Category: Musings on Life and Beauty

I needed something to mend.  Big things are broken in our lives, in our world, that we can’t control.  Still, I needed the feeling of restoring something, making the broken beautiful.  Recently I purchased a vintage floral crown from a favorite shop that was closing.  I was drawn to the blue velvet and satin leaves.


Many of the leaves had pulled away from their wires, so I began by gluing each leaf back onto the wire.  (My binding clips were very helpful in this process, by the way!)  I bought some vintage millinery flowers at the same time, and added them to the crown.


We all have something to mend.  Probably in our textiles, but mending is bigger than that.  We need it in our relationships, in our thoughts, in the way we treat people at the store.  We all see the holes.  None of us can mend the world alone, but we can all find something to mend in our own lives.  Restoring this crown reminded me that mending heals me, too.  I love the crown; I love how I felt after fixing it, even more.


Fixing my crown reminded me of an old quote, wise words from a very good man:

“This year, mend a quarrel.  Seek out a forgotten friend.  Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust.  Write a letter.  Give a soft answer.  Encourage youth.  Manifest your loyalty in word and deed.  Keep a promise.  Forgo a grudge.  Forgive an enemy.  Apologize.  Try to understand.  Examine your demands on others.  Think first of someone else.  Be kind.  Be gentle.  Laugh a little more.  Express your gratitude.  Welcome a stranger.  Gladden the heart of a child.  Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.  Speak your love and then speak it again.”  – Howard W. Hunter

Hi there.  It’s been a while.  2020 has turned out to be quite the year, and from all appearances at this point it’s going to stay strange.  I didn’t mean to take such a long break from blogging; one minute I was taking photos of my newest quilt top in April, and the next I was turning the calendar to August.  But here I am, and hopefully you will stop by at some point.  So, hello again!  How are you?


I feel different.  And the different has changed forms several times over the past 5 months.  Our family has experienced our own, individualized, version of the pandemic along with everyone else.  It’s been stressful, heartbreaking, freeing, beautiful, and ugly all at once.  Sometimes I feel lost; other times I feel found.  I have loved extra time with my family and grieved for things we’ve lost.


Sometime in late March I was working in the yard when I spied this daffodil laying face down in the flowerbed.  I straightened its bent stem to look at the flower.  And it took my breath away!  Its slightly wilted, yet still exquisite beauty was both a gift and a mirror:  a gift of hope and a mirror of the resilience we’re all working to maintain.  We may be wilted, and we may be rising up from having our faces down in the dirt, but we are beautiful.  Beautiful, valuable faces we can still turn to the sun.


However the year ends, I hope I’m coming out of it more gentle, more compassionate, a better listener.  I want to see people for who they really are, hear their stories, spread kindness.  I want to be part of the solution – on an individual level.

 So… wherever you are in your journey, face up or face down, thriving or struggling or anything in between, know that you matter.  You are beautiful, talented, valuable and creative.  I end today with wise words I’ve shared before:

“Being creative will help you enjoy life.  It engenders a spirit of gratitude.  It develops latent talent, sharpens your capacity to reason, to act, and to find purpose in life.  It dispels loneliness and heartache.  It gives a renewal, a spark of enthusiasm, and zest for life.”  – Richard G. Scott

Here’s to gratitude, to renewal, to enthusiasm and zest for life!  Hello again!

It’s good to be back.
-Jennifer

My cherry tree should be covered in white blossoms right now.  It tried.  But when the first blossoms were on the cusp of opening, they all froze overnight.  So now my tree looks more brown than white.


I have a stack of finished quilts I was saving to photograph in front of my favorite tree.  Today the light was right for just a minute so I went out to do my best.  And naturally, in the ten minutes I was out there, it was cloudy, windy, rainy, sunny, rain through sunshine, and about ten seconds of just right.


I took a walk around my tree, noticing all the details.  As I did, I thought, “This tree looks like life in 2020”.  Beautiful blossoms destroyed overnight, like all our plans were cancelled in a couple of announcements.  Where there should be white and beauty and thriving, so much is brown.  Usually my tree is literally humming with bees – but today there were none.  Like my  hopes and dreams for the next few months.  Others sleeping, hopefully to wake again.


Here’s what I noticed, though.  I didn’t see or hear the bees, but as I walked in circles around the tree I heard birds singing.  And as inspected the faded brown blossoms, I also saw a few fresh white ones peeking out in spite of everything.  I saw new growth, leaves beginning to form.  And way up high there was a branch or two that is mostly white, and as I admired them I also noticed blue sky above them.  In spite of clouds, rain, wind, we still had blue sky up above.


At some point, and hopefully soon, we will emerge from this crisis.  When we do, I hope we will all be tenderly cradling a new dream or two in spite of everything that dried up.  When we do, I hope we will be able to notice the blue sky above and the birds singing in the distance.  Even if we miss the industrious buzzing of hundreds of bees, and the glorious show of everything blooming at once as we’d planned, I hope we will have eyes to see the opportunity before us.  And the courage to engage and try again no matter what we lost.  Just like my cherry tree.