Catching The Wave

Several years back, Oldest who is an avid surfer asked me to make him a quilt depicting an ocean wave. I decided a bargello pattern would be the simplest way to achieve a wave without appliqué. Though my handiwork was probably not exactly what he had in mind, the process made me ponder his fascination with surfing which thus led me to the connection of sewing and living. My mind has a tendency to flip flop and by some  is probably considered every bit as perilous as the ocean.

Surfing requires enthusiasm, effort, and endurance. You don’t just hop on a board and hit the wave. First of all, you have to have some knowledge to predict a wave. You must have the power to paddle out, patience to wait for the wave, aptitude to pull yourself up, and the resilience to hang on.

As eyes direct a surfer’s board, thus the eyes direct the sewer’s needle; and so it is with life.

We stitch our lives together one seam at a time. Wave after wave, we conquer the ocean.

We pull our threads in and out, weaving, connecting, tying off, and starting over.

Patch by patch, wave by wave, we color our lives. The design is of our own choosing.

As eyes direct a surfer’s board, thus the eyes direct the sewer’s needle; and so it is with life.

Riding the wave, creating a quilt, living our lives…oh, what exhilaration!

Living in the Gap

February 15, 2012 – observation

Tree limbs stretch across a flawless sky of lupine blue. Bare of needles, the lower limbs of the tall pine droop with cones thrusting out like pinheads on a cushion. A shaggy bush hangs over the fence, wispy limbs fluttering like feathers in the wind. Tree bark glistens in the sun with moss growing in the grooves of a diamond patterned trunk, reminds me of a sunning rattlesnake. A single dead broken branch from an oak flaps from the crook of another pine; a vicarious balance of life and death.