Three Years: A Reflection

Two days before I became sick, I spent the afternoon outside in the March sunshine, preparing the yard and gardens for spring. My strongest memory of that day is transplanting a rogue purple crocus into the garden. I can remember the chilly shade of the late afternoon shadows, the dampness on my knees, the smell of the rich earth. It was simple and good.

I clung tightly to that memory as the days rolled away into weeks and the weeks into months, while my body unravelled and society raved. I waited for the morning when I would awaken feeling refreshed, when I would know that I was being restored. It did not come…and it did not come…but still I held on to that memory in the garden, hoping that I would awaken from this strange and unwelcome dream, that I would return to the person I had been.

I have changed my calendar dutifully for three years; and I have slowly come to accept that this is not a dream, and that there is no going back. I must carry on with the life that is unfolding before me. But a part of myself remains buried in that moment in the garden, among the crocus and daffodil bulbs–still waiting for a spring that has already come and gone three times over, and now has come again. Waiting for a Spring that may not come in this lifetime.

Perhaps this is why we long for Eternity so: when we will finally gather up all the fragments of ourselves that have been wrenched apart by Time and Space, and become whole again.

***

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

Isaiah 61:1-3

Snowy Wood

….The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.

~ “The Wood-Pile” by Robert Frost

Farewell to the House of Dreams

Six months ago, we crossed over the threshold of the House of Dreams for the last time. I wrote this in July 2021, when we were first coming to terms with moving.

We are preparing ourselves to move out of our House of Dreams. It may not be an immediate change–maybe in six months, maybe in several years–but it will come. Last year I became sick with two different infections, which led to the development of a chronic illness. Life has changed with my illness, and the hopes and expectations of our future have had to change also. This house was the anchor of that future, but it has become an anchor that is slowly dragging us down. And so it is time to let go of the House of Dreams.

I fell in love with this house six years ago, after one glance at a photo. It seemed to encapsulate everything I desired in a place to live. I dreamed of a large old house with children and cats and a dog, and a barn with chickens or ducks and perhaps some sheep. I dreamed of a large garden full of vegetables and herbs, and flower gardens brimming with color. I dreamed of baking bread and making cheese. I dreamed of summer nights with campfires and stars and fire flies, and winters with cozy blankets and a crackling wood stove. I dreamed of a studio filled with fabric and threads and beads, and the freedom to spend quiet weekday mornings in church at divine liturgy.

We were so close. We had the big old house, and the barn, and cats, and chickens. We had evenings under the stars in summer, and evenings beside the wood stove in winter. We had molded ourselves to living in this place. In March, just before I first got sick, we were tapping maple trees, starting vegetable seeds, I was hauling wood daily to heat the house, and working to expand two small businesses.

Here I learned how to stack firewood, light and maintain a wood stove, use a riding lawn mower, raise chicks and keep laying hens, how to cook all the cuts in half a pig, butcher a rooster, make maple syrup, can pickles and jam, make sourdough bread and yogurt, and how run a small business. More than half of these, I learned to do after becoming sick. But the work involved in doing all of them, and keeping up a large old house on three acres, has overtaken us, and I need less work and more rest.

But there was still so much more I wanted to learn and to do, in this place that I love. I was happy to choose my own hardships.

All last summer, last fall and winter, and this spring–for a full year–I worked hard to keep hold of these dreams, or at least worked hard to believe that I could keep them. But I found, when the time came to relinquish the House of Dreams, that I let go more easily than expected. I have been worn down over the past year, and my grip was tired and loose. The fact that this house was never really ours made it easier. Love and hard work do not create a legal deed. The house belongs to someone else, and we were only borrowing it. We had built our dreams on someone else’s foundation. It was time to let go, and I did.

But I still mourn them, my lovely dreams. I look out over our flower gardens, out over the river in our lush green valley, and my heart aches.

For the time being, I don’t want or need to replace the dreams I planted and grew here. There are too many practicalities to consider, too many necessities that would require concessions. And I cannot help but wonder, if perhaps I too long neglected the practical and the necessary in pursuit of my desires. Perhaps they were not wrong to have, but they were misplaced and mistimed; trying to make a garden out of the wilderness.

So my dreams for myself, and for this place, will remain here, buried deep in the soil between the roots of the maple trees.

*

“Oh–dreams,” sighed Anne, “I can’t dream now, Captain Jim–I’m done with dreams.”

“Oh no, you’re not, Mistress Blythe–oh, no, you’re not,” said Captain Jim meditatively. “I know how you feel just now–but if you keep on living you’ll get glad again and the first thing you know you’ll be dreaming again–thank the good Lord for it! If it wasn’t for our dreams they might as well bury us. How’d we stand living if it wasn’t for our dream of immortality? And that’s a dream that’s bound to come true, Mistress Blythe.”

–Anne’s House of Dreams, L.M. Montgomery

The Sum of the Parts

Note: We’re much, much closer to moving now, and that panic threshold is starting to loom….

We’re only a few weeks away from moving, and as we are “moving ourselves,” I’m deep into sorting through our belongings and packing them up. To my surprise, I have not yet reached the exasperated “throw a match on the pile and walk away” phase. Perhaps I just haven’t reached the necessary panic threshold.

Actually, we’ve been surprised to find that we don’t have as many belongings as we had thought, which is a relief. We’ve also been selling and donating quite a bit, which perhaps creates a mental counter-balance. In a way, for this move it would make sense to take as little with us as possible. We’ll be moving into a someone else’s home, which is already occupied by their things. We will have access to free, adequate storage, but that is where most of our belongings will be for some time: packed up, unused, and out of sight. It would make sense to pare down to just the basics and the irreplaceables.

The truth is, though, that I don’t want to reduce our things down to the basics. I don’t want to start again from zero. There’s already been so much uncontrollable change in my life over the last few years–I just want something to stay the same. Even if it’s invisible, wrapped up in paper, inside a cardboard box; it’s still there.

I’ve realized that I want–perhaps need–my belongings to remind me of who I am right now. If I have books, surely I am still a reader? If I have needles and floss, I must still be an embroiderer. If I have travel souvenirs, it means that at one time I liked to see new places, and perhaps I will again someday. If I already have a trowel and flower pot, I only need seeds and soil to be a gardener.

I am not keeping everything, by any means; but there will be a small library of books, and thrift-store plates, and terra-cotta flower-pots, and ribbon scraps, and embroidery hoops in my moving boxes. I’ve always surrounded myself with things that evoke memories of places or people, or simply a sense of happiness. And, like many creative people, with things that indicate my intentions. Even before this move, I was trying to become better about clutter, and about not bogging myself down physically in either the past, or the future. For now, though, I feel the need to take some of those reminders with me as I uproot myself.

And when I finally move into my own house again someday, I hope unpacking will be like welcoming old friends into my new home.

Three Years

Dandelions at the House of Dreams

It’s been nearly three years since I last posted anything substantial here. Time has flown away.

Medical problems have defined the last two years for me. In 2020, I became sick with what was probably long covid (covid symptoms that last longer than three months), and then a few months later, with an anaplasmosis infection (a lesser-known tick-borne illness). In 2021 I was diagnosed with POTS as a result of the long covid and anaplasmosis. In January 2022 I had covid again, which has exacerbated some of my existing health problems.

I haven’t embroidered anything since January 2020. I have frequent pain in my hands and arms now, and I’ve been wary of picking up the needle again, worried that I will only find that it causes me more pain. So I’ve been putting off the moment of discovery. For a while I was working on crocheting again, but it caused my hands to quickly fatigue and ache. I also lack the energy and time these days to carry on multiple creative hobbies at once. My mainstay creative outlets have been cooking (which, handily, also fulfills a practical need) and cartooning. Drawing doesn’t hurt very much (though a short bout of handwriting does), which is a small mercy, and it feels appropriate that it has become so important to me again, since it is such a long-time favorite pursuit. But I do miss the other ways I used to create. Thankfully, embroidery floss has no expiration date.

We’ll be moving states in June. My medical problems and the pandemic economy have been hard on us financially, and my in-laws have graciously offered to let us move in with them while we get back on our feet.

This means, of course, that we will be leaving the House of Dreams. It was a good name for this place, and I think it will always remain so in my memory. I brought so many dreams here; I saw many of them fulfilled, and just as many of them broken. There’s a version of myself that will always belong here, I think.

Right now, “the foreseeable future” ends a little ways beyond the day we unload the moving van at my in-laws’ house. I’ve put the blinders on for purging and packing, and using up our hoard in the pantry and freezer (which feels exactly like the wrong thing to be doing at a time of rising food prices). I’m making lists and checking off to-dos, but moving again–moving now–feels very surreal. It’s the capstone on a very surreal two years. Maybe I’ll finally believe that it’s happening, once it’s already done.

I keep wondering if, after the moving dust settles, I will be able to reclaim some of the parts of myself that have been lost in the last two years. Will I ever embroider again, crochet again, write my stories again? Will I have a chance to try watercolors, or re-open my Etsy shop? Finish all the little projects left in suspension since January 2020? Restart the books that I laid down, and didn’t pick up again? For two years, I’ve felt torn between who I was pre-illness, and who I am post-illness (or continuing-illness), and I’d like to stitch myself back together again–even if it means that ultimately, there are trimmings here and takings-in there. At least then, I would know.

***

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”

~Helen Keller

Dandelion Green

This project started with the frame.  I found it at a thrift store, attracted by its cheerful color and small size.

It required a subject to frame that was as charming and sunny as itself, and what is more charming, cheerful, and sunny than a dandelion?  Or a whole field of dandelions?

(Unless you are the owner of a lawn in the suburbs.)

The finished size in the frame opening is 1-5/8″ x 1-5/8″–hardly enough to fit two quarters.  The outside measurements of the frame bring the size up to 3″ x 3″.  It’s quite a little project.

This summery piece will be given as a gift.

Rose Embroidery Hoop Sachet

So blushingly conscious, each bud, how demure,
But sad that their beauties so briefly endure.
Roses I send to you, all I intend to you
Yet, ‘ere they fade, may they carry secure.

~”Roses I send to You,” by Stephen Chatman

This little project began as an experiment/stitching practice, and ended up as a gift.

I’m quite pleased with the effect of the beaded roses.  Everything was embroidered free-hand.  The hoop was stuffed with a sweet-smelling potpourri.

I think there will be more of these in my future.

Pascha Basket Cover: Week…….

Week number…something-or-other.

Last week, we had a power outage which lasted for a few hours. It was a drizzly, gray day, so working outside while waiting for the electricity to turn back on wasn’t an appealing option. Instead, I started to work on the basket cover again.  It has been sitting patiently on the end of the dining room table which I’ve commandeered as a work space, waiting for me to be ready to work on it again.

This is where I left it it on Pascha, at the end of April:

And this is where it’s at now:

One quarter of the cover is now complete, and it is becoming easy to see how the finished design will unfold.  It’s starting to look like an actual Thing!

–Now there’s some good motivation!

As usual with this project, this week taught me another lesson in craftsmanship.  This week’s lesson was that beads do–or can–come in dye lots.  At least, my gold seed beads apparently do.  The glass seed beads I have been using are a dark, honey-colored gold, and they have been in my bead stash for a long time.  This week I finally used them up, and opened a new, recently-purchased bag from the same manufacturer, of what I thought was exactly the same color.  But no–the new beads are a much lighter, brighter gold, and the contrast was marked. Thankfully, I went back into my stash and found another container of darker gold beads, although even these are slightly different from what I had been using.  Lesson learned: as with yarn, always make sure you have enough of one lot to complete your project.

My weekly “oops”…lighter gold beads on the left (beneath the dark blue flower), darker gold beads on the right.

For more about this project, check out the following posts:

First Post/Week 1

Weeks 5 & 6

Week 7 (the latest post, before this one)

I’m also now on Instagram.

 

Instagram

Well, I’ve been on Instagram for a about a month now, thanks to the persistent encouragement of a friend.  The last time I jumped on a social media bandwagon–Pinterest–it seemed like everyone stopped using it almost as soon as I started.  So my presence may well herald the death of media platforms.  Even so, if you intend to stick around on Instagram yourself and would like to follow me, my account is under my shop/blog name: ashandacorn (link goes to my Instagram profile).

#istilldon’tunderstandhashtags.

The Secret Garden

“Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth?”
~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Spring was slow to unfurl itself from the sleepy earth this year, but Summer has rushed ahead in head-long fashion, like a boy bound and determined to win a race.  Every day we witness more miracles bursting out into the sunshine and rain.

 

There are many gardens here at the House of Dreams, where the soil is dark and moist and rich.  Untended and unchecked, the plants have taken full advantage of their freedom, and have grown riotously, wild and tangled, joyful.

We have begun to take things in hand, but cautiously.  We are on a treasure hunt, watching eagerly as the green shoots push their way upwards, as leaves unfold and flowers open their blossoms, wondering just what they might be.

(After all, “a weed is just a flower in the wrong place.”)

 

“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”
~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

 

 

The garden has its secrets, tucked away in every root and bulb and seed, and it is revealing them to us, one by one, day by day.

“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”
~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

 

“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.  One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun–which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.  One knows it then for a moment or so.  And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries.  Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone’s eyes.”

~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

 

(Our copy of The Secret Garden is the 1993 Illustrated Junior Library edition.  It is wonderfully illustrated.)