je me souviens

I remember...the last needlepoint...
Once upon another lifetime I lived in north Yonkers a couple of blocks above the Hudson River with my three young children and their father in a nice town house complex. The place was filled with other young families of diverse backgrounds and cultures. As young parents are wont to do, we developed friendships of proximity that involved children, dinners, parties, outings. Through the years there were careers, divorces, marriages, illicit love affairs (it was the late 1960s and early 70s after all) and eventually we moved on and away into other lives.

and then...
yesterday I picked up a package from the post office that turned out to be from BBF Bonnie whom I haven't seen in 40 years.  In that other lifetime we were both fiber fanatics and our main obsession interest was needlepoint. Along with our own work, we designed and sold original painted canvasses. We called ourselves The Needle Bees. Our business cards had a tiny sketch of what looked like a bee but we knew was actually a fly. So what was in the package from the PO? omg! floods of memories assail me...and make me smile, too...(that fly)...

We were invited to participate in a mushroom show in a posh needlepoint shop. Incredibly, improbably, amazingly, I found my piece in the garage. It's unframed stained and soiled but ~ by goddess! ~ it's one of the mushroom designs I entered in the 1970 show!

At that time, my oldest son (who will turn 50 this summer) was a boy - a dreamy outdoorsy sort. He came home one afternoon with sprigs of bittersweet and autumn leaves. Together we arranged the collection and traced the leaves on paper. In the wee hours, when the kids were asleep, I transferred the design onto needlepoint canvas. It became a pillow that has been on one sofa or another in every place I've lived since. It's still beautiful  - and I can't imagine ever doing something like it again.

For a few years by Long Island Sound I tended toward sea themes: fish, shells. When we moved to the southwest (children grown, new husband, grandparents) I was back into knitting and had abandoned needlepoint -- but a cotton floss kit at the local Yarn Shop compelled me to record our huge move west. Where will all of this go next? When my eyes and patience have faded like that last skein of tapestry yarn in the old leaf pillow and my son will be joining AARP....?

nothing rhymes with orange
so I'll paint the town red
go out of my usual way
and triangulate
be surreal without 
starting points or
endings ~ just keep forming