an advent gallimaufry

Loving:

Does this happen to you? That you open a trunk or a drawer and are surprised to find something you’d forgotten about? In this case, a large length of indigo-dyed (darker than in the photo, and much prettier) fabric, enough for a big project. I spread it over the bed in the guest room to see what it might look like and Reader, I was enraptured. Something I’d forgotten, and now have in mind for a duvet cover because I can imagine sleeping under its beauty, its depths and shadows.

Appreciating:

This morning the life-guards at the pool put on a playlist that might have been created just for me. Imagine swimming to Aretha Franklin singing “Respect”, imagine Otis Redding, Stevie Nicks:

Like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost
And what you had
Ooh, what you lost

— each song filling the blue space as I swam my slow kilometer and I kept waiting for one song that I haven’t heard in years and it wasn’t on the list so when I came back home, I found it. What would it have been like to glide through the water to Van Morrison and John Lee Hooker’s beautiful duet?

I cover the waterfront
In search of my love
And I’m covered
By a starlit sky above

Yes, I’ve been covered by a starlit sky, most recently standing out in our driveway on Saturday night after returning from supper at the Backeddy Pub, after Joe Stanton singing one request after another (Reader, I confess they were mine: ” Ballad of Pancho and Lefty”,

Living on the road my friend,
Was gonna keep you free and clean.
Now you wear your skin like iron,
Your breath as hard as kerosene.

“Kern River”), and the silver moon caught in the trees beyond our house, the stars close enough to feel their heat.

Remembering:

The afternoon I made two Advent calendars for my grandchildren — teal fabric to hang on a dowel and 25 small felt pockets in different colours, 5 rows of 5, and how that first year I sent the calendars filled with little gifts, but now I send the gifts for their parents to put in the pockets. This year I sent Denman Island Chocolate Santas, tootsie roll pops, chocolate coins covered in gold foil, loonies John polished so that you could hardly tell the real money from the chocolate, tiny flashlights, bath bombs, fountain pens, scrolls of Christmas riddles, origami paper, sparklers, Rubik’s cubes (for two; multicoloured pens for the other two), and other prizes I hope they’ll like.

Wishing:

That I’d seen the grey whale in Trail Bay last Thursday. I was at an appointment and John sent a text with a photograph of the whale spouting and I finished my appointment and walked quickly along the bay, hoping I would see it too. But no.

Reading:

Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s Your Absence is Darkness, a novel that follows 4 (I think?) generations of families living in a rural community in Iceland. It is full of weather, of sheep, dogs, horses, music, an essay about earthworms that changes one family’s trajectory forever, people who are both haunted and encouraged by the past, and it was the perfect book to settle into bed with over the course of a week, four pillows to prop me up, and the curtains pulled against my own absences and darkness.

Thinking:

I am in a position I have not been in for decades, no work-in-progress to settle into, to think about as I swim my slow kilometer, no line to follow, no thread.

Making:

I’ve had in mind some little bags, using velvet and scraps of linen, wool, silk, maybe patchwork with velvet lining, the patches cobbled together in the boro tradition. I brought an armload of fabric out to the kitchen and laid it out on the table but so far nothing is speaking to me. I’m listening, though.