Because this tends to be where I live when I’m not in England, although one never knows…
…To grandmother’s house we go.
The other weekend I joined several of my cousins at our grandparent’s house in the North Carolina mountains near the border of Tennessee. One afternoon, when it was quiet, I took out my camera and took photographs of a few of my favorite things. I had a second to really pay attention to my great grandmother’s organ that was in her living room in Florida (complete with songbook!), some Matchbox cars from 1955 that were my uncle’s and a crocheted quilt made by someone in my family years ago.
Taking some extra quiet time to wander through their house like it was a museum was wonderful. My grandparents traveled all over the world, there were artifacts from my grandfather’s Army tours over his 30-year career, and bits covering every decade of the last century. I used to go to their house in South Carolina and do the same thing, walk around and look at all the delightful things they were attracted to at one point in time. It reminded me that that’s part of why I love older things, because they all have a journey and story to them, all different, all magical, all lovely.
Sometimes when you look around and read about countries in distress, unjust governments, kids who kill cats and frustrating foreign policy, you have to surrender yourself to kindness and beauty and love so you don’t crumble from the weight of it all. The other week my friend Kylee and I went on a roadtrip through eastern North Carolina: through Tarboro, lunch at Dick Hot Dog’s Stand, Vollis Simpson’s whirligigs, lots of roadside cemeteries in the middle of fields, Hills of Snow and a complete tour of Shadowhawk.
Here’s a lovely video of Mr. Simpson’s work by Neal Hutcheson of Sucker Punch Pictures. I love the way the sound is so perfectly captured and the details of his whirligigs explored.
Along the way, we were lucky enough to meet Mr. Simpson and get a full tour of Shadowhawk by Wild Bill. Vollis Simpson makes the most beautiful whirligigs in Lucama, North Carolina that seem to pop out of nowhere. He was kind enough to let us walk through his workshop full of bits of metal waiting to be turned and twisted and run on the wind. Shadowhawk is a backyard Western town built by “Wild Bill” Drake. After 30 years of being in westerns (including a recurring part as the town drunk in Gunsmoke), he married his agent, came back east and built Shadowhawk in his own backyard.
Listening to both men talk about their creations was inspiring, lovely and well, true. In a world of war and famine and horror and violence, spending an afternoon with two men making masterpieces in their backyards was just what we needed. Taking a step back away from computers and cell phones, we followed our maps and wondered what our next destination would bring. For more photos of our trip, click over here.
More about the places mentioned above:
Dick’s Hot Dog Stand
From Windmills to Whirligigs
Roadside America (Shadowhawk)
RoadsideAmerica.com (Vollis Simpson)
Complete list of giant ice cream across America
Off the Map, Travelogue (complete with video of Mr. Simpson himself!)
So excited to be going to Portland in just a few days for the Handmade Nation Portland premiere! Yay!
Also excited to be on the CraftPerspectives panel* moderated by Museum of Contemporary Craft curator Namita WIggers.at 2pm on Saturday with old friends and new: Susan Beal (West Coast Crafty, Susanstars), Jill Bliss (Blissen), Kate Bingaman-Burt (Obsessive Consumption), Garth Johnson (Extreme Craft) and Faythe Levine (Handmade Nation)!
After spending the past three weeks either traveling or visiting people in hospitals, I’m looking forward to having some travel time for FUN and not for unexpected familial health stuff! Awesome!
*I agreed to do this a little late in the game, so I’m not listed on the site, but I’ll be there! I’m on there now! Yay!
So this post isn’t so craft-related. It’s people related. Since I see craft as one of the ways to connect with people and like exploring the ways people connect, it fit together in my head. (If you disagree, there are some lovely older posts about craft here. Go forth and explore!) Lately I’ve had some extra time on my hands as I’ve been doing a lot of driving alone in the car. It’s led me to rethink the paths I’ve taken in my life. It’s amazing how family emergencies can lead to these sorts of thoughts.
Somewhere in the middle of the Georgia swamps, I thought about growing up and not understanding why my body would revolt and freeze up sometimes. And it was weird, and I had no idea what was happening. Then later came depression, which is a bit like having a wet wool blanket over you at all times. It’s cumbersome, thick and somewhat stinky, but despite your best efforts, it’s still there. The worst part of it was how I related to people. There’s nothing strange about why I became a sociologist and a writer, as all those years I felt like an observer to everyone else’s life. I was in the room, at the table, in the kiss, holding hands, on the soccer field, I was everywhere. But at the same time, I often wasn’t there at all.
When you feel apart from everyone and watch your loved ones grow old together and your friends get married and children are born, all the happy joys of life, it’s as if you’re a stenographer not someone close. When it happens for over a decade you begin to wonder what the silver lining is. There was a pulse you were missing, a wall you had up, a barrier holding firm.
So you move and you travel and you search and search and search for a way through. You want to feel the touch, get the joke and move forward, too. And you worry about other people’s problems so you don’t have to feel your own. You get to see some really cool things and have lots of adventures! Even more importantly, you begin to forget that there’s a distance. Then you cool down a bit and stay in one place for a few years and begin to remember the distance and all the annoyance it’s caused.
Then one day, as you’re rushing down the highway trying to get to someone you care about, and navigating labyrinth hospital halls, and trying to find the right room among all the doors surrounding you, you realize. It’s not in the faces of the nurses or the other patients in the room. It’s on the face of the one you came to see, smiling to see you. And suddenly, you realize the wall isn’t there and you’re in the moment instead of just taking notes. And the moment, even though it’s in a hospital and scary in its reality, has a pulse and a beat…and not just the ones emanating from the machines and monitors either.
As you might have already guessed, the wall that used to be there was already long gone, you just needed to trust in the future enough to take a step forward instead of standing still. It wasn’t magic or luck or good timing, it was making the choice to put one foot squarely in front of the other and not being afraid to look ahead. Holding hands and hugging close never felt so good.
And for the compassion, patience and empathy all of this has brought me? Well, the learning curve wasn’t much fun and it could have lasted a much shorter time, but I don’t wish it happened any other way. It’s what makes the little things more special, the days more exciting and the world multi-colored instead of like blancmange. Sometimes people wonder why and how I light up at the littlest of things, but now that they’re here and I’m here with them, these small details and extras are nothing but tiny joys. So, the long way round, I found the silver lining, and it’s pretty freakin’ sweet.