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Sunset Meditation

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As winter winds down and semester’s end winds up, I find myself simultaneously weary and frantic. A few days ago, rushing around making preparations for a conference, I emerged from my local Kroger to a steel blue sky washed with broad streaks of orange cut with yellow slashes. I stopped at the curb and set my grocery bag down to admire and absorb. For a moment I breathed in color and light. Then I reached in my purse for my phone to record the stunning sunset.

Years ago I learned that the myriad colors of sunrises and sunsets are, in fact, a side effect of a more prosaic problem: air pollution. The sky lights up because the light of the setting sun reflects off particles in the atmosphere. Whenever I’ve offered this information unsolicited, others have frowned and accused me of being a downer.

I don’t see it that way. I find it poignant, the dark knowledge of what’s underneath making the sunset before me that much more beautiful. 

Not in a “no pretty without pain” way; I’ve never been one, whether in art or in life, to advocate suffering as an ideal path to appreciating or creating beauty. No–it enhances the experience because it reminds me that beauty, like anything else in this world worth contemplating, is complex. 

Too often, we’re sold a bill of goods: beauty is pure. Simple. Innocent. Its most common cultural icon, after all, is the unlined face of youth. But beauty isn’t simple or innocent. Real beauty is complicated. Layered. Full of richness and depth. It is surprising, even challenging. Not Welch’s grape juice. Fine wine.

In its presence, beauty always already contains the possibility of its absence. For that, it is all the more precious. The breathtaking sunset stops us in our tracks because we are wise to its complexity, wise to its transience. It demands and deserves our full attention now, while it is here before us.

As with beauty, so too with love.

I took one picture of the sunset, then walked to my car. The hot pink line demarcating the black mountains from the deepening blue sky suddenly intensified, glowing a hot, bright coral. I glanced down into my bag to find the phone, but when I looked back up, the high color had already dissipated.

Hold fast. Every moment is fleeting.

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Better Late Than Any Other Ever

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Earlier this week I was walking across campus when a group of maybe eight or ten students approached from a crossing pathway. The afternoon was warm and sunny—the kind of weather we hadn’t seen in quite a while—and their high spirits were obvious, even from twenty feet away. The young men and women laughed and joshed one another, and as they eventually passed behind me, one guy began whooping and calling out, razzing his friend, clearly holding court within the crowd.

I smiled at their exuberance. But as the young man’s performance escalated in volume and bravado, my thoughts did the following hop, skip, and jump:

  • Even when I was young, I wasn’t one to hoot and holler my way across the quad or cavort with my friends at top volume in public places.
  • Actually, I’ve always found that kind of boisterous behavior a little off-putting, especially in men. Attention-seeking at best, overtly aggressive at worst.
  • I wonder if Steve ever walked across campus in a clump of his buddies, whooping and hollering and causing a ruckus?
  • I can’t picture it.
  • I like that about him.
  • I bet I would have liked the man he was while he was in college.

That last piece got me to thinking about the importance of timing. Steve and I have had several conversations about how we met at just the right time, the precise moment in our adult lives when we were ready and right for each other. That statement—and its opposite, the eye-roll-inducing “it’s just bad timing” breakup line—sound like hackneyed romantic clichés. But timing matters. Continue reading →

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DIY Decor: Fabric Flowers

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My mother and I are working away on the pillows for the venue benches, and I was thrilled when we recently discovered Clover’s Kanzashi Flower Maker tools for crafting fabric flowers. We found our templates at Tuesday Morning, but my mom has also seen them at her local quilt shop. They’re really easy to use: if you can count and manage a basic needle and thread, you can create beautiful fabric flowers!

There are a variety of different kinds of flowers, and most of the templates come in sizes ranging from extra-small to large. The flowers featured here were made with the small and large “Round Petal” templates, the large “Daisy” template, and the small and large “Gathered Petal” template.

kanzashi flowers 1

Clover’s Kanzashi Flower templates

Each template comes with detailed, illustrated, and easy to follow instructions, so I’ll just note the basic process and highlight a few tips based on my work with the templates so far.

For all of the templates, the process is the same: cut your fabric into small squares (one per petal), fold the fabric into the template, then stitch the petal following the numbered template guide. The photos show a large “Gathered Petal” flower in process in a sheer white voile.

After removing the template,  pull the thread to create the petal and shape it, and then repeat with the next square of fabric. The softer the fabric, the more organic the shape.

Stitch & shape final petals
“Gathered Petal,” 2 sizes

The number of petals needed to complete a flower varies with the type of flower and template. Once you’ve completed all the petals, stitch the last petal to the first. The center will typically need to be stitched close or be covered with a button or another embellishment. Flowers of different sizes can be layered as well.

Embeliished with a bead!

Embellished with a bead!

I’ve also made a large “Daisy” in bright orange taffeta, and large and small “Round Petal” flowers in a pale aqua cotton with large white polka dots.

Daisy (backside), large
Round Petal flower, large

A few tips:

  • The back of the flower is often as pretty (or prettier) than the designated front. This was true of the orange taffeta Daisy!
  • The dimensions for the fabric squares included in the instructions are, I’ve found, always larger than needed, which results in waste. Cut one square and see how it works for you. I shaved a 1/4 to 1/2 an inch off in most cases.
  • Softer fabrics result in more organic-looking flowers, but those with a little more body are easier to shape (and hold the shape better).
  • Scissors with narrow blades like those shown above make it easier to trim close to the template.
  • Sew on pin backs to the flowers to make them easy to remove for laundering, or to re-purpose.

I’m using the flowers to embellish pillows, but they could also adorn a bag,  hat, or belt, or be worn as a brooch.

Enjoy!

You might also like to see DIY Decor: Pieced Pillow Covers for info on how we’re designing and piecing our pillows, or DIY Decor: Pillows in Progress, or Making  a Beautiful Mess for more thoughts on crafting and love.

 

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Here Comes the Bridal Show

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Brideness earns you entrée into a strange world you never had access to before and (god, spouse, and lawyers willing) never will need access to again. Witness: the bridal show.

Technically, I suppose, anyone could go to a bridal show. For the disinterested, it would be a strange and uneasy universe. When I was younger I considered crashing just to see what magic lay behind the lacy white curtains. But I suspected the free cupcakes wouldn’t compensate for the sting of being surrounded by members of a club I wanted to belong to but hadn’t been asked to join.

Now I’ve got my credentials and the club is open. But I’ll be darned if they still don’t look at me funny when I come knocking on the door.

Bride’s Night: Boa Contradicter

Back in the fall, I invited my girlfriend Melissa to join me at Bride’s Night, a biannual event put on by Caroline LaRocca Event Design that travels to different wedding venues around town. It’s marketed as a girl’s night out, with a fashion show, stylists on hand doing quick up-dos, an on-site mobile spray-tanning booth. I’d modeled for a previous incarnation, but I’d never attended as a bride.

Melissa and I met at the venue, the beautiful Corinthian Ballroom. At the door, Melissa saw someone she knew and stopped to say hello, so I went ahead to the check-in table.

The greeter’s eyes slid across my face then quickly flicked to either side of me, checking for companions. She hesitated and said, “You’re not…are you…a bride?” Continue reading →

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Steve Speaks: From the Other Side of the Table

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Fiancé Steve chimes in with his take on our first meeting (and makes me blush).

You’ve heard from Sandee about how we were introduced through a mutual friend and became acquainted on Facebook before meeting in person. Indeed, Steve R. told me about Sandee on February 21st (isn’t e-mail archiving great?), and I contacted her that evening. We traded a few e-mails, scrutinized each other’s Facebook pages, learned what Google seemed to know, and set up a brunch date for February 24th.

We’d agreed on a nice restaurant in her neck of the woods, so I had plenty of time to reflect during the 45-minute drive in. As I motored along the interstate in light Sunday morning traffic, I tallied up what I knew about this woman. Steve R. had introduced her as smart, adventurous, really nice, and single. Excellent qualifications! He never mentioned her beauty, letting the photos I saw on Facebook speak for themselves.

Driving through gray, tree-bristled mountains, I mused that one positive sign was her active outdoor lifestyle. She hiked, ran mud runs, backpacked and mountain-biked—things I also enjoyed doing in the beautiful forests surrounding us. She held an academic position, which meant we’d made some similar choices, had some similar experiences. College professors always seem to have plenty to talk about, even if it’s only commiserating on the elegant dysfunction of so many academic departments.

I’d found an essay she’d written, so I knew she was skilled at expressing herself with grace and humor. And I knew she was witty—in one of her first e-mails, she implied Steve R. told her I had a Marie Osmond doll collection. What a great icebreaker! It poked fun at those red-flag oddities most Internet daters eventually tell stories about.

I knew she was comfortable in her own skin. I’d read with interest (bordering on awe) about her nude modeling on Valentine’s Day. Mind on the road, Steve, this is your exit!

I obediently followed the directions of my car navigation system to the restaurant, arriving early, as I usually do. (My Navy captain father instilled an almost obsessive attention to punctuality and efficiency, and academia has not quite beaten it out of me). By the time I sat down in the restaurant, eyes on the door, I’d catalogued a fair bit of knowledge about the woman who would soon walk through it. Things seemed promising.

However, I’d also endured six years of mid-life dating. I’d discovered how someone looks “on paper” does not necessarily translate to real-world compatibility. I was getting much better at restraining my optimism. I was hopeful, but not confident.

She walked into the restaurant.

The sun did not illuminate her hair like a halo from behind, nor did the camera switch to slow motion as she crossed the room, unfurled her scarf and tossed her hair. I didn’t look into her eyes and see inevitable love.

I saw a beautiful woman, a friend of a friend, someone willing to spend part of her day with me.

I don’t remember what she wore. I don’t remember what we ordered. I don’t even remember what we talked about. I do remember the time passing far more quickly than it usually does, the awkwardness of a first date melting gradually into the easy conversation of a pair of like-minded individuals. Once the bill had been paid, the waiter was more ready for our date to be over than we were, so we headed outside and sat a bit longer in the rare, warm, February sunshine.

For too long, I’d been a daydreamer, and I tended to let my mind skip to the future so quickly that I failed to savor the present. I’d often made the mistake of anticipating what might be rather than fully enjoying what is. It was so much better to enter a first date with no expectations other than “maybe I’ll make a new friend.” It allowed me to see what was really there before me: I had, indeed, just made a new friend. And without all those expectations and imaginings occupying my head, there was time and space simply to let things unfold.

I e-mailed her that evening to ask her on a second date.

Dinner celebrating our first dating anniversary, Seattle

Dinner celebrating our first dating anniversary, Seattle 2014

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Once Upon a Facebook Status: How We Met

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A Valentine’s break-up, a sad Facebook status, and a set-up: what could possibly go wrong?

Turns out, nothing at all.

Endings

The day before Valentine’s Day in 2013, I texted a man I’d been dating off and on for a while, asking if he’d be interested in catching a happy hour gallery talk at the art museum the next day. Shortly thereafter, my phone rang.

“Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“That’s, well. You know.”

I did know. I knew we’d been drifting away from each other yet again. I knew spending Valentine’s Day together would signal we were headed in the same direction, when clearly we weren’t. I knew these things so well, in fact, I’d already made alternate plans for after the lecture, anticipating that otherwise I might well be spending the evening alone. Instead, I was scheduled for my first-ever figure modeling gig with a community drawing group.

“That’s okay,” I said. And it was true.

 Middle

The next day I went to the lecture alone, then hopped in my car to drive to the drawing class. I’d mixed up my directions, so by the time I arrived, I was more anxious about being a few minutes late than getting naked. I quickly changed into a robe, then almost just as quickly dropped it. I concentrated for the next hour and half on holding poses.

That evening, I posted on Facebook:

Spent my Valentine’s evening as the sole naked woman in a room full of strangers.

If you can’t make love, make art.

Steve, as yet unknown to me, also posted about his day on Facebook:

For Valentine’s day dinner—an evening at Bull & Bones with guys from the office and the Forest Service. Sigh. Such is life. At least there was decent beer!

Meanwhile, our mutual friend Steve R. scrolled through his newsfeed. He spotted our lonely-hearts updates—one right after the other, I like to imagine. He’d already been contemplating setting us up. A few days later, he sent me a message about a nice guy he knew who was looking to meet someone.

 Virtual Beginnings

After I agreed to be introduced, Steve R. sent me a message saying he’d told Steve about me. That was at 8:05 pm. By nine, I had my first message. Steve’s eagerness was refreshing, and the decisiveness seemed a good sign.

We traded a few messages on Facebook, including a running gag about Marie Osmond memorabilia. Since we’d both already learned that extended online communiques prior to meeting face-to-face were a bad idea, I quickly said yes when he suggested getting together that Sunday. I had afternoon movie plans, so we settled on brunch.

It was the first best yes ever.

 Beginnings

When I walked into the restaurant Sunday morning, Steve had already arrived. He was seated at a booth along the left wall, and as soon as he saw me, he rose to his feet, his face hopeful, a little anxious. He was tall and bald, neither a surprise, vis a vis Facebook. After I joined him at the table, I noted his bright blue eyes and warm, handsome smile.

I don’t remember much of what we talked about that day. As academics, I suspect we shared our current projects—I was on sabbatical, working on a book; he was in the early stages of founding his center for sustainable forestry. I do remember that we lingered until it felt impolite to keep occupying the restaurant’s table, then lingered a bit longer over drinks purchased at the coffee shop next door. It was warm for February, so we sat outside in the sun talking until I had to leave to catch my movie. Steve walked me to my car and gave me a hug good-bye.

I liked him. I didn’t yet know where it might or might not go, but I liked him. And I really hoped he’d meant it when he said we should get together again.

Turns out, he did.

Today is the two year anniversary of that first brunch date. 

Happy anniversary to my honey, Steve!

Photo, Mountain Lake, April 2013: first picture we had taken together. Photo credit: B. Rotche