The Heirloom Footstool

 Many years ago in the late 80’s, my mother bought a needlepoint canvas with a floral design painted on it.  She bought it at a lovely handwork shop, The West in Tucson, Arizona.  The store was populated, I thought at the time, by fussy old ladies who advised and helped the customers with their needlepoint questions.  The needlepoint was meant to cover a footstool that had been in my family since the 1940’s.  It’s a stool I remember my brother, age 3, falling off and breaking his collar bone.  I remember mother sitting on the back bay beach on Balboa Island working the green needlepoint that covered the stool for nearly 75 years.  By the time I had the stool in my house, the cover was torn and tattered.  But I always cherished the stool as a tangible treasured memory from my early days.  When mother began to lose her strength and had to move out of her apartment into an assisted living facility in the early 1990’s, my sister and I did the work of cleaning out her apartment.  I spotted the needlepoint tacked on a large wooden frame and put it aside.  I couldn’t let it be given away.  Mother had taught her daughters to do handwork.  I appreciated the needlepoint even though it was only a quarter completed.  It sat behind a door in my office for more than 25 years untouched until I picked it up during the current Covid pandemic.  “I’ve got time now,” I thought.  I wasn’t exactly sure how to do the needlepoint.  The back of the piece shows I tried lots of different techniques.  Fortunately none of them show on the front side.  After 3 months of hard work, I finished the piece.  Yesterday I got the stool with the new needlepoint cover on it back from the upholsterer.  I’m thrilled.  But what was mother thinking to put a white needlepoint on a footstool.  Nevertheless, it is truly an heirloom, a piece from a by-gone time.  I hope one of my children or grandchildren will appreciate the work of their great grandmother and grandmother in it and also cherish the footstool.

The Plant Sale

 This morning I volunteered to be the “Plant Checker” at the UC Botanical Garden special sale for Insectivorous Plants.  It was outside, with everyone masked, and good social distance was maintained.  I sat behind a table, so I felt safe.  Everyone loves insectivorous plants: the Venus flytraps are perhaps the most famous, but Pitcher plants, Nepenthes, sundews and butterworts are also cool.  These plants have evolved with leaf adaptations to catch insects.  Some have tubular shaped leaves with downward facing hairs that trap bees and other insects, others have sticky pads that trap insects and eventually digest them.  They live in wet bogs and swamps. Their roots can’t absorb the nitrogen they need because of the acidic conditions in the bogs. The insects they catch provide the nitrogen.  As a docent, I noticed that boys seem particularly attracted to these plants and often would proudly explain how the plants catch their insects.  Today’s plant sale was wildly successful with people of all ages buying lots and lots of the plants.  Some were real aficionados looking for the most rare and special plants.  Some plants sold for as much as $100.  A favorite customer was a dad with two kids each with paper bags containing their allowances.  After carefully looking at everything, they  picked a large Venus fly trap and an antler sundew.  As I tallied up the prices of plants on a sales slip, I heard wonderful stories of where folks had seen the plants in the wild.  One lady told of a summer house in the Adirondacks by a lake where the wet front yard of the cabin was solid with sundew plants.  She’s loved them ever since.  Another woman told of a trip up to Oregon where they stopped at a pull out and took a board walk into the forest where they came upon a bog filled solid with pitcher plants.  I love plant sales because everyone is so happy and hopeful.  The energy is always really good.  It was filled with special joy at being able to have a plant sale again and love because so many people especially love the insectivorous plants.  I guess during the pandemic people are really tending their boggy gardens.  The wait to get in took a really long time because the sales area was small with only three groups at a time allowed in.  Some people waited more than an hour in the hot sun to get in, but everyone was mellow and happy to be there.  Maybe patience is another fruit of the pandemic.  The preliminary totals are astounding:  $5400 for the 2 hours the sale was open today.  And the sale goes on tomorrow morning!!!

Looking for the Good

 I am convinced in every situation, there is both good and bad.  Maybe not in equal amounts, but both are present.  I recall the story of the little girl who got a present of a pile of manure.  Her parents found her out in the barn singing away as she shoveled the manure.  How can you be so happy, they asked her.  Her response was with all this manure, there has to be a pony in here somewhere.   In these times, when everyone I know has pandemic fatigue, when everyone I know is overwhelmed with the constant battering of bad news, it’s hard not to be consumed by fear.   So at the little zoom Bible Study this afternoon that I participated in, I stated my idea and we started collectively to look for good in the difficult days.  There are benefits of the zoom meetings.  My granddaughters apparently do as well or perhaps better taking their piano lessons on zoom.  I don’t know why but maybe they focus  more intently on the screen, no matter the reason,  it is a positive.  Someone at the Bible Study said, that after this pandemic is over, the doctors and scientists will know more how to treat the disease.  I think the international cooperation among scientists to all work to make a vaccine is a first.  And the vaccine will be produced much faster than any ever has before.  I think more white Americans have understood systemic racism since George Floyd’s death, perhaps because more white Americans were home watching their devices or tv and finally that horrible death cracked through the brittle walls of denial.  I think more people will vote in this election than ever before.  More people are thinking about our democracy and the threats to it. People are spending more time doing things that really matter than ever before:  connecting with family and friends even when we can’t be together physically.  I know I am valuing the live music I’ve heard more than I ever have before and I was a big live music Symphony fan.  I appreciate my garden and the Botanical Garden more than ever before.  The list goes on and on.  There is good in this time.  It will be interesting to see the changes that come about from this pandemic time.  

Carrying On

 The time of the pandemic was measured in days at the beginning, then months (now we are beginning the 8th month of it) and now Dr. Fauci has said, it will be measured years.  He warned this won’t be over until the last part of 2021.  I can’t imagine.  Yet I can as we all seem to be adjusted to social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing.  Wearing a mask doesn’t seem odd any more.   Life, it seems, goes on.  Even though  I still don’t know anyone who has had the virus, it still looms large.  President Trump had it last week and now is acting even crazier than usual, probably on a steroid manic high.  Nobody can tell that man anything.  Life goes on, day by day.  The sun rises and it sets.  The days grow hot and then they cool down.  The air is terribly smoky, then it isn’t.  People do special things that bring  pleasure.  We were invited to a very small live concert at an estate in Woodside.  It featured a cello and a harp playing wonderful music in an old open dairy barn.  The music wafted up and around as the gentle breezes of fresh air flowed around us.  I especially loved the pieces they ended with:  “Spiegel im Spiegel” by Arvo Part and “Meditation” from Thais.  Afterwards the fifteen of us got to go on a hike over the oak dotted hills to see some of the incredible outdoor sculptures collected by the family over the years.  It was a most special afternoon.  This week, a friend came over with her husband.  He advised Bob on electrical work, while she and I walked and talked and just relaxed in each other’s company.  It was like a time before all this except for our social distancing and mask wearing.   I went to my meet my new doctor.  Things looked normal except for the masks and the way we all avoided each other.  I still volunteer at the Botanical Garden.  We look forward to the frequent calls we get from our family.  Life goes on.  We are carrying on, day after day grateful for little kindnesses.  We are more appreciate of things of beauty we encounter.  We are more grateful for our health.  We are more resolute about the politics, hopeful sanity will return in November.  Everyone MUST VOTE!!!!!!

Destruction is Easy

 One thing I have learned in my life is that destruction of anything is easy and building and rebuilding is hard.  I think of destruction of a house.  You just bring in the wrecking ball and the dump trucks and before you know it, the house is gone.  It takes so long to build a house.  A friend of mine is building a cottage in her backyard,  She told me she is amazed at how long and how complicated the process is.  From the city permits to inspections to the details of the building.  It takes a long time to build a house.  It takes a long time to build a relationship.  One needs common experiences, time to know the other person and to understand his/her ups and downs.  In my experience, over time, like an oyster making a pearl, the relationship is cemented becoming even more beautiful.  It then can withstand with ups and downs of life.  There is nothing like a breach of trust to instantaneously destroy what has taken years to build.  It takes just a spark thrown into dry grass to start a fire and in this fire season, a roaring inferno soon is out of control.  There have been or are 8000 fires in California, burning up our state just this season.  The Presidential debate this week was a debacle.  Trump came in throwing his outrageous chaos and interruptions and lies all over the platform.  He destroyed the Presidental debate format in no time.  Two hundred and forty years of democracy now stand threatened to be destroyed by this evil demon we have for a President.  It is so easy to destroy something and so hard to build up something.  The horror for me is to watch and to feel that I cannot stop this destruction.  Our democracy is being attacked and half of my fellow Americans don’t see it this way or don’t care.  I cannot fathom what they see and how they cheer when he weakens and destroys yet another part of our government and society.  Our former allies around the world are watching.  Putin and Xi are laughing and rubbing their hands together in glee at our self-destruction.  I am so afraid that we cannot stop this destruction.  What will our grandchildren inherit?  What story will they believe about the fall of America from power?  Will they wonder why we didn’t stop this carnage and protect our beautiful country?