Month: November 2016

Giving Thanks

/ handmadebyjo / 3 Comments

 

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I watched American Experience on PBS last night – The Pilgrims.  I must confess that it was pretty dry and I had a tough time staying awake through the whole thing but it was enlightening in a couple of ways.

When the pilgrims came to America on the Mayflower they did so as refugees really.  They had been persecuted by the English because they refused to give up their belief system and be members of the Anglican church.  At the time you risked fines, jail or death if you were not a member of the Church of England.  In order to be able to practice freely they made a number of attempts to leave England as a group.  They finally escaped to Holland and spent 10 years worshiping in their homes.  They didn’t speak Dutch and the only jobs they had were menial in the textile and clothing industry.  They had nothing really.

What they did have was their community.  While in Holland they realized the culture of that country was not in line with their strict beliefs and worried about their children growing up in a land of loose moral character.  They wanted to create a community where they could grow in their beliefs without the influence of outsiders.   Living in a bubble of their own making they were truly naive about the ways of the world around them and taken advantage of by people at every turn trying to make their way across the Atlantic.  They left England very late in the year and arrived in New England on November 11, 1620.  Think about that – it’s now November 23 and it is cold.  They had just spent 66 days on a cramped boat and landed in wilderness.  No shelter, no food, nothing.  They survived but in greatly diminished numbers.

I feel many immigration stories are the same.  There is always some extreme reason to leave your home.  People don’t want to leave where they have lived, worked and played their entire lives unless they feel they have no other choice.  I think they also have the conviction that where they plan to go will be better.  Bill’s family left Lebanon in 1908 to come to America to build a better life and I would assume to escape political and religious turmoil.  How scary is it to use every last penny you have to get to a place where you don’t speak the language, don’t have a job or a place to live and you know no one?  I will tell you that the hardships they endured were incredible and probably not at all what they expected.  They had each other and their children and did what they had to do to survive with the conviction that this would be better at some point.

I wonder how far into their journeys did they wake up and think “what was I thinking?” or begin to lose sight of the reason for leaving home and country to begin with.  I don’t think we can really know the hardships they were living but I wonder if they thought the hardships they came into it were worth it.  There was no going back for them.

What they all had when they came here was community.  They had their friends, families or at the very least like-minded people with a similar plan in mind.  Today I can look at all of their situations and wonder how bad would it have to get for me to leave?  I realize even in the chaos and idiocy that has embroiled the country I have been in for the past 60 years I live a good life.  I have a home, heat and food on the table.  I have wonderful family and friends.  I am able to talk about anything I want – race, religion, politics – without fear of imprisonment.  I can make my own choices, go where I want, do what I want to do.  This past year has been a rough one on many levels.  The news is always sensational and instills fear in the hearts of anyone who listens but if you step back you have to realize that how your life is today is no different from what it was a month ago.  Fear is something that can take over your life and prevent you from living at all.

We all need to count our blessings.  Seems trite but without reflection and gratitude we can end up living a miserable existence surrounded by the things that have come to us through the true misery of others.  Look at what you’ve got, think of the life that you have and work on making that little piece of your world better.  Being able to do so is something to truly be thankful for.

 

 

 

From My Perspective

/ handmadebyjo / 6 Comments

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Okay, there are some things I need to say.

Everyone needs to calm down.

I have a confession and possibly some internal insight to share.  The first election I voted in was in 1976 – Carter/Ford.  I voted Republican and we all know how that turned out.  I voted Republican in every election until Barack Obama ran.  He ran on hope and change.  I thought we needed change in a pretty big way, besides John McCain had pretty much lost his mind and Sarah Palin was his running mate.  Yeah.   I didn’t vote for either candidate this past Tuesday.  I was informed when I went to the polls, I voted for every other representative and the state referendums but I broke into a sweat, felt a little dizzy and stayed in that booth for way longer than I should have. (I was the only one there and all of the poll takers know me, they must have wondered).  I looked at the candidates (all of them) and thought I simply can’t do it.  Do I regret it?  No.

The other confession is I once believed social media to be a good thing.  On the night of 9/11 the internet was really in its infancy.  We had dial-up and chat rooms.  Somehow I ended up in a chat room for the employees of Cantor Fitzgerald and there was a man pleading to hear from anyone he knew and worked with there.  There was silence.  It was the most powerful thing I’ve ever experienced – it made it real for me in a way that nothing else did.

Fast forward to the year 2016 and I can tell you that my circle of friends on social media has gotten much smaller.  One of the reasons is politics, yes but the other is the things that are patently untrue that continue to circulate as truth.  I confess that I can be a bit of a pain in the ass when it comes to this sort of thing calling stuff out and spending time on Snopes but is this really how I want to spend my time?  I’ve also realized in the past few days that all it is doing is inciting anxiety and fear in everyone who faithfully (or obsessively) checks their status hour by hour.  Yes, guilty as charged.

The day after the election was awful, two days after still bad.  Today the armchair quarterbacking continues as we all try to come to grips with the election results and what it means.

Here’s the thing, we need to stop looking at the election of Donald Trump as the end, it’s not.  We need to take a rest from this frenzy of posting at all (or reading). The friends and family that I have on social media are still people I care about but I need to  be part of their lives in a different way.  We need to gather our friends and neighbors together and build a community of help and service.  Break bread together, have a game night, stop living in your home in isolation.  Volunteer for anything that will help you to know someone new a little better.  Person to person contact, have a real conversation.  Yes, it may be about politics but it takes on new meaning when you talk to someone face to face.  How many times have you sent an email or comment that someone took in a way that was not intended?  You need to see a person’s body language or hear the inflection in their voice.  Better yet look into their eyes.

Today I’ll work a little in my garden, weave a little and then prep to visit my grandson to help celebrate his first birthday.  So many children have come into my life in the past couple of years.  I think we owe it to them to help build a community that will support them without all of the anger.  We are all better than this.

When a Project Comes Together

/ handmadebyjo / 5 Comments

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I had a cone of 20/2 silk in my stash and decided to modify a draft to make it work.  I love weaving snowflake twills and thought the sheen of the silk would work with a tone on tone project.  I was not disappointed.  The photograph just doesn’t do it justice. This is one of those pieces where I wove the first repeat and had difficulty stopping because the results were just so amazing.  This is one of those rare occasions when the vision and results are in line.

It’s a beautiful day out, I need to go vote and then I should clean out the gardens.  This is one of those days where I have to consider weaving a reward for finishing other projects.