As I began to wax my queens of hearts I realized my wax was too hot...it kept creeping under the freezer paper, obliterating the edges I was trying so hard to keep crisp. Waxing is a little like coloring in an old-fashioned coloring book. You have to be patient and try to make your strokes neat, carefully covering every bit of the surface.
As I worked on this queen her face began to remind me more and more of my sister-in-law. This is a melancholy association because Barbara killed herself many years ago. We had been close and it took me a long time to get over the hurt and rage I felt at her way of leaving us. I was playing the music of a folk group she introduced me to and whose concert we once attended together, and although I hadn't really been thinking of her before, as I stroked wax onto my cloth she appeared before me. I was glad to see her. The sorrow I feel at her loss will never go away, but I am relieved to find that the anger has faded. Her presence is now integrated into this pattern and will always be part of it for me.
Often, as I plug away at my cloth designs, some element of the process links me to memories or sense associations that draw me down from the surface I am working on into a deeper pool of connections. I begin to feel the actions of my fingers and the thoughts in my brain forming a net of energy that touches times and people in my past and way beyond me as well. I guess I am saying that making things for me is a clear pipeline into a much wider human experience. I treasure that.