made a wrong turn in the karmic cycle of rebirth and came back in fur pajamas with a serious Attitude problem.  But I digress…

Funny, I have yet to see anyone ever have a cat be a ring-bearer. Does anyone do this? A veterinarian once told me that cats have 32 muscles in their ears—all devoted to ignoring commands from you—that can locate the sound of a tin opener sixteen miles away. People think cats are un-trainable but that is not true.  You can train a cat to do anything it wants to do in the first place.  I’ve heard tell that you can even train them to use a proper toilet instead of a litter box to relieve themselves. Without getting the seat wet, or leaving it up!  What adult male human can manage that?

Cats figure in weddings more than you know.  For one thing, they are irresistibly drawn to wedding dresses for some reason.  We warn every bride who comes to collect her finished gown—“Don’t let cats near this!” They love to climb the dresses, nestle in the layers, and the plastic covering we put over the gowns is a major suffocation danger.  We warn every one--the Dog owners look mystified. Cat owners nod knowingly.

I am in the dressing room with a nervous bride and her mother for a first fitting.  The mother is pointing out all the places where the beading has come a little loose on the gown and will need to be tightened.  To me, the dress, though “new” looks a little shop-worn—like too many people have tried it on.  Maybe it was last-year’s model.  Maybe they got a deal.  I don’t judge; I just make mental notes or put pins where I see things that need to be mended or tweaked.  The bride, who has been twisting and turning to see herself from every angle, suddenly notices all that I am noticing and turns to her mother.  “Was this like this in the shop?  I don’t remember all these loose beads.”  The mother looks like a balloon that has been slowly filling up with water.  Finally, she gushes:

“Ok!  I didn’t want to tell you this but I had the dress lying out on the dining table because it was too long to hang in the closet.  I figure it is safe to tell you now.  The cat has been getting up on it. She LOVES it. Finally, I put the dress in its garment bag to protect it and it’s a good thing I did.  The cat threw up on it. Don’t worry; it didn’t get on the actual dress.  Just the bag and I washed that…  Wha-at!? Don’t look at me like that!  It’s FINE.”  The mother turns to me.  “I’m so glad you’re here. I did not feel safe telling her this alone.” She turns to the daughter, who looks like she has smoke coming out of both ears, “Really, Darling.  Don’t be upset. It’s FINE.”

It’s true.  There is something about animals and wedding dresses.  There is something about the pristine that just attracts the dirty.  I have made several wedding dresses for friends and family over the years.  To my HORROR, one of my dogs once lifted his leg on the bottom edge of one of the dresses as it rested on the mannequin in my sewing room. I had to cut that entire pattern piece out of the dress, buy more fabric, and remake the dress.  (If you are reading this, and I once made a wedding dress for you, don’t worry—it was probably, hopefully, ABSOLUTELY  not YOUR dress!)

Regardless of the specific details, Weddings are about celebrating a new Family Union.  We come together creatively and collectively to make a memory—though in all honesty, one Spouse will never remember and the other will never forget precisely on WHICH calendar day this Memory occurred.  But from this day forth, Children and animals are really what it is all about—why not involve them from Day One? They bring chaos and chaos brings Opportunities.   Opportunities are where we choose our Fabulousness or hideousness for the growth of our Souls.  I have been talking with my children a lot lately about how “we have no more Problems… Problems are a thing of the past.  What we have instead are sudden New Priorities!”  

Involving Children and animals in a formal celebration will provide a lot of New Priorities for their handlers.  (Priorities that probably involve paper towels and wet-wipes.)  Ultimately—each wedding leads to new birth—more children, more animals—more of Life seeking Itself.  They might not necessarily be those of the Bride and Groom, but trust me, New Life will result!  Just ask all the pregnant bridesmaids I’ve been fitting lately! Apparently, nothing makes a woman more fertile than ordering a three-hundred-dollar dress in January and pledging to stay a size 10 until October!

Be Merry and Well, my darlings!  Remember that Mirth is your shield against all ills.  When Chaos presents its choices—choose Love! It’s always there. I promise. I love you all so much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Uniformity

“The uniform is that which we do not choose, that which is assigned to us; it is the certitude of the universal against the precariousness of the individual.” ― Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel

 Greetings My Darlings!

August’s race is nearly at the finish line. Already, we’ve had two crisp nights in the 50’s (Farenheit) and just like that it is time to castrate the Spring lamb (who is suddenly having carnal desires for an elderly nursemaid ewe)(and pretty much anything else with a pulse). Sheep become amorous when the temperature drops… It is also time to round up all the children, scrape the pine pitch off their shins, wash the greasy matts out of their manes, stuff their little hooves into shoes and send them off to school with  conciliatory backpacks with unicorns or superheroes  on them. (Homeschoolers can still roam feral for another month…)  Like the last of the garden squash and tomatoes, it’s time to pull Summer up by its roots and neuter it.

School Uniforms have been flooding the shop in recent weeks, as local families return from their beach holidays and realize that their gritty little Christians, who smell vaguely of hermit crabs, need to be slip-covered in Tartan post haste.  An array of pleated skirts lines the ironing board, awaiting moved buttons and raised hem lines.  Elsewhere, some tiny pinafore jumpers need lengthening.   It brings waves of nostalgia over me as I realize how yet another generation of students is going to get to look as much like misshapen upholstery as I did, over forty-five years ago.  Not one damn thing has changed.  But then, is that not the very definition of “Uniform”?  From the Latin: You (as in you are no longer)/Knee (as in these cannot show)/Form (prepare to be molded).  

I will never forget the moment I introduced the concept of a uniform to my five-year-old daughter many years ago.  We had enrolled her in a local pre-kindergarten program that required them all to wear matching  grey track suits.  GREY. Solid grey…For a five-year-old GIRL who had slithered around the floor in a mermaid costume since the age of three.  Her wardrobe contained nothing that did not have some eye-watering combination of Pink, Purple, Glitter, Cheetah print—or, God forbid, all of the above—accessorized by an abundance of gaudy jewels, plastic shoes, and sunglasses.  I had to plan my moment well: close enough to 5 o’clock so that I could have a stiff drink, not so close to bedtime that she was up all night with night-terrors.  It was worse than I thought. “Why do they want us to look so UGLY?” she sobbed. 

“It’s not that they want you to look ugly, dear heart, they just want you to look the SAME.” 

“Then why can’t we all be in rainbow clothes with sparkly wings?” she wanted to know.  I had no good answer for that.  Left to their own devices, every girl in her class (and maybe some of the boys) would have turned up in Princess ball gowns.

She returned from her first day disgusted.  “You said we would learn to read at school and we didn’t.  And, since we all look the same, they don’t know who we are. We have to wear name tags,” she said, picking off her sticker.

Back in my day (how little-old-lady-ish that sounds!) we had one or two dresses for church on Sunday, the school uniform Monday-Friday 7:am-3:pm, and barn or “play” clothes otherwise.   The only time we could dress how we really wanted was on Halloween.   In High School, on rare occasions, usually to line the coffers of some worthy cause, we could pay a small fee on sanctioned “dress down” days and wear clothing other than our uniforms. Those days were awful.   Neither a church dress nor grubby jeans would catapult one to the top of the popularity poll—but either was far preferable to being the ONLY wretch still in her uniform when everyone else was going wild in their preppy, 1980’s argyle sweater vests, button-down polo shirts and loafers!  Then, it was not a uniform at all.  It was the thing that announced in LOUD plaid that you were a Total Goober to all who could bear to look at you.   Uniforms are only uniforms if everyone else is wearing them.

Well, that’s what I used to think, until I heard about Steve Jobs and how he chose to wear the same thing every day.  What a great idea!  Twelve years of my life were spent wearing the same thing nearly every day.  I could tell the time and the day of the week just by looking down.  One sister (not the fashionable one) and I would sometimes sleep in our uniforms to save effort in the mornings.  I know that sounds repellant—but wearing a uniform had nothing to do with taking pride in our appearance or identity.  It was purely about convenience.  What is more convenient than waking up already dressed? (Prudence thinks the people lurking in the frozen food section of the local Market Basket in their pajamas may have taken this one step too far…)  

As a result, I never really learned to dress myself appropriately until I had my own resident fashion consultant in the form of a Teenage Daughter.   Yes, that grubby little mermaid who used to dry-mop the dusty floors with her homemade glittery tail, who used to “swim” under huge swaths of sheer blue fabric to collect trinkets and seashells, wound up having a far more advanced fashion sense than I.   If it were up to me, I would be like a Von Trapp child, roaming the countryside in up-cycled draperies and yodeling.

There is really no evidence to suggest that uniforms make us better learners—if anything, they truncate the portion of one’s brain that is required to get dressed in the morning.  But they do teach us to find our safety through clothing.   They clothe our cowardice.  Our tribe claims us as members as we become transformed from one who wears the uniform to the Property of the Uniform.  Attempts to get us all to think alike, just because we all look alike don’t always work either.   Back then, our individuality worked its way out in the form of French braids and hair ribbons. Without realizing it, uniforms actually promote personality over attire.  One learns to look for more subtle clues about who someone else really is.

From the moment we were out of sight of our parents, until the homeroom bell rang, we were doing our best to heighten our individuality through the use of staples to hike up the hemlines, rolling our knee socks into patterns around our ankles, and that glaring, daring, dash for dangerous  sensuality—clear lip-gloss.  Don’t think for a minute that we had no idea who the “pretty” girls and boys were.  We did.  And more importantly, we knew who wasn’t.  (Every single one of us, it turns out.) (I thought it was just me.) At the time of our lives when we were desperate to be cool and sexy and fascinating—we were just like my little wee ram lamb—confused hormonal teenagers trying to get the attention of fellow beings who just found us annoying.

When we graduated, there were those who vowed to burn their uniforms.  I never did.  I had a Stockholm syndrome kind of relationship with it.  Secretly, I am very fond of scratchy woolen skirts.   Who’s to say if wearing a uniform is a denial of human rights or the crushing of individuality?  Do they promote school spirit?  I think all these arguments are highly improbable.  Rather, it interests me to think about how “the bad guys” in movies are all dressed alike (think Storm Troopers in Star Wars) and “the good guys” are always some rag-tag band of individuals with non-uniform clothing.  In fact, usually, they are an odd assortment of people one might not think would otherwise be united except against some common enemy.   They come together despite their differences, to unite around problem-solving, shared values, and shared ideals—using wit, courage, and ingenuity in a hard fight that leads to their collective freedom from threatened oppression. Their tribal bonds are forged by commitments, not clothes.  How do we get more of THAT in our schools???

And meanwhile… What the hell should I wear today?

Be well my Dear Ones!  Whether you’ve been Bad in Plaid or not, have a wonderful day and keep doing your Good Work!  I love you so much.

Yours aye,

Nancy

The only Constant...

“We love the things we love for what they are…” –Robert Frost

Greetings Dear Friends,

Cricket season has arrived.  As I go about my morning livestock chores, they dive outwards beyond the toes of my boots shooshing through the waves of grassy morning dew like tiny black dolphins before the prows of ships.  I am both delighted and sorrowful to see them.  I know they are here, once more, to sing Summer’s Lullabye.  They herald Change.  For one whose entire focus, eight hours a day, is on making good Changes happen for other people and their clothing, I have to admit this secret: I don’t love Change.  Sometimes I want things to stay exactly Just The Way They Are, frozen in golden sunlight.

A bride brings in a dress she “just LOVES” but she wants the entire neckline and all the beaded mesh (which is lovely and modest) removed.  She wants her bare cleavage to bulge up more. She wants the thigh area of this A-line skirt taken in very snugly to create a mermaid sillouette that simultaneously shows off her voluptuous bummage and requires that she not sit down at all, ever, during her reception. She needs lace taken off here and beading added there and Way More Bling. Can’t have enough Bling to suit her.   She is the type of customer who brings a Volkswagon to a mechanic, hoping she can tinker with it until it turns into a Ferrari.

I work on this gown, which I have dubbed the “vampire gown” with considerable (and humbling) bitterness.  This thing seeks my blood.  I have stabbed my hands repeatedly with the thread-ripper and pins—each time running for the super glue to seal the leak before I accidentally stain the ivory silk.  The biggest wound comes as I am reapplying six yards of lace to the bottom of the hem and my index finger is unexpectedly bitten by the downward driving needle of the sewing machine. Without thinking, I yank my hand back and tear the flesh from the tip of the finger.  No amount of sucking or gluing is going to stop staining the Kleenex red.  The other seamstresses are cringing and expressing commiserating winces.  These “bites” happen rarely but they hurt.  It’s a savage little reminder to Pay Attention.  Things can change without warning.

While I wait for this fresh leak to stop, I bind my finger in a piece of linen and wait on other customers.   A young woman comes in to collect her gown—a simple wedding gown she is wearing on a beach this weekend.  She tries it on, looking radiant and glowing.  “I can’t see a single thing you did to this!” she exclaims.  “It looks as if this is exactly how it came from the shop!” She cannot contain her surprise and delight.  This leads one of the other seamstresses to comment under her breath, “honey, did you WANT it to look like crap? That’s why you came here. We’re Professionals! That means you’re not Supposed to see what we do!”   I know they take umbrage when customers are surprised that the work is good.  I think it’s fantastic.  I love it. It pleases me no end to “see no change.”  I prefer when things are better by pure, invisible Magic—when we can forget the Effort.

The next man in has three pairs of pants showing signs of severe waistband fatigue.  He pats his stomach and grins. “The summer grilling season has been too much for me,” he says. “You can tell—I ain’t been eatin’ salads. Can you let these out a touch? And by a touch, I mean as far as they can go?  They’re my thin pants.  I can't bear to switch to the fat pants yet.”  We all nod understandingly. This is the same man who comes in February, after six weeks’ worth of New Year’s Austerity Measures and has us take everything in.  I look at the exhausted pants.  I know them well.  They go out and in so often, they might come back as accordions in their next life. I think about Heraclitus, the Greek Philosopher who said “you cannot step twice in the same river.”  This man does not sit twice in the same pants—Change is the only Constant in his wardrobe.

Change is a Constant in Fashion too.  No sooner do we get all the men happily wearing pleated fronts and cuffs that catch everything from dust or falling Doritos to dog hair, then the fashion pendulum swings the other way and we taper their trousers until they are tourniquets.  Pleats are OUT, flat fronts are In.  May every bald or hairy ankle reveal its true glory to the world! Doritos will just have to land where they must.  With women, it’s waistlines.  No sooner have we got everyone shifted into low-rise jeans that show off the hint of bum crack and thong (so that we can all resemble plumbers mending a loo), then the tide rises and we go back to having high waists at our ribs.  Muffin tops are out; bums that climb half way up your back are in. They say you can tell how old toddlers are by what they can do.  I say you can tell how old their mothers are by where they have gotten off the fashion wagon.  To the trained eye, waistlines are as easy to read as sedimentary layers of rock.  The hairstyle is just confirmation.

Some of us think we crave Change. Only, we don’t.   I had a man tell me he had such long arms that he had never ever in his whole life had a shirt fit him correctly.  So I made him a custom shirt with extra long arms.  When he tried it on, they came exactly to the right point on his wrist.  The new sensation of something hanging to his hand drove him crazy.  He hated it!  He came in again and again asking me to take the sleeves up “just a bit.”  After three times, they were at the same length of all his other sleeves! We think that having something “fit us better” would be A Good Thing—but sometimes it is too uncomfortable to live with.  We prefer what we are used to.  This is the premise behind Alain de Botton’s TED talk: “Why you will Marry The Wrong Person.”  We like what is familiar, even if it is bad for us.

Other times, we feel stuck without change.  We are enlivened and stimulated by possibilities and Choices that give our Free Will room to choose new trends, new shoes, new handbags in an endless variety of shades from vermillion to vomit.  We need to clean out the Old and replace it with New.  For no Good reason except that Novelty stimulates our economy. Mostly, we like the changes we choose, and if we don’t, we are always free to choose again!  The changes we dislike most are the ones we cannot Choose—the changes that require us to rewrite our agreements with Reality.

Back at home, a cricket hops into my bandaged fingers. We stare at each other intently for a long while. These crickets are not the same crickets as last year, though they are identical and serve the same Muse.  Essayist/Poet George Santayana reminds us that “Repetition is the only form of permanence that Nature can achieve.”  They teem in the grass around my home. For now, in this golden moment, this individual is not Anonymous.  I think that is the essence of Love—that I have Known One.

These crickets are here to sing us through the change of Seasons using the songs passed down by their ancestors as each generation replaces itself.  I leave all the windows open so that they can sing me to sleep along with Summer.  Tears leak into my pillow at the death of one of my horrible little dogs, whom I love so dearly, and the recent transition of a friend, who has left her place in earth’s choir and gone to Heaven’s instead.  I can still hear her laughter; I can still feel her spirit; but I cannot hug her ever again and that makes me deeply sad.  Another Love is having serious health problems… I am fearful and indignant about what these Changes require of my soul. I have No wish to rewrite suddenly my agreements with Reality.  I have gotten used to the way I like things and vice versa.   

The seasons are about to change and so are we all.  We will change our clothing—haul out sweaters and jeans to replace shorts and T-shirts—and begin the process of defining through colors and textures, tweeds and twills, who we shall Be until the hard frosts come.  Can we change our hearts as well? Can we breathe through the struggles to open the windows of our hot minds?  Can we reach Lovingly towards all that is Becoming and relinquish Gracefully all that went before? (I might have to kick and scream just a little.) I listen to the fresh batch of crickets in the dark.  Do they know what became of last year’s crickets? Is that why they sing?  The only thing that comforts me in times like this is the Joy of what I still have:  Gratitude for what Is and ever Shall be.  Change is not the only constant—Love is.  

This, and Pumpkin Lattes are on their way back!!! Woo hoo!

Much love to you all, Dear Ones.  Be Well!  Thank you for your Good Work!

Yours Aye,

Nancy

A Stitch in Time...

As ye Sew, so shall ye Weep…

Greetings my Dear Ones,

I want nothing more than to write about Pleasant Things, about the glorious weather, and my recent trip to Pennsylvania, and the tiny choir of August Insects tuning their slender wings and legs in the grass to see who’s the next winner of “Meadow’s Got Talent,” and how that puts me in mind of how I once played a duet with a Cricket on my fiddle. The Cricket was not actually on my fiddle, you understand.   I was literally “trading fours” with a cricket. (Isn’t language a funny thing?)  We were doing a cool call-and-response relay that I found enchanting.  Perhaps he was just looking for a cheap date. I will never know. I prefer to think it was a Celestial Connection.   But I cannot write about such magic because ….

I AM SCREAMING!!!  

I have just deleted more than forty-five blog ideas I had collected… My computer battery had expired and when I charged it back up, some Word-processing Force of Mischief asked me if I would like to replace the open files that had not been saved before it crashed.  Stupidly, I clicked on something I should NOT have clicked and deleted my entire file of memos and topics that were to help me slack my way through the next six months of blogging. These are the tiny notes I make on a daily basis when customers come in and ask us to make dog beds out of old clothes, and about how two Rights don’t make a Left etc.... Seriously, 30,000 words’ worth of bums, tums, and thighs and the struggles to slip-cover them in today’s hot fashion colors like Barf-Beige.  

“Look on the bright sight, mum,” says Poppy consolingly, “if you had really wanted to write about them, you would have written about them.  They were just some form of security blanket.”

It’s true. Every week I survey the list of possible collected topics and reject them all.  There is always something more pressing or more topical to tackle.  Still, it was comforting to know they were there.  I have suddenly lost all of my “margins,” all of my “slack.”   It’s as unnerving as cutting ten yards of curtains at the finished length instead of leaving enough extra to turn up for the hem.  It’s SHOCKING to the system to think that I could have done so much damage with such a tiny act—such a miniscule misplacement of a digit upon a mouse.   I could chalk it up to Mercury in Retrograde. Or I could just admit I am an idiot where computers are concerned.  Either way, I am seriously tempted to eat the contents of the freezer as a result.  Well, except for the yarn that I stored there against moths—and that fish my son and his buddy Dylan caught two years ago, promising they were going to grill it one day.

I can’t help muttering, as Eddie Izzard does in his stand-up comedy act: “I’ve wiped the file? I’ve wiped ALL the files? I’ve wiped the Internet??? I don’t even have a Modem!!”

Tiny events have BIG consequences. It’s the Truth. Even ignoring tiny things can create much bigger problems.   My dear Mother-in-Law used to make us carry all our beverages through her house on trays. “I’m a lazy housewife,” she used to say. “If you spill your drink, I only have to wipe up a tiny tray, not shampoo an entire carpet.  It’s purely selfish.  I hate cleaning. Just carry everything on a tray.” She would smile in a blithe and airy way and return to playing her piano.  Her house was always spotless because she was “too lazy” to let it get out of hand.  She was a hard-core proponent of the “Stitch in time” philosophy.

 I think about that proverb “a Stitch in time saves Nine…” It’s hard to contemplate what this maxim conveys in today’s world if one does not mend clothing with hand-stitching on a regurlar basis. The 'stitch’ one makes ‘in time' is simply the prompt sewing up of a small hole or tear in a piece of material before it gets larger.  The idea is that if you stitch one stitch today, while the problem is small, you won’t have to do nine times the stitching later. Clearly, this is meant to be an incentive to the lazy, but they were also talking about saving Time. “Yes,” says Prudence to me, “this one has YOU all over it!  You should print this on tea towels and hang them everywhere!”

The 'stitch in time' notion has been current in English for a very long time and is first recorded in Thomas Fuller's Gnomologia, Adagies and Proverbs, Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British, 1732, which I just ordered from an online book seller, while I was procrastinating over this blog. Fuller, who recorded a large number of the early proverbs exhorting the Anglo-Saxon work ethic, wrote an explanatory preamble to this one:

"Because verses are easier got by heart, and stick faster in the memory than prose; and because ordinary people use to be much taken with the clinking of syllables; many of our proverbs are so formed, and very often put into false rhymes; as, a stitch in time, may save nine; many a little will make a mickle. This little artiface, I imagine, was contrived purposely to make the sense abide the longer in the memory, by reason of its oddness and archness."

There is just so much to love about “clinking syllables” and “oddness and archness.”  And few things are as satisfying as doing little things in the Right Timing so that they don’t become much larger messes that overwhelm us.  The shop is filled with examples of these “stitch in time” moments—from the cop who blasts in with her britches torn to the man who needs the lining of his bag replaced before it can no longer hold its contents.  Prudence is constantly saying to myself and others “One must do our best work from the outset. If we don’t have time to do it Right the first time, what makes you think you’ll have time to do it over?”  She is, as usual, irritatingly Correct—hovering over me while I use a thick needle until I ruin the fabric then a thin needle until I ruin the needle.

My Darling Son learned at a young age the importance of doing little things in a timely way to avert larger disasters. Many years ago, when he was an altar boy and his sister and I sang in the choir at our church, I woke him on a Sunday morning in time to get ready for Mass.  I swept back his curtains and noticed two things: the dogs in his bed and the towels on his floor.  “Make sure you let the dogs outside right away and hang up those towels,” I said.  The Boy Whom Words Don’t Teach mumbled incoherently as I left the room.

Fast forward an hour and I am in the car, revving the engine and blowing out my vocal chords, which I should have saved for the descant of the opening hymns, imploring my lazy little Christians to get their arses in the car NOW—we are going to be LATE!  The female child appears soon after, with damp hair in ringlets to her waist.  She has no coat but she is fully clothed and in the car. Success.  I lay on the horn for another five minutes until the male child eventually skitters across the gravel with no socks and shoes (they are tucked under his arm) and hops in the back seat.  Upon closer inspection, I can see that although he is in his Sunday Best, he is completely soaked—his button down shirt is sticking to him like a wet T-shirt contest and his hair is dripping like he has been hosed.  “Why are you WET?” I bark. He just looks out the window and says “I don’t want to talk about it.”  I speed off, taking turns on two wheels, berating and rebuking and chastising for all I am worth, while they stare glumly out the window.  We arrive late to church and sprint to our separate locations.

Afterwards, on the way home, I am feeling calmer.  I apologize for the way I yelled at them. I talk about how I am just as responsible as they are for creating Reverence in the way we treat each other.  Yes, they must Honor Thy Father and Mother, but it’s not just a one-way street.  Parents should honor their children too. The energy softens between us.  I look over at the boy, who is dry now.  There is a long pause.  “So…what happened. Why were you wet?” I ask.  He shrugs, “well, I had to take another shower.”

“ANOTHER?” I ask.

“Yes, a Cold shower.  Poppy used up all the hot water on that long hair of hers. It was awful.”

“Oh no! That stinks.  But why did you need another shower anyway?”

“Well, when I got out of the first shower, which was kinda warm, and I dried off, I smelled something bad and realized I had just wiped dog poop all over me and into my hair.”  From the back seat there is the sudden cackle of a Delighted Sibling.  He glances at her but continues. “Yeah, I was in such a hurry—I wasn’t looking and someone had pooped in the towel and it wasn’t until I was smearing it down my legs that I actually stopped and noticed it.”  The sibling is laughing so hard by this point that she cannot breathe—she is emitting faint honking noises.

“SOMEONE pooped in a towel?” I say in an incredulous tone. “What do you mean SOMEONE?  Did you not let the dogs out like I asked?”

“Yes,” he insists uncomfortably, “I DID let them out.”

“Before or after they pooped on your towel?”

“Before.”

“Besides, how could they have pooped on your towel if you had hung it up?”

“I DID hang it up,” he says.

“Really?” I persist. “We are just on our way home from church, so I know you MUST be telling me the Truth.  Let me get this straight—you DID hang up your towel, AND let the dogs out.  So what you are asking me to believe is that Today, of all days, those Jack Russells decided NOT to go potty outside but to hold their feces until they could get back inside the house and somehow, through the use of pulleys or ladders or balancing on each other’s shoulders, secretly apply their jobbies to your neatly hanging towel??? Do I have this right?”  He starts to smirk.  I can’t help laughing. Especially since he had his come-uppance already.

“So, having noticed that you had smeared dog jobbies all over you, head to toe, you had no choice but to have another shower, only this time the water was ice cold and you had no way to dry off when you got out?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I could hear you hitting the horn and yelling so I just got dressed and came out to the car.”  By now, his sister is convulsing uncontrollably. She is going to need medical attention if she feels any happier. We ignore her.   I contemplate the perfection of the situation. What are the chances that those animals JUST SO HAPPENED to relieve themselves on the VERY TOWELS I requested he hang up?  It’s nothing short of a Miracle. I stick my head out the window as I drive and shout up to the clouds above—“Thank you Jesus!! Thank you!” For once, the Mother’s have won one. For once.

I pull my head back in the car and address my son, the love of my heart, my Dear Boy.  “You realize that if you had done just ONE, either one, of the little things I had asked that none of this would have happened? Right?”

He nods.  “Yup.”

Sometimes, doing the Right Thing at the Right Time—no matter how small it is—can make all the difference.  Just do the next Right Thing. Then do another. Big disasters have tiny beginnings. Make that first stitch in Time. Truly, it’s the Laziest thing you can do.

Be well, my Darlings! Thanks for your Good Work, wherever you may be. I love you all so much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

It's So Nice To See You!

The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Greetings My Dear Ones!

“Has anyone seen Ernie lately?” I want to know.  For some reason, today of all days, I feel his presence by his absence. We have not seen him for some time though I have not thought about it until now. 

“Well, I know he’s not dead,” says another seamstress matter-of-factly. “I check the obituaries for our customers every morning. He’s probably just lost his driving license or his mind.  One of the two.  But he’s not dead, unless he died somewhere else, out-of-town.”

I am relieved.  He is a difficult customer but one I have grown immensely fond of.  He typically parks his car up on the curb across the street, opens the door without looking, and shuffles through the oncoming traffic with the posture of a question mark, yelling and waving his arms at motorists who are screeching to a halt while peeping their horns at him.  Once in the shop, he collapses on the nearest chair and spends the next ten minutes telling me how there’s No Respect for anything or anyone anymore.  The one-sided harangue lurches between his days in the war (the Korean conflict) and his current prostate difficulties (which he calls Prostrates), with brief breaks to complain about how rotten young people are today.  He is lonely, mad, and scared and I find him totally Adorable.  I make a point of saying “It’s nice to see you again, Ernie!” as he turns to go.  He pauses at this, gives us each a grimace that passes for his breed of smile, and says we are “Respectable Girls.”  Then shuffles back into the oncoming traffic and chaos.

When the sounds of horns and sirens fade, the shop feels quiet.  We start thinking of other customers we have not seen for a while.   Subsequent gossip is inevitable:  “I heard she went out west to see her grandkids…So-and-so said she saw him at the hardware store in a knee brace.  Isn’t she recovering from back surgery?”  Some customers come in weekly with their dry-cleaning and repairs, others we see monthly, seasonally, or only for big lifetime events.  Over the years, some families have come in for so many events—baptisms, bar mitzvahs, weddings, graduations, proms etc… that we come to know quite a few characters.  We have our Favorites and it’s always nice to see them.  Even if a person is brand new to the shop, it’s still nice to see her.  What is a service industry without people to serve?

I don’t interact with any of the customers socially outside of work. I hardly know any of their names.  We are not “friends” in the traditional sense but I am deeply fond of some of them.  It intrigues me how Familiarity breeds the opposite of contempt.  (I wonder where that phrase ever came from?)  Observing an older gentleman barking about how he gets No Respect might be irritating and off-putting at first, especially if he is NOT Rodney Dangerfield and not the least bit funny. Until he does it a hundred times and during those hundred times you see the occasional little sideways shifts of his mask and glimpse an angry boy in there who just wants love.  Then you cannot help but love him.   Some people are just Silk masquerading as Rayon.  It’s nice to see them.

So many people frequent this shop and we are getting so many new customers that we often have trouble recognizing people when they come back to pick up their stuff.  “What is your name?” I have to ask… But special people are memorable.  They stand out.  Some stand out immediately because they are Outrageous or Unreasonable, others stand out for their sparkle, their kindness, their happy auras and easy-going manners and Interesting projects.  Others are quieter, more subdued, and take many visits over many years to gain our affection.  It’s too easy take for granted the ones that are just “normal.”  (Except, you know that we have no such thing as a “Normal” customer!)  Some people are just so special that once they enter our lives, nothing is ever quite the same—they arrive and make such a beautiful impact that Life suddenly becomes funnier, richer, more Zany or Magnificent than we ever imagined.    Most often, they do this just by being who they really are.  Authenticity wins out every time, whether they are cranky-pants or not.  Gradually, they grow and grow in our hearts like trees grow over time in a forest. Then one day, when we suddenly learn via the grapevine that they are gone, the Space they leave behind feels like a desert. It was so nice to see them.

Working with the general public has its challenges.  We definitely meet “All Kinds.” To curb Prudence’s tendency to judge, I have taken to saying to my more devout co-workers “Today I am going to see all our customers as Sacred Children—Manifestations of Divine Wisdom in search of Itself.”   In walks a female version of Divine-Wisdom-in-Search-of-Itself asking me to chop all the pockets out of her clothes because she is worried that they might be adding bulk to her silhouette and making her look fat.  It’s easier to think piously about the three sons who come in to get their old suits let out so they can attend their mother’s funeral, even though one spends his entire fitting looking at his cell phone.  

 All it takes to love someone is Really Paying Attention.   When we do that, we cannot help coming to Know them.  And that song is right—to know is to love.  So is to Serve.  We are bound together by our needs:  I need money and they need to have their pants fit them by Friday.  The love that becomes part of the transaction is optional.  I believe there are no such things as accidental meetings.  People come into our lives for a Reason—even if that reason is only to have us replace all the worn out elastic in their long-johns.  I rarely know how important someone will become to me, when I first meet him or her but I am coming to see that the people I need most in my life are the people who need me in theirs, however peripherally.  Sometimes the best mirror we can look into is the Joy on a happy person’s face.  It’s nice to see ourselves as Useful.  And I mean it when I say, “It’s nice to see you again” when I rediscover a Higher Self through service.  “It’s been a while. Welcome Back!”

Oddly, our most difficult customer of all time is the one none of us as ever seen.  She has been sending her stuff for many years via the satellite partnership with cleaners.  Heaps of clothes arrive weekly in their van with notes pinned to them explaining in terse commands what we are to do.  We have talked to this Mystery Customer over the phone once or twice but she refuses to come into the shop for a proper fitting. When things go wrong, as they often do with such an arrangement, the clothes simply get returned to us with more notes attached.  I try to paint a picture of her in my mind.  Judging from how much we have to hem everything, this is not a tall person.   Nothing else can be ascertained from the wildly diverse collection of colors, trends, fashions, most of which are very high-end.  Working on her clothes makes me nervous.  It’s not just “nice” to see people—sometimes it’s absolutely necessary! I feel about as productive as a chicken trying to hatch a golf ball on these occasions.

From one of her items of clothing I remove a tag that reads: “The Irregularities and variations in the color and texture of this garment are the result of its unique manufacturing and natural dyeing process. They are not flaws.”  Wow! I think, I should wear such a tag! (Seriously, I am thinking of getting these printed!) What a great tag for any one of our customers...  It makes me ponder how often I remember people by their problems instead of their attributes.  As we get to know our clientele more thoroughly, they stop being known as “that lady with the Alfred Dunner pants” or “Mr. Persnickety with the limp buttons issue” and actually acquire names.  When I say “It’s nice to see you,” I must focus on the YOU that is bigger than your issues. 

We take for granted our ability to see people.  And then we don’t. Because of the recent dreadful gun violence in this nation, there are many aching families, torn apart by bullets, who will no longer be seeing dear familiar faces they may have assumed would always be there.  As bystanders viewing this through media coverage, it’s easy to see the numbers as anonymous symptoms, not individual people. Such tragedies remind us how silly it is to take those we love for granted.  When we get to see those we love alive and well, it’s really not just “nice,” it’s the best miracle ever.

Ironically, this blog is helping connect me to a lot of people I wish I could see more regularly, as well as some of you I have never seen, though I wish I could. When I bump into random folks at fiddle concerts or events outside the shop, it is such a delight—“an Extreme Privilege” a friend likes to say—to see someone In Person.  Wherever you are, I am grateful you are here in my world—whether you are the type of customer who says “I’ve been dragging this thing around in my car all month and I never seem to get here. Any chance I could have it done by tomorrow?” or not. I love you more than I first imagined I would.  Please stop by and see us again soon!  It would be ever so Nice To See YOU!!!

Thank you for your Good Work and for making my day!

Yours aye,

Nancy

The Foundation of a Good Wedding

“Mawwaige… Mawwaige is Wot Bwings us Togevah Today…” from “The Princess Bride”

Greetings Dear Ones!

Contrary to popular belief, the foundation of a good wedding is not about the right venue, the perfect dress, coordinating the bridesmaids’ gowns with the napkins, or knowing when to bite your lip and just smile politely at your mother-in-law.  These are just surface elements.  Like Love itself, it is what is underneath it all that really counts. And by that, I mean “Foundation Garments.” Yes. Undies.

As this Summer Wedding season grinds on, it’s becoming unbearably hot and sweaty in the tiny, windowless, unvented dressing room/sauna where our customers go to try on their clothing. The result is an olfactory stew that assaults the senses with a blend of acrid perfumes, perspiration, and someone’s unfortunate inability to digest non-dairy creamers. 

Bridey-locks is here again.  She came in months ago with a gown that was too tight; we let it out. Then she decided to go on a diet and lose thirty pounds; now it’s too loose.  If only I could fill it with porridge and make it Just Right.  She steps into the gown, heaves the front into place and then opens the dressing room door so that she can a. have access to oxygen again, and b. so I can lace her up. As I start threading the loops on her corset-backed gown, there is a faintly bovine smell rising with the steam off her back.  I glance down and see, much to my surprise, a trickle of sweat making its way to the ravine between two ever so lightly furred buttocks.  This bride is Naked!  She is going commando in a Wedding Dress! Prudence chokes and rushes for her smelling salts and hanky.

I have seen this before.  A surprising number of people don’t think they have to wear underwear to a formal fitting. They don’t understand that the primary purpose of wearing underwear is that it serves to keep outer garments from being soiled by absorbing bodily excretions that might stain or damage them.  Other reasons are no less important: to avoid friction, to shape the body, to add warmth, for visual appeal, or for religious reasons. I certainly can understand not wanting to add any extra warmth on a day like today—but seriously Honey, are you really more comfortable having everything stick together down there? Cause it AINT visually appealing!  No wonder certain religions seek to slip-cover the whole business and hide it from sight.

On my own wedding day many years ago, I decided to wear very sexy lace lingerie that promptly installed itself in the most inconvenient of locations.  By the opening hymn, as I made my way steadfastly down the aisle, it was bunching uncomfortably but there was no way to rearrange it through the layers upon layers of fabric, especially in the front of the church, with my back to of all those people.  All through Mass and the Vows and the sign of Peace, it hiked its way North more determinedly than renowned climber Alex Honnold during his ascent on El Capitan.    By the reception it was getting hard to smile without crouching to give myself some slack.  By the end of the night, my legs were fully two inches longer yet I hadn't grown a bit.  What began as an attempt to be visually alluring to my Beloved, resulted in a semi-permanent limp.  

For a very brief period of time, this experience led me to preach the gospel of not wearing underwear on one’s wedding day—something my dearest friend in all the world adhered to with Dire Consequences.  I resolve never to advise this again.   When brides or bridesmaids go naked under their clothes (wait a minute, aren’t we ALL naked under our clothes?)  I ask them politely if they might want to consider wearing some “foundation garments”—like scuba gear and flippers.

As I say, I am still atoning for once advising a very young, innocent, and beautiful bride to skip the sexy underwear and wear only control-top pantyhose with a built-in cotton crotch. I told her she would be so much more comfortable than if her underwear shifted.  Like me, she married in the early nineties, when it was fashionable to disguise brides as enormous lemon meringue pies.  “Everything will be so much easier,” I insisted, “if you skip the panties. You can always change into something pretty later.”   I made all the bridesmaids gowns and matching waistcoats for the groomsmen. I hosted her bridal tea.  I gradually assumed control of the entire wedding, much to the Maid of Honor’s dismay.  Wide-eyed, the poor bride agreed to everything I said. 

On her wedding day, she marched down the aisle wearing nothing but a pair of sheer panty hose underneath twenty yards of chiffon.  I even convinced her to ditch the bra, since her gown was strapless, and use the rubber “cutlets” to fill out the front where her bust was a little scanty.  Bravely, she came—lock-stepping slowly towards the altar to the sounds of “The Prince of Denmark’s March” with rubber boobs and no knickers.  Shall we pause here and just consider the absurdity of some of our matrimonial costuming traditions and what society (and women themselves) imposes on women for this event?  No? We just take it for granted that any of this is normal and sensible and necessary to the plighting of a troth? Ok… Let’s get to the reception then, where it all went ghastly Wrong.

First, we need to back up a little bit and set the scene. The basic ingredients of the plot are thus: The in-laws are god-fearing, law-abiding, genteel Southern Baptists from Kentucky whose expectations of a nuptial celebration include a morning service, followed by some (non-alcoholic) punch and cookies in the church basement where everyone stands around in gorgeous hats and says polite things and then goes home.  That’s it. End of story. Unfortunately, their son is marrying this cute little Yankee harlot from the North whose Catholic relatives are expecting the bash to last three days.  They have planned a rehearsal dinner the night before, the wedding and a big sit-down dinner after, followed by a brunch the next day. There will be approximately forty-seven hours of merriment, decadence, and debauchery amidst rivers of champagne. Have I mentioned that all Catholics are going to hell? According to these in-laws. It’s clear to them at first glance that these other “in-laws” are Outlaws. Nervously, for the sake of their son, they proceed. They witness first-hand the alcohol, the dancing, the loud music.  Mrs. In-Law’s lips get pressed tighter and tighter together until only the thinnest line remains.  To her horror, Mr. In-law is having the time of his life. SINNING. He’s snuck out back to have a cigar and a whisky with the other men.  One of them slaps him on the back and says “too bad ya’ll don’t believe in Confession…you could sin all you want and wipe this all clean on Monday!” He laughs nervously.  Satan, in the form of a voluptuous bridesmaid—the bride’s college roommate—asks him to dance.

The DJ, the bride’s uncle, puts on some swing music and everyone grabs their partners for some jumpin’ and jivin’.  A kilted Scotsman in full Bonnie Prince Charlie attire seizes the bride and begins to dance with her.  Everyone else stops dancing and circles around them to watch. They are fabulous dancers. The music is throbbing and their steps are light and quick as he flings her this way and that.  Everyone is cheering.  Even Mr. and Mrs. In-law can’t help joining the circle to watch their son’s bride trotting around the center of the ring like a frilly circus pony. It’s Magnificent.

UNTIL…..

The Scotsman decides to show off a little more by getting really fancy and flipping the bride up and over his back and catching her in an arial move that SHOULD have been a Fantastic Finale, had it not been for the beading of her gown and his big flashy buttons. They hit a snag faster than a trout line in weeds.  The bride’s front is stuck on his jacket buttons and he is bent over, holding her chest-to-chest beneath him.  She is upside down, legs in the air, with her skirts inverted over both of them.  All we can see is what looks like an enormous up-side-down mushroom whose two high-heeled stalks are kicking madly.  Well, to be honest, we can see a little more than that.  A Lot more. We can see things none of us really want to see. Things we cannot unsee for as long as we live.  There is a momentous pause.  Then a horrible rending sound of fabric tearing as the bride’s gown rips open, stem to stern, along the zipper in the back as the dress gives way. The force of her subsequent fall launches the rubber cutlets into the air in a spectacular arc—which eye-witnesses attest happened in slow motion.  The higher of the two cutlets does a full loop-de-loop and comes to rest right on her new Father-in-law’s foot.  He looks down so suddenly, with such an open-mouthed, shocked expression on his face that his upper plate of dentures falls out on the floor right next to the prosthetic boob.  Not many of us who were there remember what happened after that.  How did we get home? We don’t know. We are stuck, frozen there—teeth by boob—like a slide projector that has jammed on a single frame that has since outlasted that unfortunate marriage.

It’s not just women who need to shore up their foundations. This rule goes both ways. Men, too MUST wear undergarments for the good of their garments and their own protection.  I’m sure you have all heard the unfortunate tale of the young Scottish man whose fuming bride punched him and started a family brawl at their wedding reception in 2017.  When the police finally broke up the melee, and tried to sort out what had started the violence, they discovered that it all began when the Traditionally Attired (sans underpants) groom sat on the bride’s knee and left a small “skid mark” on her gown.  Much blood was shed and seven people were arrested as a result of this young man’s poorly wiped backside!

The moral of this story, for those of you who still require morals, is consistent with most of the Wisdom emanating from the experiences in this shop: Give a thought to what is Inside, Underneath, to what is holding you up and keeping you clean… Remember that it is the BRIDE who is expected to blush, not her guests.  These things are vital to your Success in so many ways.  You never know when your Posterior may become your Posterity.  You might spend hours agonizing over menu-choices and music choices and whether or not to seat Uncle Howard at the kid’s table, all for naught—only to have all the Magic obliterated by the untimely appearance of a hairy ass on the dance floor…  This is more than I can share with the steaming bride in the dressing room today, so I am sharing it with you, Dear Ones.  I know that words alone are not good teachers—at best, they can only validate prior experience—but perhaps the wiser ones among you can glean Something Useful from these tales that leave us all as open-mouthed as a toothless Kentuckian.

Be Well my darlings!  May your linens be clean and your laughs be dirty.  I love you all so much.

Yours aye,

Nancy

In Tuition

“When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.” ― Kahlil Gibrán

Greetings Dear Ones!

Prudence Thimbleton is cranky. For one thing, the recent heat wave (all two days of it) is hard on her—she hates the sensation of sweat gluing her toes together inside of the thickly-seamed dark brown pantyhose that she wears everywhere, even in shorts. (Gasp! Prudence Thimbleton would NEVER wear shorts!)  Having spent the past ten months grumbling about the cold, we must make good use of this precious and fleeting opportunity to crab about the heat. “It’s not the heat; it’s the humidity,” say the locals, looking like drippy candles after a short walk from the parking area. “The air is so thick and you have to chew it thoroughly before you can swallow it,” observes my visiting Scottish nephew.  I am doing that old New England trick of opening all the windows in the house at night and running box fans in the windows until dawn. Then I seal up the house and pull dark curtains closed against the solar heat and the house has to hold its cool breath until I get home at 5:30 before it can exhale again.

In times like this, nothing makes Prudence’s deodorant expire faster than answering the phone to hear a caller say “Yeah.... Um…” in place of a salutation, before launching into the business at hand: “Yeah…um…I’m...um… a bridesmaid in a um…wedding. Um…How long will it take you to fix a dress for me and um…how much do you charge?”  

“Who ARE you? (With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?) When is the wedding? (Cause if it’s this weekend, I’m afraid you don’t have a paddle for that creek full of excrement you are up) What is the dress like? How many layers? What, exactly, would you like us to do to it? (Is it a tad big? A teeny tinch small? Or does it have enough slack in it to smuggle wombats? And while you’re at it, how long is a piece of string?)

 Poor Prudence is instantly hijacked by one of her “Um” tallies and by the time the customer has hung up (twenty-seven ums later) I cannot remember a word the girl said.  It doesn’t matter. Nothing can be known until we actually see the dress anyway.  Hopefully I told her to just come in as soon as possible for an estimate. I sit back down at my table and listen to Prudence rant about how “People Today” know how to do everything on a cell phone from private banking to global navigation but they have completely forgotten how to use it for its original purpose—which was to communicate politely, profficiently and Properly!

It takes her a while to stop steaming. To tell you the truth, she’s been pretty frazzled since the men moved in with her. Men, you ask? Yes. Men.  I found out we can call on our Spirit Guides for help with problems and these two showed up instantly, took a shine to Prudence and haven’t left yet. Now she can’t leave her dark brown panty-hose to drip dry on the radiator anymore and she is always fretting that one of them might pinch her bottom. They haven’t yet. But they might.

 I like them. They are great fun and jolly useful since they know a lot about the work I am trying to do. They are my blood ancestors: Cesare Zambarano, my great grandfather, a tailor born in Italy who moved to America as a teenage apprentice at the turn of the last century, and a chap called Michael Barton, also a tailor, who was born in Co. Tipperary 1778 and died in Rochdale, Massachusetts in 1872, according to Cousin Mary, our family historian. I’ve sensed their presence for some time now but just not had names for them.  They are the ones who provide the answers to problems I could never solve without In-tuition—the teaching that comes from Within. They have all sorts of useful ideas and guide me with impulses and insights that work beautifully when I am open to receiving them. No doubt there are a number of wisely Silent women helping me too—but they are not as flamboyant as these two characters. I’ve learned that they help when I ask, only when I ask—and sometimes the asking is actually begging.  This is the thing with Spirit Guides.  They don’t seem to help if they are not invited.  They just sit around laughing, swallowing pints of Guinness and Chianti and pestering Prudence.  Like the tailors featured in most fairytales, they are incredibly resourceful, imaginative, and unbelievably cheeky.  But they work fast.  Their insights come at blinding speed—though never exactly in the moment I want them to.

“You cannot solve the problem you just got yourself into while you are still looking at the problem,” they seem to say. “Play us a tune on your fiddle! Take a nap! We’ll sort you out…”

“But I can’t take a nap or play the fiddle!! I’m at WORK!  I need to get this done! There is a lady here with two giant gaps on the sides of her backless dress who expects those gaps to go away by tomorrow.  The dress has got rhinestones that have to be moved, all sorts of ruching over the top layer and the lining is that cheap knit shit that runs faster than Usain Bolt when you poke it the wrong way with a needle. My sewing machine just pooped out a lump of black bobbin grease on a white pair of pants and what about that guy whose head is half-way down the hill on the other side of his shoulders—we need to get his suit collar to lie down on his neck instead of resembling an open grain scoop sticking out of his back. What about that?”

I look down at the table below me.  I have pulled too hard on the fabric rushing under the needle—it’s stretch fabric—and now the crotch I have been repairing has an undesirable “wave” to it.  One of the tailors in my head begins to sing “Wavy…wavy…crotch it” to the tune of “Davy, Davy Crocket, King of the Wild Frontier.” This is NOT helpful! Though I cannot help giggling. Then I feel familiar panic and decide that the best thing I can do right now is shave my head, grow a beard (my chin is trying to anyway…) and move to Bora Bora and never tell anyone ever again that I know how to thread a needle.

“Please, guys!” I wimper. “You’ve GOT to help me.  What about ‘ask and thou shall receive,’ eh? I’m ASKING!!!!”

“Ah,” says one cheeky devil, crossing his legs and lighting a pipe, “but you are not ready to Receive. The energy difference between a Problem and a Solution is huge.  We’re old men with nothing to do.  Time doesn’t exist for us. We’ll wait.”

I’m flabbergasted.  I want to scream. These problems are so huge and I have no idea what to do and people are counting on me. I’ll have to go on Youtube during my lunchbreak to see if they say anything about how to bring the collar of a man’s jacket down to where it will actually take a passing interest in his neck. It’s probably the first thing they teach you in Sewing School, but I didn’t go to that.  I’m making this up as I go along, as I do everything.

“Drop the problem,” say the jolly Tailors again. “You cannot see the solutions while you are obsessing over the problems. Stop arguing for your limitations. Stop explaining why you cannot do this. Stop feeling like a victim.  We have a slew of fabulous suggestions for you as soon as you stop wimpering like…well, a thing that wimpers a lot.”

“Wimpering is what she does best,” says Prudence, who cannot help herself. “If she had tried harder in Math, she could have a REAL job and not be in this mess in the first place.”

The tailors glare at her. This IS a real job. The Best Job. A Useful gift to the world and to people who might otherwise have to roam the earth with their ankles hidden for all time. The Irish one draws his sword, ready to duel. The Italian one just grins at her and mimes a “pinching” motion with his hand. She flees.

“Prudence doesn’t know the first thing about sewing,” I explain, “but had she ever learned, she should have been a great proficient!”

“Aye,” says the Irish guy, “like most armchair Experts.”

A customer in the early stages of Alzheimer’s comes in to the shop to collect his clothes. “Have I been here already?” he wants to know. “Yes, we say.  This is your third time today. You already got everything when you picked up the first time.”  He smiles in a fragile, concerned way that contains no joy.  He is confused. The voices in his head are not saying the right things to him these days.  Some are going silent.  He is floundering, cut off from his inner “knowing.”  He shouldn’t be out driving alone. We make plans to notify his daughter as soon as he leaves the shop. There is a sobering chill that penetrates the heat in the shop.

 “Tuition” can mean many things. Parents of undergraduates know it to be the thing that means “no discretionary income until graduation” that shackles them to a form of modern indentured servitude. Actually, it comes from the Latin root tueri, which means “to watch or guard.” I assumed the word “intuition” would be related, since it seems to have a similar root. My best guess would have been “inner teacher or inner guardian.” Instead, intuition comes from the Latin verb intueri translated as "consider" or from the late Middle English word intuit, "to contemplate". Plato is the first philosopher to discuss intuition, which he defines in The Republic as “a fundamental capacity of human reason to comprehend the true nature of  reality” Jung defines intuition as "perception via the unconscious": using sense-perception only as a starting point, to bring forth ideas, images, possibilities, ways out of a blocked situation, by a process that is mostly unconscious.  In more-recent psychology, intuition can encompass the ability to know valid solutions to problems and decision making.  Yep, that sounds like Mick and Cesare, alright. When those wise guys get around to it…

Eventually, when I am in a calmer state, looking only for Solutions, they help instantly.  Suddenly, I can see that by treating the inner lining of the backless dress separately from the outer layer, I can put a big dart in it to take up the excess fabric, and reconfigure the fashion fabric over it to conceal it, trimming where necessary.  I remake both sides, taking a total of four inches out of the back, and no one is the wiser. The man’s collar I can lower by removing the felted bit under the collar and putting a similar dart in the very top of the coat.  When he comes back to try it on, he is in raptures. “I never had a coat fit me this good in a long time!” he crows. “This body ain’t an easy fit.  Look at me! This is as good as the old-world tailors of when I was a boy.” (Upstairs, Mick Barton and Cesare are slapping each other on the back and beginning to snuffle around for their tobacco pouches and whisky.)  “Yes Sir,” I say to the man. “It is indeed. Those old boys teach me a lot.”

There is incredible power in our inner minds, when we stop to listen, when we seek Solutions, instead of focusing on problems, when we open to Suggestions. I am incredibly excited about this discovery.  I think it is at the heart of any Creative Process—or problem solving. Have you ever noticed how often you wake up with new innovations after a break or a nap? I think the Unconscious Mind is something like our modern cell phones in that they are tools that can do SO MUCH MORE—with so much capacity it boggles the mind—than just the basics.  Though, at the heart of it all, it is a Listening Device for the purposes of Communication.

“Yes…” says Prudence, “AND…I would like to remind you that your Unconscious Mind also ate half a paper towel wrapped around your breakfast sandwich on your way to work this morning, while you weren’t looking!”

Be Well, my darlings!  May you hear Helpful Things from Within.  And no matter where it comes from, Let there be Learning!  Thank you for your Loving Work today and always.

Yours aye,

Nancy

Imposters

It’s helpful to have some arrogance with paranoia. If we were all paranoia, we’d never leave the house. If we were all arrogance, no one would want us to leave the house.’ Chris Martin

Greetings my Darlings,

An energetic woman is in the fitting room clawing at the neckline of her dress like it is a rash.  To compensate for her short-waistedness, we have had to take up the shoulders about three and a half inches.  Now she feels like she is being choked.  Two angry red flares are showing in her cheeks and her eyes are flashing glassy with held-back tears as she glares at the dress in the mirror. She turns to me suddenly and says, “I hate this dress but I need it to be perfect.  I shouldn’t even be going to this wedding.  I don’t belong.” I understand her perfectly.  I can lower that neckline by an inch by tomorrow so that she can breathe.  Sometimes breathing itself is a tall order when we feel we don’t Belong.

Meanwhile, a fabulous young man has started working with us in the shop.  His life goal is to join our little Seamster’s Union.  When I ask him if he would like to be mentioned in this blog, he claps his hands and says, “Oh, Yes!  Only I want to portrayed as a Middle-aged White Woman who doesn’t really need this job.” We all laugh.   She brings in samples of her work and we ooh and ahh over her sense of texture, color, style.  This kid is really creative, for a Middle-aged white woman who doesn’t need this job.  She whips up things like “Sandy” had for Bette Middler’s character  “Barbara” to wear in the 80’s movie “Ruthless People.”  Bold, imaginative, with strong lines and colors--it’s incredible stuff.   She taught herself all she knows, which is so impressive.  Unfortunately, she did not teach herself how to shank a button, how to alter clothing (only how to make it from scratch, which is a completely different ball of wax, or whacks, as the case may be…), and she has never used a blind hemmer or a serger or any of the other specialty machines we have in the shop.  Now she is stuck hemming jeans and struggling with patching faded jackets that really should be put out of their misery and up-cycled into tea cozies.   It isn’t long before I find this poor, Middle-aged White Woman slumped over the blind hemmer, trying to rethread it for the fourth time, mumbling in despair, “I thought I could sew… I feel like I can’t sew… This is just awful…I can’t do anything…”

“Chin up, honey,” I say, “Seamsters are Tough.  Seamsters don’t cry.   You can do this!  You are doing fine.  We’ve ALL Been There!”   And it’s true.  We have.  But she continues to shrink—the shame waves billowing off her are palpable as she submerges herself in despair.  She cares SO much.  It’s so important that she be Perfect. Immediately. Without Practice.  Without Instruction. Magically Perfect.   It’s adorable,  how innocently arrogant she is, to think she ought to be as good as those who have been doing this for more than thirty years already… Skill is dearly bought. Muscle memory takes thousands of repetitions. Learning takes failing.  I want to hug her and smack her and “fix” her all at the same time. Instead, I turn away and let her feel what she is feeling. This is a powerful “Ego-in-the-woodchipper” moment for her.  Who am I to deprive her of it?  I know enough about Ego-in-the-woodchipper moments to know the blessings they bring.

Imposter Syndrome is all about lurching or sashaying between arrogance and paranoia, and bumping up against our ignorance or lack of experience in the middle.  Anything worth doing well is worth doing badly but it takes some arrogance to want to do it in the first place. Then we have to live with all the growing pains.

Some of us feel the yearning in our hearts to do things or Be things and we attempt them despite the steep climb ahead of us because we know that to ignore this Call, this Gift, this Invitation is to abort a part of ourselves we could never be otherwise.  I grew up in a community that talked a lot about Vocations, but when it came right down to it, the options were few and did not seem to involve sewing machines or sheep dung.  While it was clear very early that my talents veered towards music, art, and stories, I was consistently told by Those Who Knew Better, that I needed to do remedial math courses instead.  It was like telling a fish to ride a bicycle. A conversation that NEVER happened (but was clearly Understood as though it had) went something like this:

            Me: “But God would not have given me both these gifts and the yearning to use them if I wasn’t supposed to Use them for His Glory!”

            Those Who Knew Better: “Well God has no idea what the current labor market is for storytellers and folk-musicians.  He clearly wasn’t thinking straight.  You need to learn how to do Calculus this semester so that you can be a Specialist-who-needed-Calculus-to-get-Certified. If you don’t have a piece of paper saying you can Do Something, your life will be a Colossal Failure and you will wind up in mis-matched socks, smelling vaguely of cheap gin on the road to perdition.”

            Me: “But what if, as God’s Child, He just wants me to be Happy and he gave me these things so that I could be very, Very happy serving his Other Children?”

            Those Who Knew Better: “That’s Ridiculous. God does not work like that.  Money may be the root of all Evil but you’re still going to need plenty of it and you can’t make money being “happy.” Besides, we aren’t supposed to be happy.  You are here to Suffer.  All of life is Suffering.  (Hence Calculus).”

            Me: “Wait…I thought this was a Catholic School…Are we Buddhists now?”

And thirty years later, I didn’t ever manage to pass Calculus and my life has been…well… the life of the Perpetual Imposter. I wasn’t “supposed to be” who I am.  I was supposed to be Something Else but I could not pass Calculus.  And I must confess I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun on the detour!  I’ve been a mother, a seamster, a teacher, a cook, a gardener, a farmer, and a dabbler in all sorts of things that defy labels.   I’ve also wasted monumental amounts of time in sweat-drenching, colon-twisting anxiety about What Others Might Think and feeling like I don’t Belong.  This has led to an untellable amount of heartbreak and disaster. 

What I have learned is that if your heart gets broken, that turns out to be a Jolly Useful Thing.  It just means you have pieces you can share now, like cuttings from a house plant, that you can give to others whose hearts need healing as they Dare to be Themselves.  Those heart cuttings, properly tended, can grow new roots and flourish in gorgeous new ways when others lose heart, lose sight, and think they are imposing or Imposters.   

One of the things I enjoy most is telling stories.  The only way I can do that is to Write and tell stories.  So I do.  Hence this 4:am blog.  Sometimes it’s excruciatingly raw and embarrassing.   I don’t know how to do the basics—the equivalents of shanking a button, or using the machinery.  (Mere Children have to show me again and again how to post on Instagram.)  Sometimes I hit “publish” and feel nausea.  Sometimes I see my threads of thought get tangled or unraveled but I have left myself no time to edit, or rewrite.  I vascillate between triumph and despair so often and so much that when a “Professional Writer” for prestigious publications mentions that he might read an entry, I go into a shame spiral the likes of which make the Middle Aged White Woman slumped over the blind hemmer look like she just had a mild menstrual cramp.   I instantly “un-friend” him and block his phone number for days. I just don’t want to look this Stupid.  

Nevertheless, I persist….

My darling Scottish Nephew, whom I adore, comes to visit for the weekend.  He is handsome, wise and kind and, at only twenty years of age, the very pinnacle of physical perfection. He dances for the Royal Ballet in London and they have just been on tour in Japan and L.A. I ask him how it feels to be in those big shows, on those massive stages, traveling around the world.  “Do you ever feel like you don’t belong, like an Imposter?” He smiles sheepishly, “Of course! All the time. It helps me focus and work harder.  But My worst days of all are when I think, ‘what’s this all about anyway? What am I doing with my life but striving to entertain or distract wealthy people…’ That’s when I have to think seriously about the nature of Art and why it’s worth doing. Why anything is worth doing…”   His answers take us trudging up a nearby mountain, through dinner, and deep into an evening around a campfire.  When we do things for the sheer Love of them, without thought to audience or paycheck—when we get to experience that sensation of a soul in flight, in pure Flow—Nothing is Frivolous.  Nothing is not worth doing.

Who are we to look at our gifts, our calls, our talents, and say that our God/s had no idea what S/he was doing? That we don’t have Enough? Who’s to say that the mere Wanting to fulfill a dream is not Reason enough to do it? Are these calls not also Divine micro-vocations?  (from Vocare: Latin for “call.” )  All I can say for sure is that Not Answering is far more dangerous than looking like a total arse in front of other humans who are secretly terrified by the idea that they look like arses too.   As I used to say of my housekeeping habits “I am here to make you all feel Wonderful: The Slackers can see they are not alone and the Achievers can enjoy an enhanced self-satisfaction that they can do better than this. Everybody wins!”

Erma Bombeck said, “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.  For some of you, that is going to take some doing!  You have SO many talents. And to anyone contemplating the Vulnerability of risking your True Self in public, I say, let’s Do It. Hold my clammy little, calloused hand.  Let’s JUMP! Let’s make a big fun mess and learn as we go. I’ll lower our necklines, if necessary, so we can breathe easier.

Thanks, dear Friends, for the Good Work you do—especially if it takes Courage, especially if you are an Imposter filling in for an “expert” who has yet to show up.

Yours aye,

Nancy

An Inside Job

Some mistakes are worse than others: wearing your underwear inside out isn’t as uncomfortable as wearing it back to front.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Greetings Dear Ones!

I am making Sunday brunch for friends and the kitchen is out of eggs so I dash to the henhouse to gather a few.  I feel terrible robbing their nest while they are looking—usually I offer a distraction like a treat that makes them all run squawking outside while I quickly plunder their smooth, warm treasures.  Lately it’s been difficult. The little ginger hen has been particularly broody lately. Refusing to abandon her post, she crouches in the box, hissing and protecting her darlings from villains like me.  It’s been very warm here recently and when I get back to the stove and crack the first three eggs, they explode with a faint Pop.  A brownish liquid runs from them into the glass measuring cup where I break them one by one before adding them to the pan.  For a second, I wonder why they don’t smell, the way one wonders if that hot sauce is really hot, just before it sears a whole through your tongue.  Within moments, I am running for the compost pile gagging. (I should write a book on how to hostess the most exciting brunches.) From the outside, the eggs looked just fine.  From the inside, I’m going to have to leave the windows open and fans running for a week.

This is often how it is with clothes.  They look fine on the outside but inside they are rotten.  Sometimes gaggably so.  And to fix them, very rarely are we able to do anything topically.  We have to take a blade and dig right in there.  We must excavate and explore the interior spaces, learn every back alley or hidden tunnel, while the body dirt falls on the cutting table and ironing board.  (A co-worker calls beach sand and bugs “surf and turf.”)  Sometimes, we cannot answer a single question without exploratory surgery first.  We get to see ugly like you’ve never dreamed it could be, inside a forty-year-old velvet tuxedo whose wearer appears to have liberally smeared his nether regions with Preparation H before each formal event.  Some of the prettiest dresses on the outside are unmentionably gross on the inside. Often, as we cut along the seams and reveal the seam allowances on the inside, we see what color the garment was when it was made, before it was stained or faded or patched or dyed with mystery beverage by those who serve party punch in trash cans.  There are all kinds of information to be gleaned behind the seams.

We never know what we are going to find inside someone’s clothing but the solutions to their problems begin there.  We must go Inward if we are to solve Outward.  It’s pure Zen.

A woman comes in with her son’s trousers.  The little pucker lines around her mouth reveal her obstinancy. “Can you let these out and lengthen them?” she wants to know but in a way that is telling, rather than asking us. A flushed and starry-eyed Bridesmaid is confused about why her gown looks smooth on the outer layer but she feels the lining “has lumps in it.” A jolly, portly man with dimples wants to know why his suit jacket lining falls down every time he puts his hands in his pockets.  A forlorn bride wants to know if we can let out her gown a trimester’s worth.  To each of them I say, “The only way to answer is to go In and go Deep.”  We cannot tell by looking at the outside what is truly happening on the inside.  We, quite literally, must turn the In side Out. The only barrier standing between the answers we seek and the surface mysteries is our Courage.  We must dare to Sink.  The answers to all these surface questions lie Under.

It’s a fascinating world beneath the linen. A man brings a sport coat to us and insists that we need to do it over for him. We’ve done it wrong, he insists.  He says we were to shorten it but it flops in a disagreeable way that vexes him.  After he leaves, I take it to my table and begin the archeological dig.  I see the work of at least two tailors who went before—the one who made the jacket in the first place, and where the next tailor made some alterations.  It’s as easy to spot the differences as it is to distinguish between people’s signatures.  We each have our own “way.”  With relief, I immediately ascertain that it was not I who caused this problem.  Eagle-eyed Prudence insists we check again to be sure.  She fully expects me to be to blame. But I am not. I am certain I have never worked on this coat before in my life.  Neither has any other person in the shop. None of us do things the way this person has done this work.  The jacket was shortened by folding up the bottom and blind-hemming it in place—leaving a huge wad of fabric tipping outward against the back of the outer layer of the jacket.  Nothing was trimmed off. The bits near the corners were cut and left completely open.  Someone had “stitched in the ditch” in the wrong color thread—probably whatever was conveniently to hand (indicating a lack of professionalism)(or a lack of bog-standard, ubiquitous black thread)(“Nonsense,” says Prudence, “how can it be ubiquitous if there was a lack of it?”)—on all of the vertical seams, making it billow and pucker oddly.  Most home sewers do not own a blind hemmer, so this was obviously some sort of professional—perhaps very old school, working quickly, who didn’t want to charge the guy a lot of money?  Who knows? The speculations are fascinating.  When I show the other ladies what the inside has revealed, we all agree. None of us did this work.  The man must be mistaken.  He is a regular customer and we fix a lot of his clothes—perhaps he got confused.  He bought the jacket second hand and it probably came this way.

We all leave our indelible marks on each other—inside where we cannot see them immediately.  They are marks of love, of trauma, of conflict…the scars of learning and growing.  At least, where clothing is concerned, it’s fairly easy to correct mistakes—once one identifies the problem, it’s only the work of a day to sort things out.  I wish people themselves would be as simple!  If only I could cut through my own seamy-ness, peer under a flap of my own soul and say, “Goodness! Look at this tangled up mess!  What is this??? Is this YARN?” and begin to unwind myself and straighten myself out.  Sport coats are way easier!

Once I understand how the extra fabric in the man’s sport coat is causing his problem, it’s easy to trim the excess, reattach the lining in its proper place and anchor the seam allowances so that the bottom does not sag.  With a good pressing, the jacket looks much better, “Normal” even. 

A young friend eating my now-eggless brunch, smiles at me and says “I’m so glad I have people in my life who challenge me and force me to change my ways!” We have been talking of someone who recently inspired her greatly.  “He called me out on some of my nonsense and I had to agree that he was right.” I gaze at her fondly.  I can appreciate how she has changed, how she is blossoming and coming into her own power, and I am so incredibly pleased for her.  It’s a privilege to see her relinquish all sense of victimhood and step into her own Grace.  She is Magnificent.  After a pause, I say “well, I hope you never expect ME to be that kind of friend!”  She laughs. “Why not?”

“I’m way too lazy.  Besides, I really don’t have the stomach for telling people what is wrong with them. All I can see is what is Right with you.  I’ll be the sort of mushy friend who likes you No Matter What.  The kind who, when you go off your diet, admits that she ate not one but TWO pints of Ice cream the day her sugar-free daughter went back to college.”

“Oh, my God…” she says, snorting tea into her lungs so fast that tears pour down her cheeks as she tries to breathe without laughing. “You didn’t!!”

“Oh, but I did!  And I won’t be the sort of friend who bails you out of jail either, so don’t make me your one phone call…”

“No doubt you’ll probably be locked up with her,” says Prudence, snarkily.  

It’s not my job to change other people. Hell, it’s hard enough to change their clothes!  Besides, I have yet to figure out how to change myself.  The 18th Century Sage, Samuel Johnson  says “The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.”  Yep. Just as I suspected, Happiness, like clothing, is a job one must do from the inside.  After a lifetime of offering “Helpful Suggestions” to roommates, offspring, siblings, a spouse, I may not yet be a fountain of Content but I certainly agree that all attempts to Change Others only multiplies the grief we propose to remove.   (Boy, have I multiplied some Grief in my day!)  From here on in, I’m sticking with pins and pens to do my crafting.  We can work on each other’s clothes, not each other’s souls.  It is not for us to decide how others ought to be internally. Likewise, only we can decide for ourselves—only we know for sure if the Inner and Outer worlds are fitting well, stitched together securely, and Aligned properly.  The Answers are Within. We each get the privilege of Tailoring our own One Precious Life to fit us as we choose.

Be Well, my Dearies!  I love you Just As You Are, ragged Insides and all. Thank you for your Good Work today and for all you do to bring your lovely Light to this world!

Yours aye,

Nancy

With Liberty and Justice for All...

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell

Greetings Dear Ones!

Liberty and Justice are hard to find when one is self-employed and trying to keep up with the whims and waistlines of New Englanders embarking on a summer of beaching and barbeques.  As a friend likes to joke, “When you work for yourself, you can work any eighty hours a week you like!” Trying to please people who have no idea what they want is its own kind of tyranny—and where is the Justice when bitchy brides like “Brittany” decide to stiff you after more than forty hours of work?  (Such are the joys of Capitalism.)  Of course true Freedom comes from many things—ironically, the most important ways involve focus, awareness, discipline, and the myriad of tiny, petty, unsexy ways we choose to sacrifice ourselves for others or a Greater Good.  Dedicated practicing of any skill leads to freedoms and privileges that Proficiency unlocks.  Sacrifice: the Sacred Trade. I know I must Contain Myself but I keep escaping, much to Prudence’s despair. 

This week, I am a Bell at Liberty—the shop is closed, as are many of the area businesses, including dry-cleaners whom we service.  Most folks are going on some sort of vacation but to me, the real treat is in getting to stay home with my lambs and animals.  In the absence of my usual daily and weekly routines, I am pondering freedom and anarchy.  To ward off the anarchy of “free” time, and make certain jobs seem more fun, I have given myself a game of “Chore Bingo.” I make a grid and fill in the boxes with things I want to accomplish in this precious week of “spare time”—things like “mow lawn,” “clean attic,” “throw out all the frozen food that is more than two years old so you can fill the freezer with yarn instead” (to protect it from moths), “find out what that dank smell in the basement is…”  I can do things in any order and I color each box as I complete the task.  I had planned to reward myself for completing each row with unseemly amounts of ice cream but my twenty-one-year-old daughter ruined it all by coming home and announcing that sugar is POISON and that I must support her in a total renunciation of anything refined.  As a college student, she’s learned A Thing Or Two… She has compelling Science to prove her points. She is adamant.  

So, here I am, unexpectedly attempting to live an UNREFINED life, which puts me in mind of that Gloria Steinem quote: "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off, " which is pretty much how I feel foregoing having the most amazing, local, farm-stand-fresh-from-the-cows-staring-at-you-over-the-fence, what-New-England-does-Best kind of ice cream for supper for a week.  Apparently, I will feel better and radiate a glowing vitality in sixty days or less… How nice for me…. (slump…) Apparently, breaking the chains of my sugar addiction will bring me freedom from all manner of ills, including the aching in my hands, and if I don’t live forever, at least it will feel like that. (How soon is lunch? What?? THREE more hours??) Apparently, the urge to poke this child of mine repeatedly with a sharp fork will pass, along with the cravings… 

It’s good to have freedom from the shop…The last few days before the break were fraught with the demands of people who could not contemplate attending Uncle Louie’s holiday barbeque without the appropriate seasonal attire.  Chowing charred weiners and warm potato salad in celebration of America’s Independence in a flag-colored mini-skirt that gaps a little over the hip was a fate that did not bear facing.  For one, the Pursuit of Happiness involved making a seamstress redo a jacket four times to make it look like his clothing comes in cans.  Another woman demanded we make a one-piece pull-over dress that looked like something that should be used in the annual family sack race be “um…you know…tailored to flatter her figure more.”  She kept grabbing fistfuls of fabric from around her middle and asking why we couldn’t “do something.” Explaining that we could not take it in as much as she wanted or she would not be able to get it off over her head again was futile.  She looked at us as if we were just being difficult.  Our Nation has not gone to war, nearly every single generation since 1776 to defend Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Bargains so that she could wait two weeks for this either.  She needed it Friday at the latest.  I was tempted to stitch her right into it so tight that she could not get out but I knew I would just have to do it over, so I curtailed my freedom of speech and held pins in my mouth to help me be quiet.

All month, people have been exercising their dearly-bought rights to bare arms and belly rings and cleavage and something called the “under-bum” which I had no idea had a name.  Prudence views such outfits as a total scandal.  She does not think that the farmers of Lexington and Concord took their pitchforks in hand and drove the “lobster-backs” through the streets of Arlington so that future generations could glimpse under-bums.  Liberty should not be extended to the fleshy parts of humanity that belong under several layers of knickers, bloomers, and Spanx.  For the love of all that is Holy, why can’t we bring back petticoats to the ankle? All men might be created equal but all bums are not. (This, I am certain, is what ultimately caused the Great Depression.)

On July 3,1776, John Adams wrote to Abigail: The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illumination, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore. 

Ok, so the poor man was off by two days… Still, Two hundred and forty three years later, his visions are mostly correct—if we keep the view very fuzzy and from a great distance.  We’ve gone a little scanty on the solemn acts of devotions to God Almighty but we’ve more than made up for it in pomp, parades, and Chinese Firework purchases from roadside stands in New Hampshire, from guys like “Hank” who have spent their dental hygiene budget on tattoos instead (hence the need for beer and potato salad as their main form of nourishment).  Who knows? I even believe (in fact, I am quite certain) that the founding teenagers were just as concerned about hem-lengths and displaying a shapely calf as their twenty-first century counterparts.

Thanks to those brave Patriots, sweating it out in the 1776 Continental Congress meeting in July in Philadelphia, we have thrown off the yoke of British Imperialism and are free to consume as many mass-produced, poorly fitting internet purchases from China as we please.  As Napoleon Bonepart commented, “Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide." Word. Dude, Totally! I see it in the dressing room every day—women paralyzed by the choices before them:  backless or strapless? Spanx or no Spanx? Buy the next size up or wire your jaw shut until the wedding?

And let’s face it, as Patriotic Americans—we have a lot to decide in the hours and months ahead: Burgers or hotdogs? Coke or Pepsi? Current Washington Politics or Sanity? Fish, or cut bait? The Democratic Republic our Founding Parents set up ensures that we get a vote.  It’s not necessarily a vote that counts but so what? Vote anyway.  A well-functioning democracy means that less than most of us get to be unhappy.   

Prudence is of the opinion that in order to enjoy freedom, we really need to control ourselves—the way a well-structured gown is actually easier to move in than a loose-fitting sack that gives no support.  If you intend to go strapless, then you will require a lot of boning around your mid-section. You need Stability to go free. Anyone who has had her knees bound together by sagging panty-hose will tell you this.  Freedom is not the absence of structure—it’s getting the chance to be who we really are—or never thought we could be because of the fabric of support enveloping us.  Freedom is what we continue to co-create from all that has been done for us beforehand, behind the scenes.  Whether you are in a mob cap or baseball cap, go forth and exercise Ye Olde inalienable right to be Dowdy or Dazzling, Dapper or Drab! Thanks Be, you are Free to Choose.  (But you might not get your orders done until next week!)

Yours aye,

Nancy (Liberty) Bell