a new chapter

...although a new chapter in a book is usually an unalloyed joy, and this new chapter in my life is more shadow than sunshine at this moment. For I am getting used to our home without my mother in it, as well as getting used to my new role as daughter-intercessor with a lovely-but-complex institution.

My mom is actually doing very well, and I know that I will, too...when we have adjusted and re-arranged and found the new pattern. It reminds me of working a jigsaw puzzle...some pieces aren't fitting in yet (well, to be honest, the dementia will never be a piece that fits well)...but we are turning them this way and that and will keep doing so until they fall into place.






Last month, in little bits of time snatched in between shopping expeditions for the new apartment and meetings and telephone calls, I began the reacquainting of myself with my studio and my plans for Small Meadow Press. It is slow-going at the moment as I wait for my heart to join me, but I am encouraging myself with lattes and time-to-think and good conversations about the possibilities.





This is what I do know...

I will to re-open my online shop in early September.

I hope to celebrate it with the unveiling
of a Small Meadow Press planner (which I need more than ever!).

I am looking forward to my shows in Charlottesville, Williamsburg,
Fairfax and Richmond in the late Autumn months.

I am pondering what to keep making and what to let go,
what to bring into being and what must wait-for now.

I have been so heartened by your emails and interest
over the past few months...

of garlands, flags and banners

Everything is arranged and peaceful again here, and I am grateful for your help with the little redecorations. All is as serene as I could make it, with the color and interest of the "followers" at the very bottom of the page for those who would like to visit it. When threaded comments are available, I shall probably rearrange a bit more, but for now, I want to return to chronicling my trip to beautiful Britain.

Life has been such a whirl since returning, but tomorrow my mom will move into her pretty new apartment and after a few days spent there with her, I will open a new chapter of my life. Crafting a new weekly rhythm of visits to her in town, nurturing Small Meadow Press again and lavishing attention on my home and little family left at home will fill the summer. But for now, while the sun shines hot outside and everyone is in flocking to the beach here....I want to think of the green leafiness and cool blue breezes I found in May.



Sheep's wool garlands adorning the green fields...a cheerful result of barbed wire and grazing sheep.






I have so many little bundles of sheep's wool that I couldn't help gathering everywhere we went...like seashells on the grassy shores of the pastures and meadows.



The village of Ireby, bedecked with banners that gladdened the sometimes-cloudy skies.





I loved to see that some of the banners were made with recycled fabric. Do you see the print on some of the bits above and the floral pennant below?






...a clothesline with tiny, mysterious bits of cloth enlivening this hedgy place.



This banner for the W.I. tea at the festival makes me happy every time I see it. I was thrilled to be able to attend my first W.I. anything after reading about them for so many years in the Miss Read books.



A not-so-pretty souvenir shop on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh... but I thought the sentiment emblazoned like a banner over the shop's door was worth capturing. "a nation is forged in the hearth"

of kitchens....

It was our friend Susan's kitchen, in Ireby, that showed me hospitality. After our long journey by plane, train and automobile, we walked in through the kitchen door and into rest and welcome.





In this kitchen we enjoyed endless and sustaining cups of tea, with milk poured from pint bottles, rich and filling vegetarian meals and wonderful conversations and laughter with all those we met around the oval table.





I cannot duplicate the rambling rooms...the pantry, the little room off the kitchen on your way to the pantry, the bathroom, the big room off the kitchen with the washer and dryer and spare fridge and freezer and sofa and airer. All abundance and provision.

But I will begin to fill my own tiny pantry to the brim, and find a crock to stuff with tea bags (no more "one box at a time" for me!) just waiting to be popped into a mug for friendly drink of tea, stack the dish towels high and look for more spoons and ivory-handled knives to add to our diminished supply...find a better balance between thrift and bounty.





One of my sadnesses about getting sick the very last two days of our holiday (truly out of it, in bed) was that I didn't get to visit Sonja's kitchen and Kaety's kitchen (marvelous women amongst many marvelous women I had the pleasure of meeting around Susan's oval table). Perhaps I can get back one day and write a series on the "Kitchens of Cumbria".

This photo makes me laugh, as we are all going in different directions, even to the leaning tree in the foreground. And laughter is what I found in Ida's kitchen in Cranleigh. I have met Ida only twice in my life, the other time being twenty-five years ago when I first went to England. I came to know her through her husband, my dear Mr. Malt, who used to garden in our neighborhood when I was in college.

That is the door into Ida's kitchen just behind her stooping husband, and it is bright and cheerful and nearly filled with the big pine table in the center of the room. Just after we arrived and were told that we were having meatballs and spagetti (Ida hails from Italy originally), it had to come out that we didn't eat meat. I was sorry for the trouble that caused....but actually, can't call it trouble, for the next little while found me taking orders (given smilingly and ever so efficiently) from Ida as we prepared another dish for the vegetarians.

All the menfolk disappeared and I spent a merry time as assistant to the amazing Ida as we conjured up a delicious spinach and ricotta penne pasta and a yummy dessert of whipped cream, broken meringue bits (lots of meringue in England!) and strawberries and blueberries. I don't get to cook with other women very often and I was so grateful for the delight of working together.



my castle-kitchen

Isn't that an extraordinary thought to take in? But it is true, a little cosy kitchen in a 12th century castle. And I can't explain how happy I was in this space...I only made tea and warmed up soup and toast, as my guys were all in various stages of recovery from a stomach bug. But I was filled with well-being from the moment I set foot in our apartment, which is perhaps surprising, as we learned that this castle is known for being haunted. So I would say this kitchen brought me contentment.



sitting room part of the castle-kitchen

We had only one night and a little bit of the morning here, but I will go back sometime for a proper visit, and I will devote another post to our stay at the castle, it was so beautiful and peaceful.



view from my castle-kitchen window

It is, perhaps, a good thing that I didn't get to know more kitchens while I was abroad for this post is very long already. But I think kitchens are so interesting, so integral to life...I am endlessly intrigued by them.

I will leave you with a sort-of kitchen (if you stretch the definition) in our restful pink room in Edinburgh (also another post!). My deario and I enjoyed a cup of this after a magical evening at Sandy Bell's.





I will post again soon...it is a busy time with filling my mother's new nest with lovely things to make her feel happy and at home, and preparing her heart and mind. We are also celebrating her birthday at the end of the month...so June is very much a mothery month!

the world is so full

Since I returned from Britain, I have been seeking a poem to help me sort out all that I saw and experienced during my travels. You know...

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

-Lewis Carroll

...which didn't quite describe what I saw and loved. Or this...

"Tree, and tree-tufted hedge-row, and sparkling between
Dewy meadows enameled in gold and in green,
With king-cups and daisies which all the year please,"

-S.T. Coleridge

...which wasn't nearly comprehensive enough (tho' I shall use it for my hedgerow post, you can be sure!). I turned, in the end, to Robert Louis Stevenson.

"The world is so full of a number of things,
I ’m sure we should all be as happy as kings."

That will about cover it, and I can make up my own categories
....like "kitchens" and "cakes" and "hedgrows" and "garlands".
It will do me good to write and share about it, for I have
still been languishing a bit, in this Virginian heat.
Just a few minutes ago, tho', I took a quick walk
in the storm-lit dusk. The sky was a deep grey patchwork
of small clouds...I saw a bluebird fly out of the white house
on the fence-post, over our shaggy field of asters and Queen
Anne's Lace...and a cool wind made the orange
day-lilies dance.

Perhaps, after all, there are a "number of things"
close to home to bring happiness. In fact, I am
sure of it.