Raven and Sparrow

The aftermath

The day after a dinner party is always chore-laden. I only get my dishes done on the night of the party if I am struggling with insomnia. Usually it waits until the next day, and feels a little burdensome when I first come back to the kitchen. However, I usually end up enjoying it because it is a chance to spend some quality time with my nicest dishes. I don't put them in the dishwasher, I wash them by hand. The warm sudsy water and the feel of the porcelain and metal returning to their clean and shiny selves is very satisfying. I can pay attention to each piece and admire the clarity of the glass and the patterns and colors of the plates. The mother of pearl handles on the knives are a delight to the touch. Delicate cups and saucers are incredibly smooth as I hold them up to the light to see my fingers visible through the translucent china. The shapes of dishes, glassware, and silverware are varied and interesting....the tines of forks and the handles of cups and the roundness of pitchers. Cleaning up is fun.

 

Another Christmas round

Another Christmas rolls on past. This year I wanted to have a change, but I wasn't sure what exactly to do. Then, on a closet cleaning binge I unearthed a gray silk sari with silver spots and semi-snowflakey patterns. The color scheme for the table leapt into my mind....silver, white and blue, using my blue reproduction Spode plates and my collection of crystal candlesticks. A few weeks before Christmas when I was out shopping with my mother and sisters, some silver glittery leaf sprays strongly caught my eye, and now I envisioned them arranged around the candlesticks. I figured I had the major elements I needed for an interesting and festive table that made a break from what I had done before. When I actually began to arrange the pieces though, they weren't enough, which often happens to me. I started casting about for more, more of anything. I lit upon a remnant ribbon from a gift gone by that had dark blue edges and the requisite sparkle. I'm also the lucky possessor of boxes of old Christmas ornaments all foxy and mottled, including silver and blue ones. Still, the arrangement wasn't full enough, and also seemed brittle and artificial. It needed greenery, and all of a sudden I realized that the fake silver leaves I had bought were the same size and shape as the salal leaves that grow all over our property. I think that was why they appealed to me in the first place. I ran out and cut some salal, which is a tough evergreen that florists love, and paired each natural spray with a silver one. Now my arrangement was silver, blue, white and green. I added green ornaments and alternated green napkins with white ones and the table was made.

Both our sons came home and Mike's brother and his wife joined us for dinner, which they are rarely able to do. We also welcomed our friend Lois, and had a wonderful Christmas party. Another year, another table, another chance to be with the people you love. There can never be too many.

Christmas kitty

Here comes Christmas. It seems like it rolls around a little more quickly every year. This is our second Christmas in our new house and the third one our rescued stray cat Wikileaks has shared with us. She showed up in our driveway one November day crying piteously and so thin that I could feel every bone in her body. She had narrowly escaped an attack (probably coyote) and had to have gashes in her flanks sewed up by the vet. Once she recovered from that she started to eat everything in sight and went from starvation skinny to distinctly Buddha-esque in short order. She likes being fat better than being thin. Her best skills are supervisory and it is not possible to trim the Christmas tree without close kitty scrutiny.

Animals add so much life to our homes; I feel lucky to have shared mine with such good friends as Wiki and Sunny. (Not that they were friends with each other.)

I always have liked the idea that Jesus was born in a stable, among animals. It seems so homely and comforting...truly rooting Jesus to the earth, and his life in a human body, however many angels may have been hovering overhead. The Nativity is a story that clearly places divinity into the mundane material world, with animals, and thereby reveals their intrinsic beauty and pathos. Merry Christmas to everyone and their pets.

Tablecloth from the hearts

I've been casting about for a new project and I think this is it. Almost a year ago I ordered some linen from Dharma Trading Co. to try out, since I had used up my old stash and couldn't get more from my original vendor (Denver Fabrics). I decided to try for the reddest madder dye I could conjure, having been unhappy with my past efforts with madder. The secret (so I've been taught) is starting with madder that will go red instead of orange (check) and adding calcium to the mordant and the dye process. I use Tums. I had to mordant and dye twice, but I got a really nice dark madder with (damn) some uneven places. That meant I had to introduce a pattern into what was supposed to be a simple plain red cloth. Unfortunately, madder is a bear to discharge. Thiorea dioxide barely moves it, and neither does bleach pens. I just couldn't face the mess and smell of straight bleach. I've been holding onto my red square for a while, waiting for inspiration. What would be a good use for red? Answer: Valentines! ....and Spirit Cloth! Spirit Cloth is the blog of Jude Hill, who is a master embroiderer, dyer and applique-er. Her hand sewn aggregations of cloth are much more intuitive and mystical than my aiming-for-the-table designs, but the idea of loose applique and embroidery a la Jude will solve my problem. I've decided to do small wax resist paintings and applique them to my red cloth. I'm going to use the King and Queen of Hearts as anchor images. Yippee! A plan!

The absence

This is where I work. It was the first drive-up bank in our town. It was built in the early seventies but now has declined into a neglected print-shop. Inside it is worn, cluttered and oversprayed with a fine layer of ink. Outside it has the soulless fifties corporate look, aging poorly, as modern construction is apt to do. From the start I was oppressed by the ugliness of this place, quite apart from the job I am asked to do here, but consoled myself daily by observing the beauty of the trees that surrounded it. In front there were three maples of different ornamental types, and in the back there was a beautiful single birch. All were put in as landscaping at the beginning and had matured into huge, full grown specimens. They were healthy and beautifullly shaped. I watched them through each season as they budded out in spring, rustled in full-leafed bird-filled beauty through the summer and burst into the most glorious colors in the fall. The fallen leaves on the sidewalk out front, all spiky and brilliant, looked like frozen fire. The birch kept its leaves the longest, and at night when I went out to my car the yard light from the lumber yard next door illuminated its white trunk, black branches and golden leaves against the blackness of the night sky. It was exquisite.

On the day after Thanksgiving, they all came down. The owners of the building (not my boss, the same people who own the lumber yard) decided the leaves were too much trouble. "They were compromising the health of the building." is one excuse I heard. Since no one in the four years I have worked here has ever cleaned the gutters, I have a hard time taking this concern seriously, but as has been pointed out to me, they were not my trees and it is not my building. They were my friends though and I feel bereft. Every day I look out upon the absence and wonder why beauty has so little value. Any consideration of convenience, cost or property rights is enough to trump it. I wish I had thought to take pictures of the trees when they were standing; I took it for granted that they always would.