suddenly december

It was been a while!




I have been...

- packing up the house and prepping for MA

- moving materials around at the YMCA

- running around like mad, making up for a stolen phone - yes, the night before the long drive.... naturally

- driving up 95 with Riva and Lucy (cayewah's pup) for 9 hours, stopping in with Joellen and Jason for the night, driving 10 more hours thru the rain and fog

- Arriving in Northampton. Florence actually.

- Snuggeling

- Binding quilts and embellishing mittens



- doing trunkshow # 1 - went very well (here is Lulu, we did the show at his house)



- making doggie jackets




- knitting (basking in loving admiration for the importance of making)

I'm up in MA, taking good care.
Making, trying to keep my dogs and myself pretty warm.

Everything is going very well. We are most certainly on vacation, despite the ever epic lists. The days are less full and the freezing-ness is making me drink more tea and wear thicker socks.

SHOW!!! TOMORROW!!!

hey gang---

all is well in trunkshow land....

the show is tomorrow!!

11am- 4pm 59 massasoit street northampton--- the WICK's house!!

MAP!!
***there will be a neighboring show at Lynn Madison's big orange house.... right across the street! 12-5pm
more local art! more good friends!

good news:

1. rachel wick just got into SMITH!!!

2. jenny scheerer is soon to have baby # 2!!

3. the nields + the black rebels are playing at the IRON HORSE tomorrow night.... NOT together, but at 7 + 10 pm respectivly. I hope to go to both. I hope you come too! [ "we're gonna laugh and we're gonna dance. I'm gonna hold you like my only chance..."]

4. it's december, we're getting a new deal for christmas and everything is going to be just fine!!

5. BARACK OBAMA!!! I'm still not over it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6. the show! tomorrow! see you then!!!

monday

jenny lewis says:

if i run up hill, i'm out of breath.

if i spend all my money, then i've got no money left.

if i put all my chips on only one bet, then i'm all in....

[I've been running up the hill ourside my parent's house with Riva lately and keep thinking about that!]

we've made it thru our first weekend of shows. both were a big success-- many friends and much art passed along!

I've finally realized that I have indeed made a lot of work, enough for this coming weekend too. I'm also realizing that this new one-class-a-quarter plan means TRUE slowing down, TRUE leaving the rat race, TRUE living + feeling + being. I feel absolutely renewed, in the sense of "give me a clean heart. give me a clean heart. give me a clean heart, may i be born a new"

i have a million letters to send, emails to write up and bills to pay, but today is one of those fabulous specimins of a day when I know in my heart that everything will be okay.

there is another jenny lewis song that says : if you want better things, than i want you to have them.

I think that at a certain point we must say this to ourselves, and then commit to figuring out how to have those better things.... you do, in the end, have to look for your life.

my good friend Betsy played my her favorite jump little children song, a few years back now. the most stunning part of it goes: in the cathedrals of new york and rome, there is a feeling that you should just go home + spend a lifetime figuring out just where that is.

so here we go, n'est-ce pas?

LA LA!

saturday's trunkshow was a great success. We had a lovely group of dear dear friends and it was a blast! here is the statement that I wrote for the show + it is very true of this moment in our lives..

betty+isabel. high summer. 2008.
Much of our world is comprised of loops, links and tangles. Each thread and every color seem to have their own intuitive route. Birds migrate the same route every year, intuitively. I try not to interrupt the intuitive and the naturally occurring, but to internalize each loop and link, to really know every tangle. The name betty+Isabel, comes from an e.e Cummings poem about patterns which simply happen, and we may not know why or how, but we accept them. We accept them as we do everything which we have made by hand or know by heart.

Anyways, I'm getting back into this one thing at a time groove. it's feeling pretty great. the day ends when it should and I am making specific things for specific people. I am finding that life as a maker is rather like life as a farmer. you have to make different types of work at different times, forming a cycle in order to stay alive, awake and excited......... just like the wisest way to farm is to switch up the crops in your field from time to time.
I feel pretty relaxed and just pretty happy. here are some ingredients for that:

- simon + garfunkel -- first thing in the morning + in the car
- these amazing chocolates from my friend Kait which were waiting for me in my cubbie at the preschool today
- good talks and cute phone messages from/with dear friends like Jen, Nora, Joellen, Djerba, Lexi + Jess.
- RIVA, world's greatest dog
- my wonderful Mummay
- these glorious, sunny days

TRUNK SHOW DAY

I just FINALLY finished the spread sheet...... I'm about to run off to the house and start setting up. If you're in Savannah, do drop by 406 east 35th street from 1-5pm.
I promise to give a detailed reoprt including pictures after the show............ cross your fingers it goes well! xoxoxoxo