it's been a long and dreary winter in our little world.  but we can finally feel spring emerging.  and it's wonderful.  i spent the past weekend putting our house back together.  when edgar got sick, we moved all our living into the library.  it was cozy and warm for the winter, but it had become crowded and cluttered, dark and dusty. and once the days started getting longer, it was a little claustrophobic.   so i moved furniture and cleaned and dusted and rearranged.  i rubbed coconut oil into the wood to make it gleam and smell fresh and delicious.  the house felt open and fresh and bright again.  all in time for my daddy's birthday yesterday.  his 75th birthday.  my mother was out of town for her 55th high school reunion in virginia.   but we invited my aunt over and we had an easy little dinner for him.  and it was a bit of an awakening.  i think ezra had more than a little to do with it.  we are all breathing again.  smiling again.  moving into spring.  

i think we stumble upon things in life, just when we need them.  and being aware that we need them is just an added little bonus.  this week i am blissfully leafing through old poetry books i haven't read in years.  and finding the perfect words to stitch into quilts.  just while the ugliness that happened in boston is sitting deep in my belly.  and little health concerns with our animals pick at my thoughts.  and while i'm wondering if i'll ever have enough time to give to all the areas in my life that need some extra attention.  
but i'm reading rilke and james joyce and baudelaire and verlaine and t.s. eliot and of course, ezra pound.  there is soothing in their words.  i often turn to the poets who boil up my innards like rimbaud and sexton and plath.  but finding the rolling and sensual words without the barbs and sharpness is what i need for the quilts.  and what i need for my frazzled soul right now.  
today i made a quilt with the words of 'slumber song' by rilke. 'words as tender as eyelids'.  wow!!!
so i keep finding dreamy poems and sewing them into dreamy quilts. 

  

gray days have been our stage this week.  rain and cold.  even ice thickly layering the trees.  and when the temperatures rose a little, the sidewalks and yard were covered in little icy troughs as they began to melt and break away from the branches.  april has been so wintry that ezra and i kept long hours at the studio the past few days, with little interest in cold damp wanderings.

i made my first little batch of 'poetry quilts' this week.  the subtlety of stitch and word is very striking.  the fabric is a plain unbleached, toothy muslin that carries the word to your eye unadulterated with color or pattern.  these have been planted in my mind for months, swimming around in there, waiting for the right time to emerge.  and the other day, i had finished quilting all the tops i'd made last week and decided to try my hand at writing.  so i found a lovely little robert frost poem, 'beech'.  and started writing with my sewing machine...

Where my imaginary line

Bends square in woods, an iron spine

And pile of real rocks have been founded.

And off this corner in the wild,

Where these are driven in and piled,

One tree, by being deeply wounded,

Has been impressed as Witness Tree

And made commit to memory

My proof of being not unbounded.

This truth’s established and borne out,

Though circumstanced with dark and doubt—

Though by a world of doubt surrounded.

and the poetry quilt was born.  yesterday, 2 rilke poems, 'piano practice' and 'the apple orchard' became quilts.  lightweight and breezy.  today my job is to photograph them and list them on etsy.  photographing the subtle tone on tone texture that creates the words is difficult. it requires an exact light that i haven't quite figured out yet.  but i'll figure it out!

 

we are on the couch. ezra and me and a cup of tea. enjoying our evening after a delightful day of sunshine and studio time and wonderful people.  ezra fits perfectly into our lives.  one of our neighbors said the other day, that she thinks edgar found ezra and sent him to us.  i love that idea and i think there must be something to that.  
today the studio was full of spring energy.  tracy and dave bringing me starbucks early early started it all off perfectly.  a long meandering wander by the lake with ezra, meeting new people and dear friends.  and then back to the quilts where i finished a lovely black and red single quilt.  it's always so rewarding when i finally take a quilt, all warm and puckery, from the drier.  it is only at that moment that i see it's full completed self.  
early in the afternoon, my friend marc walked in the back door carrying his skateboard and a bag of goodies for me.  music and my favorite tea (see photo).  he had never met tracy or ezra....i love when all the people dear to me know each other....so it was nice to complete the circle. 
the best sushi in the city happens to be a 2 minute walk away from us.  so when marc and i needed some lunch, we walked up to the corner and shared fresh and delicious rolls.  
it's nice to relive the high points of a day.  and today was full of them.   

 

when i awaken in the earliest morning.  and i am warm and sleepy in my bed.  and thoughts start spinning through my groggy mind.  jolted with worry.  drifting through the scenarios of ruin.  and they will not stop.  warm snoring dog at my feet.  and the steady breath of tom beside me.  but i have to sneak away.  bare feet cold on the wood plank floors.  i come downstairs and start the fire.  meet the day and face it's demands.  make tea.  feed telulah from her special canned food stash.  activity chases away the unease.  my work can save us.  the hollow of night begins to thin, and day is thick and plump ahead of me.  

after so many still months, i am walking along the lake again.  the air is sweet.  the lake is fresh.  ezra has joined our family.  and the light is returning to our lives.  ezra is a 4 year old great dane from a rescue organization.  we are 'fostering' him until we're sure he can endure the cats.  he's only been here since sunday, but we are so in love, it's crazy.
the other day we were heading over the bridge to the lake.  we met a lady we'd seen the day before.  she was walking with an older lady who had a little dog with her.  the woman from the night before said to me in a surprised and sympathetic tone..."he'll fall if he stops walking?" i realized right away that the older woman thought it was edgar i was walking with.  and she'd told the other woman all about him.  i love when edgar is talked about and loved by strangers.  the older lady and i ended up standing and talking as i told her about edgar's surgery and subsequent cancer.  as we started to head towards home, she apologized for bringing up the pain of edgar's death.  i assured her that i loved him being remembered by others and that i love remembering him.  she choked up and put her hand on her chest and told me that he had really touched her, that she was touched at how he was determined to keep up with me as we walked everyday.  i had tears on my cheeks as we walked home. 
so you will hear much more about ezra as he helps to heal my heart and bring spring into our days.    
 

this is my favorite photo of him so far.  ezra and tracy in the studio.  he is a studio dog for sure.....sprawled on the couch while i make quilts. 

my friend died on the weekend.  a sudden and swift death from cancer.  there were just 2 weeks for her gorgeous children and family and friends across the globe to realize what was happening.  and yesterday we said goodbye.  
teta's life was large and grand.  her personality swept into a room and filled it.  she was a painter.  she was a storyteller. she was a gardener.  and she was a kind and concerned friend.  she loved with all of her.  she was born and grew up in australia. her father, a first generation russian immigrant and her mother a beautiful australian nurse.  both russia and australia were deeply part of her.  
for 2 years she lived with her daughter and granddaughter next door to us, in the house that is now the studio. the spirit and energy was strong and bright and alive.  i am full of her stories.  grand ones and little snippets of memory.  my favorite is a simple little story.  a story of her childhood in australia.  there was a woman.  a woman that held her fascination when she was a child.  a woman who made her little girl self feel special.  who wore perfume she could still remember 40 years later.  and this woman gave her a pretty and delicate robin's egg blue nightgown.  (maybe she gave her the nightgown, or maybe it was a nightgown the woman herself wore).  but because of the combination of the woman and the nightgown, her favorite color for life, was robin's egg blue.  and through that story, i felt myself fall in love forever with the same color.  
i drove to ottawa for teta's funeral yesterday.  a traditional russian orthodox service.  we stood under the dome, her casket in the center of the round room, flowers surrounding her.  incense and beeswax tapers burning.  gregorian chants and songs.  i was struck with the soothing of the soul that this ancient service provided. 
when her gardens begin to bloom in a month or so it will fill my heart with sadness and gladness.  i miss teta.