Sunny Day

 

The leaves are nearly gone now, autumn is well advanced, winter hasn't quite arrived.  But this morning we woke to a sunny day, and hope springs eternal...

Just home from the last minute things that needed doing for the guild sale.  Signage is up, the Square system tested.  Final fluffing going on as I left.

Dr. Henry will be making an announcement at 1 pm today which may - or may not - affect our public sale hours.

If she shuts things down, we will move to by appointment only, small cohorts.  Although I don't expect there to be many people who come, it would be nice to accommodate people so that guild members could earn some money and the guild coffers would be a little less moth eaten.  Covid has affected so many things!

But we are well and truly into the second wave now and it is more important than ever people take precautions.  

Our town escaped the first wave with only a very few cases, but not this time.  There are increasing reports of cases in the community and we need to stay aware, stay home as much as possible, wear a mask when we go out.

I had to go to Staples on Thursday and I was relieved to see all staff wearing masks, and wearing them properly.  London Drugs was the same Tuesday evening.

Doug is still doing the majority of the errands so that I don't have to go where there are large numbers of people.

Now we wait.

In the meantime, I have another box of homework I have begun marking, a Zoom meeting to practice my presentation tomorrow, and the blue warp.  Which won't come off today or tomorrow, but Monday.  Never mind - I'm retired.  And personal deadlines are flexible.

Respair

" RESPAIR is the little-known opposite of ‘despair’: a word for a renewed or reinvigorated hope, or a recovery from anguish or hopelessness." Tweeted by the Haggard Hawks account this morning.

The word 'respair' has gone out of common usage but this morning I was introduced to it on Twitter. And it seemed to me that a lot of people are experiencing, in some way, a tiny flicker of hope. That we have - and are still going through - a very dark time for the last while. And today we were given some wee bit of hope.

So I share this word with you and invite everyone to take a deep breath of renewed hope.

We are not done with the dark times.  It is only the barest glimmer of the possibility that what is broken can be mended.

There are people around the world who are still living in the dark times.  We are still dealing with a pandemic, one that has - so far - claimed over 1.2 million (that's 1,200,000+) lives.  And left many more with chronic health issues.

We are still ignoring, for the most part, climate change.

We tend to ignore the inequities that many people are living with, based on superficial things like skin colour, religion, poverty, if we personally are not experiencing them.

If we are to survive the current challenges to human - and all, really - life on this planet, the time to act was 40 years ago.  But better late than never, and we need to act now.

Climate disasters get little airtime, especially if they are happening (waves hand) over there.  But North America has it's own problems with wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and in the north, snowstorms.  High temp numbers have hit historic levels, in both hemispheres, driving drought, killing life, plant and animal.

The Arctic and Antarctic are melting.  In my own life I have seen the Columbia Glacier retreat post haste from where the leading edge used to be to a good kilometer or more away.  This glacier system is the headwaters for the Columbia River.  If it disappears, so will the Columbia.

As a society we need to do better in terms of dealing with marginalized people, be that some form of disability,  mental health, skin colour, religion.  

So yes, there is a tiny glimmer of light today.  Take a moment for a breath of respair.  But we cannot sit back and let the dynamics that have brought us to the point to continue unchecked.

Build a bigger table, not a wall.

Plan B

 

Today two guild members (one being moi) will set out the inventory for the guild sale.  My co-worker designed the poster (thank you!) and has a great eye for display.  In keeping with Covid measures, there will just be the two of us, we will open the windows for air flow, wear masks.

Numbers continue to rise, quite worryingly, and we are going to go ahead in hopes that things don't get shut down.

We had to fill out an official Covid measures plan, which I did, and one of the things that I will do today is set out Xs on the floor (in case we have numbers of people coming), signage to direct traffic.

But we have no idea if all the scheduled Saturday public dates will be allowed.  However, we are also willing to book private appointments.  Masks are required and if people arrive without one, they will be given one.

We have a number of very 'fragile' guild members and we need to protect them.

On Tuesday inventory was beginning to arrive and there might be more today.  If not, I have eight (count 'em - *8*!) boxes of hand woven textiles.  There will be a good selection of items, spun, dyed, knitted, felted, woven.  I know at least one person who will be bringing a quantity of hand spun and/or hand dyed yarn/fibre.  I might be tempted to buy some, just because.  Just because I intend to start spinning again as soon as the current jigsaw puzzle is complete.

After several days of not making much progress, suddenly some of the blobs were beginning to resolve and be fitted into the whole.  While I'm not yet half finished, it is beginning to feel like I might actually get there!

And that is the way with so many things.  You spend countless hours doing something, not seeming to make much progress and then...voila!  

So I continue to work on the guild sale in hopes that something positive will result.  Income for guild members - to buy more yarn/fibre?  Income for the guild.

Hope for the best.  Plan for the worst.  

And always have a Plan B.

Hope

 

white roses - a fragile flower

It is a difficult thing to have one's reality bubble burst.  To have the story one has been telling oneself suddenly be exposed as just that - a story.  

To be forced to face a reality that one did not think existed, instead of staying in the protected bubble that one was living in.

I've talked about how I have been confronting my reality bubble of being a white female in a society that skews towards privilege to white folk.

It has not been easy to confront my attitudes and I have been working diligently at doing this for a very long time.  I keep peeling back another layer of attitude, only to find another beneath.  Not so much bubble as onion...

In part I wonder how much my voracious reading - of anything and everything - helped me to become aware that not everyone lives in the same reality.  Stories of other cultures, other people having different experiences, surely were a factor.

At Sunday School we were told to follow the teaching of Jesus - love.  Love was the answer.  Always.

Having families from two quite different cultures also helped.  On one side, German identifying, trying very hard after WWII to 'fit in'.  On the other, French Canadian, feeling marginalized by those maudit anglaise.

Then having really exceptional teachers in school.  Teachers who taught how to think analytically.  Were honest about history.  The White Man's 'Burden'.  The kind of people who colonized this and other countries.  In elementary school we were told the 'story' of the British Empire - upon which the sun never set.  High school brought a more nuanced view.  A more inclusive view.  A more liberal view.

The ground kept shifting under my feet.  And then a trip to Europe - Sweden mostly - where I lived for about four months, not being able to speak the language.  Learning how to communicate anyway.  Learning how to get lost.  Learning how to ask for help from strangers.  And was helped.  Mainly because they were intrigued by this young person, who looked like she belonged, but obviously didn't.  

I learned that by and large people are very peculiar, sometimes in very specific ways.  And that while some people can be incredibly generous, they can also be very closed minded.

To people who are struggling today, trying to figure out how things have managed to go so terribly 'wrong', all I can do is say - don't lose hope.  Don't give up.  Keep working towards the change you want to see happen.  There will always be people who disagree on things.  But that doesn't mean that it is time to give up.  It is time to work harder.

Build a bigger table, not a wall...

Reality Bubble (TW - political)

 

Over the years I have been gradually recognizing and reflecting on reality bubbles.  Over the past few days I have been reflecting on them again.

Why?

Because I have seen a meme to the effect that no matter who wins the election the person posting the comment will just go back to living their life - get up, go to work, just carry on living.

This reflection on the current American election kind of took my breath away.  (Don't get me wrong, the US isn't the only country dealing with...interesting...politics.)

It stopped me in my tracks because it was such an example of someone living in a reality bubble that ignored all the inequities that exist in the world. 

The person posting was indicating that *they* were secure in their lives.  They had a home, enough food, physical security, health care when needed.  They could move freely through life without having their very existence in their space questioned.  No matter who get in, they didn't expect their life to change in any significant way.

My conclusion is that those people (I saw the meme several times) are white, straight, probably some flavour of Christian.  North American society has been constructed for their comfort, and they know it.  Deep down, they know that their existence is not in peril, regardless of who wins this election.  (Refer to the M Neimoller quote I posted beginning with 'first they came for the socialists')

I am white, straight, sort of Christian.  I have a home, enough food, health care when needed.

But I am more than aware that not all people in my society are living with that level of privilege.

Because it is a privilege to be secure in the knowledge that I will have food today and tomorrow and even next month.  It is a privilege to know that I can move freely through my world without having someone stop me, request my identity papers to prove that I am where I am allowed to be.  That if I should fall afoul of the legal system in some way, I will get a hearing.  That the arresting officers will not throw me, handcuffed, to the floor.  Kneel on my neck.  Pepper spray or taser me.  Probably.

It is my belief, built on the lessons I learned at Sunday School, that all people should be treated with respect.  "Jesus loves the little children of the world".  Doesn't matter their colour.  

Freedom of religion means that you don't do something because it is against your religion.  Freedom of religion is NOT 'you can't do that because it is against my religion'.

If people don't know what I stand for by now, let me make myself perfectly clear:

All people should be treated with respect.  All people should be able to live, free from the restrictions of someone else's religion.  All people should have secure homes, access to food, the ability to have respectful health care when they need it.

All people should have politicians who are not actively trying to kill them.

As for the economy?  First we have to survive the pandemic.  Once that has been beaten, we can then focus on the economy, including climate change.  Because while the virus will kill us quick, climate change will kill us slow.  And if you are too ill to work because of covid long haul conditions or dead, it won't matter to you how well the economy is doing. The stock market health.  How many millionaires became billionaires in 2020.

So regardless of who gets in, in the US or elsewhere, there will still be things that need to be addressed.  There are things that need to be changed.  There will still be work to be done.

To my friends who do not have the level of privilege that I do?  I see you.  I send you love.  I did not, will not, vote for a party that wishes to harm you.    

Ch-ch-changes

 

We are on the cusp of something.  What, I don't know.  The future is uncertain.  We are living in 'interesting' times.

In times of trouble I look at the fridge magnet I bought a year after my brother died and my health was betting better but still challenging.

It reminds me that things change.  Nothing stays the same.  What is good will slide into less good.  What is bad will shift into less bad.  Hopefully.  

The important thing is to not give up.  Not stop trying.  Not assume that you have no power.

Because we do.  We have the power to choose.  We have the magic of helping others, sometimes just a kind word.  I would normally say a smile, but in the time of covid and wearing masks...

I woke up way too early this morning.  I woke to blustering winds and grey skies.  But...I woke up.

Far too many have not, this year.  

And today I hit the halfway mark on the current warp.  I will go down to the loom in a few minutes and weave a towel.  Then it will get cut off, the towels cut apart and serged.  Then into the washing machine and dryer, in preparation for pressing tomorrow.

And tomorrow we see where the compass points.  And I will be at the loom.  Because that is in my power.

Stay safe.  Stay well.  Stay covid aware.

Rolling Right Along

 

Yesterday I finished the dark navy weft and wove the first with green weft.  I'm actually liking this combination - a lot.

I might make this side the 'right' side because more green shows and the other side might be a bit dark.  Right now it's too hard to see and really know how it is going to look on the other side. 

There is enough of this green to do 5 or 6 towels and then?  Then I have a really dark purple, which should do about 6 or maybe 7 towels.  And that should finish off this warp.

Registrations for the seminar series has begun.  I'm hoping that as more people find out about it, more people will register.

As previously mentioned, I decided to organize these partly as a way to break down some of the isolation we are all feeling.  And of course here in the northern hemisphere we are heading into winter, a time when many people wind up isolated due to the weather and poor driving conditions.

When the internet was first made public it was touted as being a great leveler, a way for people around the world to communicate and share information.  Since then commercial endeavours seem to have taken it over and we are bombarded with advertising.  Setting up this series felt like returning to the original intent of the internet - the world wide web.

With so many people seeking to divide (and conquer?), it seemed like this series might be a way to remind people that we are more alike than we are different.  Plus put people you may have heard of but would never be able to learn from right in your home.  People who you may never have heard of, but who have textile stories you will find interesting.  People who love textiles as much as you do.  

A way to bring people together instead of building barriers.

Registration has begun, people are welcome to join in.  Americans should know that prices are in Canadian dollars, so you get an exchange rate discount.  What's not to love?  

Prince George Fibre Arts website will take your registration.  Sign up yourself or buy for holiday gift giving.  Most of us will be shopping on line this year anyway, why not have something to look forward to in the new year?  You can also join the guild as an associate member.  That way you get first chance to register and only pay the guild member price.