Raven and Sparrow

Exploring Lopez Island

Sometimes getting away doesn't have to involve a lot of distance. Mike and I grew up on the edge of the San Juan Islands and have visited the two largest islands many times and some of the smaller islands occasionally. However, for some reason, neither of us had ever visited Lopez Island, the third largest and the one located straight across Rosario Strait from our home island, Fidalgo. We decided to check it out and booked an airbnb for a couple days in the third week of January. That's an iffy time around here, weather-wise, but we figured it wouldn't make too much difference, so off we went. We ended up in a tiny but charming cabin almost directly across the water from our house. It perched above its own little beach in splendid isolation, offering complete quiet and a gorgeous view of where we had come from.

When I was growing up here, it felt like the end of the world. Even Seattle in those days was sort of small-townish and off the beaten track, and the islands, most of which were only reachable by ferry, were like stepping back in time. They are still at the whim of the ferry system and distinctly less populated than the mainland, but Orcas and San Juan Islands have acquired a kind of gloss as more and more tourists besiege them every summer. Lopez has its share of summer visitors, but even in the winter doldrums it is clear that it has many fewer residents than the others. The occasional drivers on the road always wave when you pass because they assume that they know you. With the same vocabulary of rocky headlands, quiet bays and pebbly beaches with which we are so familiar, it yet has its own ambiance. Its open spaces are extensive and its wood are deep. The shoreline is amazingly convoluted, with the most bays, spits, harbors and headlands of any of the islands, and many small islets scattered off the coast. There are lots of beautiful walks, but the signage is very minimal, so we relied on the kind directions of people that we met to find our way. In the dim light of a Northwest January, we walked and walked, almost entirely alone. In two days we barely scratched the surface so we will have to go back.

 

This was "our" beach beneath our cabin.

We had this headland and little bay completely to ourselves after an extensive walk through dark woods.

Watmough Bay has no houses, amenities or structures of any kind visible from the beach. You can get a feeling for what it was like here before any outsiders arrived.

After-Christmas scrub up

We always have to move the furniture in the living room to make room for the tree at Christmas, so when the holiday is over we push everything into the next room and do as thorough a clean-up as we can. The empty space allows us to bring in the big ladder so we can wash the tall windows on the inside and make a close inspection for dead flies and cobwebs. The rug gets an inch by inch vacuum, then is rolled up so the floor underneath can be washed too. Then we reverse the direction of the rug so the faded patches won't get too noticeable and bring in the furniture, vacuuming and polishing each piece as required. It took three days this year to get the room back together, but it feels so good to know that it is as clean as I can make it. 

Sweeping away the fir needles and all the Christmas paraphernalia is a good way to start a new year. 

The Sabbath

 
     I usually find Ezra Klein's podcasts for the New York Times interesting, but every now and then he talks about something that really draws me in. The recent one with Judith Shulevitz about the Sabbath prompted me to purchase her book The Sabbath World and the book that they referred to many times, The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. I read Heschel in a couple of hours and am halfway through Shulevitz. On the podcast Ezra worries about the creeping hold technology is exerting on our lives and wonders if returning to the old "day of rest" practiced by the Jews forever and many Christian sects as well (remember the blue laws?) would help us re-assert our humanity in the face of ever the escalating badgering of phones, computers, texts, emails, and social media and the demands of commerce. Taking a day off from technology and endless striving might be a way for us all to remember that we are not just what we produce and give us time to bolster connections with the people we care most about. That was the purpose of the original Jewish Sabbath...one day out of seven that was dedicated to being rather than doing. This reminds me of the current emphasis on mindfulness and presence in the moment. It seems like working out the balance between one's interior life and the demands of the world is an ancient problem. Reading these books about the Sabbath have prompted me to think about the purposes of religion and the ways that people have tried to incorporate sacredness into their lives. There are a lot threads to pull here and I feel like I have just begun.

     So many of the descriptions of Jewish Shabbat....the preparation, the attention to beauty, the abrupt cut-off to all fussing when the time has come, the gathering, the meal, the feeling of complete immersion in the experience of community....remind me of throwing a dinner party. I do work hard to prepare most of the food ahead of time and of course I always try to make the setting as beautiful as I can, but once everyone has arrived (I don't have a sunset cut-off but it is usually about that time of day) all cleaning, cooking and tweaking stops and the event...the gathering...becomes the essential focus. The emphasis shifts from the ratcheting pressure to provide things (food, clean bathroom, pretty table) to the interaction between people and the dynamics of the group. No matter how good the food is a party is never successful unless the people around the table are joining together wholeheartedly. Their interactions can never be controlled but outside interruptions (checking cell-phones) can definitely de-rail the flow of the party. Sitting face to face around a table makes it possible to tune-in completely to your companions and I think this interaction is holy. Merriam Webster defines holy as: exalted or worthy of complete devotion.  Making space and taking time for extended interpersonal exchange is the kernel of holiness that links a secular dinner gathering with historical religious practice. Setting a whole day aside for personal concerns, including sitting down for lengthy meals, can seem impossible for many of us, nor do we wish anymore to be required to conform to religious requirements, but in our ever more secularized world some of the essential connections are being lost. It seems to me that the dinner table can step in to hold some of the essence the Sabbath used to offer as we rush into our future.

Reviewing failures

I have been accused of laziness all my life, first by my mother who had an insatiable need for help in dealing with six other small children, and then later by myself as I internalized high energy and accomplishment as goals of a worthy life. Unfortunately my energy levels have always been low to middling and my health issues lately have made the wide gap between intention and actual accomplishment very clear. Trying to keep up with the never-ending list of "shoulds" feels exhausting and, in the end, not possible. I feel like I have been running on a treadmill designed for some other more sparkling person which dooms me always to fall behind. Having had enough therapy to realize the futility of this makes me burrow more deeply into what I find important and consider anew the pursuits that have given me purpose and joy. That always leads back to textiles and tablecloths and the power of gathering, which still moves me deeply. Even in the midst of my greatest lethargy I want to make special places that embrace and enhance the connection between people. I still want to set the table even though the effort seems ever more Herculean.

Just lately a design for a winter tablecloth that I made several years ago but failed to bring to a finish, has been floating into my head. I was trying to come up with four square cloths that telegraphed the seasons in the most simple and essential geometric ways possible. Stripes for summer, polka dots for spring, squares for autumn and triangles for winter, done in appropriate colors to lay the base for any table set in that season. I started with winter because I thought it would be the most satisfying. Laying out the pattern on cotton was hard because keeping straight lines means drawing the pattern strictly on cloth that resists keeping straight, and then taping off every frigging triangle to keep the wayward wax contained in something like a regular pattern.

I went to my usual lengthy effort, waxed the pattern over many hours and several days and then dyed it. It turned out awful....a sort of beigey-blah that can result with natural dyes if you are not careful.

The wax broke so much that I didn't feel like I could just dye again without compromising the pattern. The prospect of re-waxing and re-dying was just too much and I gave up. I stashed it in my failures box and there it has languished, but now it is knocking on the fringes of my brain. Do I have enough oomph to go back and try again? Is the pattern worth the effort? I probably will never make a conscious decision, I will just go down and get it out or I won't. We'll see how insistently it continues knocking.