In Touch With the Wide World

Some days the wide world touches me personally. I received a small package that makes me smile for many reasons -- the sheer irony of it's parts, mainly. Why do I have a picture here of a Christmas card, three stamps with Arabs on them and a label for Qatar? I've been participating in a web site called Swap-bot which is mostly, as far as I can tell, a group of women who do crafts and who write [much overlap of the categories] from all around the world. Inexpensive swaps are listed and members sign up and participate. I've found it a way to make myself do more writing than I was doing and a way of getting very interesting "snail maiil" like the package from Qatar. The multi-nationality continues because the writer was actually an Australian woman working in Qatar.

I also received a letter from a young American woman teaching English in Japan with an address so myterious I can't tell what city or town she lives in. She told me about 24-hours in her life. I had written such a letter to women in Prince Edward Island, Canada, Tasmania and I forget where in the US. I should get two more 24-hour letters in the near future. In a sense this is an artificial bringing the world to me; that is, I don't know these people but they are all playing a computer game in a sense, but it's not "virtual" it's real. I get and send actual pieces of mail, sometimes with items in them -- doing fat quater swapping is popular. [Fat quarter cuts of fabric, for non-quilters who might read this] and so are greeting cards and post cards and photographs.

Less "artifical" comes a nice note from Kay who was my roommate on my Mongolia trip. She lives in Canada and recently went to Egypt. She writes about the continuous presence of a police escort with tourists -- not, apparently, to monitor them but to protecct them from extremists. I was aware of much police presence when I was there about 15 years ago but apparently it's very stepped up these days. But she writes to me on a notecard, shown here, purchased on last summer's trip to Western Canada, including Bampf and Lake Louise.

I also bring the world into my house when I go shopping. Recently I found a brand of packaged food I'd never seen before, "ready to heat and eat rice meals" from India, no pereservatives. Why, I'm wondering, is India exporting prepared rice meals when several million people, especially in their northern provinces which have suffered droughts, are severely malnourished? Well, the answer is capitalism, the export-import thing. But it makes no practical sense to me. Still I like Indian food very much so I bought a couplepackages. Tthe one I've just tried was called "lemon rice". I expected a plain rice with a bit of a tangy lemon flavor, perhaps bits of lemon peel. No. What I got was a surprise -- a VERY pleasant surprise, reallly. I presume there was lemon in it, but I didn't taste it. There was a complex of herbs, little leaves of some type, round spice berries of some kind and the kind of mild burning sensation in the mouth that I really enjoy in Indian and some Sezhuwan Chinese food. Not everyone likes this kind of spiciness but I love it. It was truly lovely with the saved half of a meal of chicken and broccoli.

So I've had a trip around the world in just a few hours. Now I'm going to plunge into a novel I purchased on the strenth of the author's name, Dubravka Ugresic, because it's so exotic, and the first pagel which tells of an exhibit in the Berlin zoo [truth or fiction? I don't know] which shows the contents of a recently deceased walrus's stomach -- all kind of man made items, mostly plastic, wood and metal. She says the novel will be an amalgam of seemingly unrelated bits like the display but they will prove to all have a common denominator eventually -- I love novels like that which show how things are all connected, even if tangentially.

Quilts from Europe

Warm sun, trees brusting into leaf ... a switch turns on that says, "spring cleaning time." The impulse is a bit blunted nowadays but my early domestication is strongly imbedded in my psyche. I was even dusting bookshelfs .. a very dangerous practice in terms of cleaning. I had to sit down and go through the quilt books on a shelf I hadn't touched for quite some time. I found many that I've "outgrown" and will give to the guild library to keep or sell, as they deem reasonable. But I got stopped finally by QUILTS FROM EUROPE that I hadn't looked at in quite a while. It was published by C&T in 2000 and is edited by Gul Laporte.

This beautiful book proudly emphasizes in the introduction that quilting existed in Europe at least since the 13th century and probably longer. But what this book shows vividly is that art quilting is far from only an American practice. The book has sections on 14 European quilters -- the author, a fine quilter herself, has modestly not shown her own work. There are bios and a gallery of work and a project design from each that the reader can undertake. I don't usually feel inspired to follow someone else's design but some of these are challenging and exciting. I don't know what rereading this book is going to do to my quilting agenda ... most likely it will feed in to the "so little time, so much I want to do" frustration.

In fact, I have a large collection of art quilt books and others as well. I strongly beleive everything I need to know is to be found between the covers of a book. So when I become interested in something I seek out all the books I can find. And as my interest is either sated or moves into more rarified areas, I begin weeding out the early or elementary books which I'm do more or less constantly with quilt books and magazines.

I'm aware of course that a generation is being educated who feel as strongly, and maybe more accurately, that everything they want to know can be found on the internet. And they don't need books. Well ... I am one who believes books will not die. They have a sensuality that a screen does not replace even if the informatiion is available. I sometimes go to web sites, like the SAQA one that has a wonderful slide show of art quilts. I watch with the greatest delight. But I can sit and savor this book all evening in a different way.

Thinks of books and internet reminds me that I believe I heard a WQXR announcer this morning quote T.S. Eliot and I've forgotten the exact quote but the essence was, is wisdom lost amidst so much knowledge? [I LOVE that radio station!] The question has been hovering at the edge of my mind all day, not apropos quilting so much as the many other subjects I have and continue to explore in books.

Memory Quilt - labor intensive quilting

For a few years my memory quilt made with three photo taken trekking in the Nepalese subkingdom of Mustang, hung in my entry hall. When I decided to replace it with the Mongolia memory quilt, I looked at it seriously and decided it needed much more quilting. As I wrote a while ago, our eyes get used to different things. Heavy quilting is IN and I've begun to like the look even though I can't do free motion quilting on my trusty but ancient sewing machine. I decided I should add much more quilting. And I have been doing that for three days in the limited quilting time I've had. I forget how labor intensive each step of quilting is, how much time it takes. So this took much longer than I wished but such work can't be hurried. The before is above, the after is here -- just a small section.
And below is the whole quilt. It is not one of the most beautiful, I tried to use the colors of Mustang but I could have done a better job of balancing them, I think. Still there are ascending pictures of me on the trail -- all taken on one of the last days when we crossed four pases before lunch! A day I remember with great vividness each time I look at this quilt I'm terrificly proud of myself for doing this in my sixties! I was the slowest, almost always the last on the trail, but I did it and possibly loved doing it more than any of the younger whippersnapers The picture at the top shows me on a pass with a string of prayer fllags about my head. The mountains in the distance are the Annapurnas [3rd highest in the world], we walked with them in view all day -- so beautiful!
Those are real prayer flags across the top. One day as I left my building quite early in the morning, they were literally lying on the sidewalk in front of the door of the building. I thought that was auspicious so I picked them up and kept them. As a note of interest: when I saw prayer flags in Tibet and learned they are called "wind horses" [and many, like these, are stamped with images of horses, a well as with prayers in Tibetan script] I found it difficult to understand how the Tibetans, in their mountainous country had chosen a horse symbol. Horses are pretty useless in thosee mountains, yaks are much more adequate beasts. But eventually I realized that in that huge country [of which I saw only a tiny bit] there are also wide plains. And I learned that Tibet may have been invaded a few times by horse-riding peoples and that horses are prized possessions, once of only the wealthy. So, horses with all their romance that flat-landers have associated with them, strength, nobility, speed, if imagined to be at home in the sky would be fine bearers of prayers to the heavens and throughout the world.

Earth Day

It's Earth Day. This partial map of the world -- it was too big to scan all at once -- neverheless, inadvertently shows a global warming fact: the Artic Circle is shown as blue ocean, not white ice -- as we normally imagine it to be. Already the ice is meltng, for several years now travelers with a lot of money have been going to the Arctic Circle on Soviet ice breakers and even, those who are really hearty, going for a swim. [briefly!] True! I first read about it about five years ago.

Lately I've been reading a lot of articles by semi-optimists [not cock-eyed, cautious] who write about ways to deal with the global warming that, really, no one can deny any longer. One writer in the NY Times Magazine last week bellieves that "Main Street" has become aware, finally. And even better, people who have power to effect changes are waking up too; like the Chinese government encouraging fuel efficent, even alternative fuel, cars -- the Chinese are buying [and building] cars like crazy -- and they're polluting equally crazily ... and they know it's bad. Bad for them as individuals, bad for their image, bad for their standing in the world. American companies like Wal-Mart are learning to improve earnings by encouraging energy preservation, some governments are offering incentives for efficient renewable energy.
These pretty little, dwarf tulips -- I THINK they're tulips -- were at the Conservatory Garden in Central Park yesterday ... what a lovely place that is!

Strawberry jam! A Manhattan story

When I stopped at my favorite fruit and veggie store yesterday I couldn't resist the QUART of fresh California strawberries for $1.79. They looked REAL compared to the perfectly sized and pyamidal shaped berries in pints nearby -- the latter the kind from hybrid plants that grow in greenhouses and come out too brightly colored and all the same size and shape and are as flavorful as cardboard. These looked like they grew in fields and were picked by poor migrant workers [I do hope they got minimum wage]. They were not all the same size or shape or color and smelled like strawberries. I ate a few dipped iin confectioner's sugar for dessert. They were lovely. But I had so many ... what was I thinking?

It proved to be an insomniac night. Couldn't turn the brain off. Solved three or four little problems then THE idea came to me. I'll make strawberry jam. I got up, got my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook [1960s vintage] and found a recipe. Pectin and sugar and strawberries. That's it. Great. Back to bed and to sleep. This morning I set out on a search for pectin. I knew it wouldn't be easy. Understatement. Most clerks and even store managers had no idea what it was. I even went down to Fairway, the fresh produce store with the most of everything {not just produce] on the West Side. Pectin is unknown -- no one makes jam ... nor have I for a very long time.

The brain kept going. I knew I'd read recipes in the distant past that did not call for pectin; it depends on the kind of fruit. When I got home -- after, a two mile walk with stops at seven stores -- I got my America Cooks [same vintage] and found two recipes for strawberry jam without pectin. Viola!!! Boil water and sugar, hull and half or quarter strawberries.
When sugar is dissolved and boiling add strawberries and boil on medium heat for half an hour. Then put into shallow pan to cool. When cool put in sterilized jars and seal with parafin. Parafin? Ha! Parafin is off in never, never land with pectin. And I haven't saved jam jars, but I do have a couple of pint size [literally,not figuratively] ceramic pots. So I boiled them five minutes and "sealed" with Saran and rubber bands. They wil be stored on the back of a refrigerator shelf so I'm pretty sure will preserved properly.

Jam done, I went for a walk in the sunny afternoon. When I came back in ... oh! what a lovely smell!! If I'd made fresh bread to go with it I'd have been on cloud nine in a state of total ecstasy.

Sun at last and public opinion poll

The sun was bright, the sky was a clean, beautiful blue, leaves and flowers burst open on the limbs of long bare, skeletal trees. In our brains wonderful chemicals were fizzing and goiing snap, crackle and pop and people were unzipping their jackets or taking them entirely off, putting on sunglasses and looking happier ... a little sun after a lot of gray, rainy days is as good as a Souza march or a Strauss waltz, maybe better. So that was today! Hurray!! It will be the weekend the weather pundits announce. Hurray!!
{The sun above is a design by Laurel Birch, a wonderful graphic artist who has designed several versions of cat patterns for quilting fabric. This is a greeting card I"ve been uinable to send anyone because I love the design. Now I can share it with whoever reads this.]

On a darker note -- some left over angst. I've been horrified by the Virgina Tech slaughter; but every morning I am horrified by the numbers of dead in Iraq in the wake of a civil war brought on by the unnecessary, illegal and hateful American invasion. I thought i was the only one feeling this way -- it's hardly a topic of casual conversation. But I was reading METRO a free paper I pick up at the subway stop many mornings. In it was a "man in the street" poll: What do you think of the media coverage of the Virgina Tech event? Two out of three said they felt there is a disparity between the coverage of those deaths and the lack of attention paid to the many, many deaths in Iraq. Iraqi dead are civilians too, often women and children, not combatants, but they are only numbers -- very large numbers. Frankly I was surprised to read those remarks. Perhaps many others besides me are pained every day when we hear/see/read of this senseless slaughter of innocents.

Morning music on WQXR, poetry month

I love WQXR, the classical music station of the NY Times. My radio alarm is set for 5 minutes before the hour so I wake up to classical music before the dire news of how many were killed in Iraq today and what havoc has been wrought by psychotic students or patriarchal judges who don't know it's the 21st century and women know how to make their own choices. Yesterday the first few notes I heard popped me awake, not classical music but "Smoke Get In Your Eyes," sung by a woman whose voice I don't think I ever heard but which I immediately recognized. I had heard before going to sleep that Kitty Carlise Hart had died at 96. WQXR does tributes of this sort very important people They also play a great deal of music by their "birthday boys" [Usually men, rarely women], whichever compose or outstanding musician was born on that day. It creates, along with the familiar announcers' voices, a feeling of family -- big, big family. I enjoy it.

It's still poetry month; The week has been so dire out there in the world, I want to quote something beautifully fantastic that most people know, or certainly have heard, just the opening, and then let your imagination create the rest and may no man from Porlock interrupt your reverie.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots off greenery.

This paitning, "Mirrored Trees" by April Gornik suggests Xanadu to me.