It's About Surrender.

"To be is to be perceived. And so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go on apportioning themselves throughout all time." Sonmi451 / Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell​

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (Knees and Toes)

Do you do yoga? I practice sometimes. I first tried it in college (where my $cholar$hip paid for classes!). My favorite asana has always been the forward fold.

"Uttanasana" translates roughly to "intense stretch pose," but for me, it's about surrender. I surrender to gravity. I surrender to the reality of my body that day. I surrender the desire to make a perfect shape, surrender to imperfection. I surrender my thinking mind to my physical senses. To stillness, non-doing. And I love the journey, from all-the-way-up-there to all-the-way-down-here.

Animated image tracking the view from ceiling to floor in the yoga pose forward fold.

What have you surrendered lately?

A Soft Place To Land​

Photo of a small patchwork quilt, with fabrics in all different colors. There is visible stitching on the quilt.

A Soft Place To Land. Cotton fabrics, 13x15.5 inches
Machine pieced and quilted with additional hand quilting
$368 ​ Update: This piece has gone to a loving home.

This is a small wall-hanging quilt I recently made, in response to a thought-work exercise with Kyla Mitsunaga, aka the Asian Auntie You Didn't Know You Needed. I'll tell the whole story another time, but this piece is about surrender.

I surrendered to some scary thoughts, deeply embedded in my subconscious. I let them come to the surface, which felt like momentary freefall. With Kyla's help, I gave them a safe, soft place to land. This experience is already giving rise to a new series. A Soft Place To Land is the first iteration.

The Cutter

Photo of a blue and white quilt, from a side perspective. Part of the quilt is worn and faded from use.

I have a quilt on my bed that's about a hundred years old. This is useful for several reasons.

1. It's warm. People sometimes ask me why the quilts they remember from childhood are warmer/heavier/cozier than quilts today. That may be partly nostalgia, but wool and cotton battings were much more common in previous decades. Now quilt battings are usually polyester or a cotton/poly blend.

2. It's beautiful. We musn't dismiss the utility of beauty.

3. This quilt was made with a technique unusual for the time. My friend Martha (a quilt collector who sold me this piece) told me that the quilting is freemotion, but it was done on a treadle machine. Now, if you're a quilter, your eyebrows are likely raised. Freemotion quilting is how you make loop-de-loops and pretty much any design besides straight lines. This is easy with a longarm quilting machine, and with some domestic machines (depending on the quilt's size), but I struggle to imagine getting this done on a treadle, especially considering the consistency of the stitches. Wowza.

[Why isn't this quilt being kept under archival conditions? Because some of it looks like this:

Photo of a blue and white patchwork quilt, taken from above.

And some of it looks like this:

Photo of a blue and white patchwork quilt, taken from above. The fabrics are very faded and worn from use.

In the industry, this is called a "cutter."]

4. My favorite thing about this quilt: It has a history. And - this is crucial - I don't know what that history is. I only know what's happened since I saw the quilt at Martha's garage sale. Previous chapters are closed to me.

Here's why that matters.

Did you read the book or see the movie Cloud Atlas? The narrative is structured around big time jumps and seemingly unrelated characters. But it's all connected. Because no one knows what part of your life is going to go on existing after you're gone. You could be a lawmaker or a tycoon or a research scientist and your contributions to future generations might be obvious. But most of us don't know what our legacy will be. It's out of our control. We have to surrender.

Creators are often preoccupied with the idea of legacy. We are surrounded by messages telling us who to be, how to be, how to ensure our efforts make an "impact" in an atmosphere of noise. It's a lot of pressure. By choosing to acknowledge our very limited control, we can find freedom.

I don't know who made the quilt on my bed. There's no label on it. (FYI: Label your quilts!!) The maker was probably a woman. So I'll tell her now: Dear Ms. Quilter, Somehow your quilt made it into my hands, and I appreciate what you created. Thank you.

Everything Sucks, So... issue #8!

Digital image of the cover of a zine. The text reads "Everything Sucks, So... #8 Add It Up, aka By The Numbers."

It's a good time to order the latest issue of the ESS zine. Why? Because issue #8 (Add It Up, aka By The Numbers) is the last one. For now, anyway. I started this zine as a pananoramadingdong project and I feel that it has served its purpose. Issue #8 is available now in my web store. Back issues of ESS (both paper and digital editions) will remain available as long as y'all keep buying them, whether that's through my website or in OKC at DNA Galleries or Literati Press Bookstore. Thank you for coming with me on this journey.

Thanks for reading!

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