the sky had that light: a pieced winter quilt

Remembering

The summer picnics, a little bay with logs to drape towels on, rocks to lift while tiny crabs scutttle from the light, wasps coming for the chicken, the pastries, the tins of San Pellegrino. How a shoulder tasted of salt, dried in sunlight.

Reading

Under the Christmas tree, A Truce That is Not Peace, by Miriam Toews. I read it in two evenings, it was like a woman talking, plain-spoken but richly engaged, profoundly observant.

Eating

Lentil soup, fish tacos, a toasted bagel yesterday at Strait Coffee, with cream cheese, capers, and smoked salmon (John ate the other half), a whole mango sliced over my yoghourt, the last tiny clementine from Spain.

Thinking

Just when I imagine that things can’t get worse, they get worse. A woman shot at point-blank on a snowy street, Greenland threatened, people in Kyiv trying to stay warm, hunger, fire, thinking, This must be the worst, and then it gets worse.

Wearing

My heavy winter coat, cashmere and wool, bought at the Thrift Store 20 years ago, given up by someone wealthy enough to shop at Edward Chapman, waiting on a hanger for me to find it.

Watching

Yesterday, walking the promenade in Sechelt after an appointment, watching for a grey whale who makes an appearance from time to time, watching a seal, a heron perched on a balcony (also watching), and the sky had that light.

Hoping

(See Thinking)

Making

I keep thinking that I am on the last few stitches of the quilt I’ve been working on since early fall, a whole cloth quilt using linen dyed last summer with rose madder and indigo, keep thinking that the run of stitches I am following across an open area will take me to the end of the sewing, but then I find another section I’ve missed, and I thread a couple of the sharp Hiroshima needles with blue sashiko cotton, and begin (or end) with an akoya shell button. I keep thinking I’m finished but I’m not. There will still be the binding to figure out.

Sipping

This is actually the anticipation of sipping but the birthday bottle of Steller’s Jay Brut, a birthday gift from John, which I’ve tucked away for an appropriate moment, maybe the arrival of my book in May or maybe something earlier (who knows or maybe just an acknowledgement of the presence of these rowdy friends in my life.

Wishing

(See Thinking and Hoping)

Wondering

How I will figure out the way into a new quilt, one for a boy who is anticipating a new room in a new house. I have an idea but no plan, no scribbled dimensions on an old envelope, no attempt to add up squares and strips in an arithmetic crossed out and corrected, and the right choice for the tiny fire at the centre of the blocks.