Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
My deer tongue is famous!
Well. Okay – famous might be an overstatement, but a little seed distributor in California – Annie’s Annuals – has featured my photo in their online catalogue, and I am mighty proud. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about it before – but this Amish Deer Tongue is the nicest lettuce that we grew last summer – and is an heirloom. For BC folks, it is available through West Coast Seeds and can be planted fairly early in the season. Want to try some without buying a whole seed packet? This is one of the plants I saved a lot of seed from last year and I’m happy to do some trade.
More new fabric.
Just wanted to share this beautiful fabric that arrived in the mail yesterday. This will help pizazz up our living room after the holidays – the stripes for our shabby (broken) piano bench that I have plans to refurbish – the floral for some couch cushions that need replacing.
For the longest time I have gone for a relatively understated colour scheme in my living environment – standard earth tones with a splash of red here and there, but am increasingly drawn to bold prints and colour mixes as a way of getting out of the ikea-syndrome most Vancouver decor has going for it. Photos of projects to come as they unfold… first to finish xmas gifts.
(I am tempted to order more of the floral to make a skirt out of!)
Fabric and wood.
Over at Among the Weeds I have been posting pretty regularly about the various things I have been making. Jams, table napkins, heart mobiles, curtains… it’s been an autumn of sewing, cooking and canning in between union meetings…. and I’m feeling downright happy about making the time for such craftiness. Productivity makes me feel so damn secure 🙂
The last thing I made was last night, and I haven’t had time to post it (nor was I really planning to do so) because it was such a straight forward and quick project. While we were decorating for the holidays over the weekend, I once again noticed the absence of a festive tablecloth since the red jacquard given to me and my ex-husband (thirteen years ago) has seen so many uses that it is now faded and stained. The few times I have pulled it out in the last year, I have had to strategically place napkins over the grease stains in order to make do – but even so, it’s gotten a little sorry looking with time.
Fortunately, I had an excuse to go to Fabricland yesterday because I was taking my mom out to the ferry (by way of Ikea) and decided to stop into the Marine Drive location on the way back. With all fabric and notions 50% off, I very fortunately snagged three metres of red holiday jacquard for a mere $19.50 – almost like the picture you see here, but a little more “scrolly”. Anyhow – I took that home, measured and hemmed it up, and in under 45 minutes I had a new tablecloth for our home! Plus I’ve got enough fabric left over for the coffee table (or napkins if I was so inclined).
Besides a million little householdy sewing projects, I’ve got a yen to do some minor woodworking and have assembled materials for a top-bar beehive, a bed table made from antique fir flooring, and a cutting board with antiqued metal handles. Problem is, I’m not confident with woodworking and have no real idea what I am doing. It’s something I’m going to putter around with this winter, however, since we have most of what we need tools-wise and I’m not afraid to use the chopsaw.
Letting go is not giving up.
(I’m almost caught up on my Reverb posts! And I have to say – really enjoying the prompts more than I thought I would.)
This year I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that letting go and giving up are not the same thing if you are stronger for the absence of the thing let go. For a long time I have confused the two, hanging onto non-supportive relationships and organizations because I “don’t want to be a quitter” or because I am afraid of being perceived as failing or “losing” an argument.
This year I gave up two very significant political relationships on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Back in the summer, I gave up my intention to run for higher leadership in my union, and as of October I gave up my membership in the Resist! Collective which I helped found thirteen years ago. These have both been difficult and painful decisions to make, given the constancy of both organizations in my life for a long time, but when it came right down to it the frustration of staying in was worse than that of leaving.
Really, both decisions came down to a strengthening in myself – that I really *do* have something to offer, that I really am a hard-working and decent person, and that I don’t want to waste that playing silly games or justifying and re-justifying my existence. Rather, I’d like to be focused on the positive offerings of the world and to operate from where I am truly welcome rather than having to live in continual apology and fending off the negativity of attack politics.
I haven’t let go of my political beliefs, my shop stewarding, my community involvements or my affinity for anarchist media providers… But I have decided to let go of things that aren’t serving me or my activism so well anymore in order that I can be better energized to face what is sure to be a challenging future for our planet (and our class).
Cultivation.
My cultivatation of wonder in the last year grew directly from my garden – the most literal of places. Which is a funny thing because though I’ve had many gardens over the years, I have often regarded them only as a means to an end. That is – I want food, so I grow it. I want the front of my house to look nicer, so I plant some perennials. And as disconnected as that seems, I have always done the necessary work to upkeep and tend my green charges, without thinking much about it.
But my efforts this time around have transformed something in me – which is perhaps related to the amount of time I spent setting up my backyard, and the attention I have given each variety of plant and weed being reared back there through two spring and summer seasons. In short, I have been rapt by it in 2010, by the pushing of the sprout from the seed and the seed from the earth. By the cycle of living and dying that happens over one week, one month, one season – the miracle of it really, that such a small bit of matter can become so great as a towering tomato plant. A speck of dust becomes fifty summer squashes pushed out on fecund impulse by life intent on coming again. Renewed by the seed spilled and fertilized by the leaves falling and rotting, by the shifts of soil and rain and freezing, tended by the human hands which have cultivated this life for thousands of years in order to sustain our own desires for abundance.
I have opened my eyes to the hyper-sexuality of it all – the glorious hidden center of the red rhubarb coy behind its large leaves, the flower opening greedily for want to insects to enter and rub up against its tender pistil, the bursting of seed onto soil or into the cupped hands receiving it in the creation of new life. Not to mention the shifting sun which brings into heat most plants and trees for a mere half year before dipping low and sending plants and animals alike into frigid hibernation. An erotic dance against the backdrop of time, this riot of life and colour is – and has become to me. Wonder indeed!
Red Cedar 