The Joy of Community

I spend much of my life alone.

OK, so that sounds pathetic, but it's actually just a statement of fact. I work from home--so when the kids go off to school and the husband heads out the door for his office, I have blissful solitary peace. Well, almost solitary--the dog waits patiently for me to finally ensconce myself at my computer so that she can curl herself up in her little bed at my side. She gives me dirty looks if she thinks I'm dawdling--she likes her schedule. The cat comes to visit when he feels the need to remind me that his food bowl is empty and would I please take care of that RIGHT NOW. But other than furry friends, and the occasional visit from UPS or the meter-reader, I spend my day by myself. And I'm perfectly okay with that. There's a strong hermit gene that runs through my family--we're all serious introverts--so the fact that I've been working from home for about 7 or 8 years now suits me just fine.

And most days, email relationships feel like real conversation. I'm happy enough with literary friendships rather than face-to-face meet-ups most times. But then I go to my quilt guild meeting and realize how much I've missed being actually in the same room with other people who have gathered together around a shared interest and simply want to have a good time.

I've been a part of my guild--or, rather, "bee" since we don't have bylaws and don't see the need for them at the moment, gol dang it--for about two years, but my attendance was very hit and miss until this fall. I travel for work and somehow my travel seemed to frequently fall on that second Tuesday of the month. Or the kids would have stuff going on. Or whoever was assigned to make dinner that night (notably, the offspring) would manage to drag out a very simple recipe for several hours and I wouldn't be able to get out of the house on time. And although I found it mildly frustrating, I also hadn't connected with enough people in the guild yet to truly feel part of things (see the introvert comment above) so I didn't miss it so much.

But this fall I managed to attend several meetings in a row, including our Christmas banquet, and ended up with a couple of guild members in a class I took at our local quilt store during the early part of my sabbatical. Fellow guild members were beginning to learn my name and I was beginning to learn theirs. I was being greeted by name, and able to greet others by name, when I entered the room. One person began saving a seat for me. Suddenly, I was part of things. I had a community.

And then last month it started looking like I wasn't going to be able to go to my guild meeting due to conflicting family schedules, and I almost cried. At that moment, I realized how important those meetings had become to me. I bribed my daughter to let me go to my guild meeting instead of taking her to her optional event (she's easy--all it takes is the promise of a trip to the bookstore!) and later told my entire family that from now on, they are not to plan anything involving me on guild meeting nights. They need to work around me that one night a month, contrary to the rest of the month when mostly I work around them.

I felt guilty for all of about five minutes, then I realized how important having a community is to us as human beings. I have other communities, of course--I'm very fortunate to have a close and fun extended family on both sides of my marriage, and my husband, kids, and I have no end of great times together. I have a church community and a work community too, but while they're both wonderfully supportive they also both come with responsibilities that occasionally start feeling overwhelming. My quilt guild, on the other hand, is just a fun bunch of women that enjoy quilting. We expect nothing of one another than just to laugh, admire one another's work, and have a good time.

I've heard horror stories of some guilds that still have the old-fashioned quilt police and members who make snarky remarks about one another's quilts, but my guild is not like that. I wouldn't bother going if it was. We spend the bulk of our meetings laughing, and every single quilt that is shown gets it's fair share of "oohs and aahs" and applause, regardless of the skill level or quilting style of the person showing. I can attest to that because mine are definitely at the beginner end of the spectrum and I occasionally have very visible errors--and yet I still get applause! And as hokey as it sounds, that feels really good.

So I no longer feel guilty about prioritizing my guild meetings. If I had a card-playing group or a book club, I suspect it would fit that same need. But for now, my bee will suit me just fine.

Great Expectations

I was recently discussing with my husband my surprise at discovering how much satisfaction I was deriving from quilting. I was trying to express that it was more than just enjoying myself doing it--it was more than appreciating the aesthetics of pretty fabrics or the sense of pride from a nicely completed project. There was something deeply fulfilling and extremely relaxing about the process for me.

Later, it struck me. Fabric doesn't expect anything from me.

I am in the stage of life that most of us hit sooner or later--lots of people needing lots of things from us lots of the time. Work, family, extended family, volunteer responsibilities...Like many women (or men) my age I'm sure, I sometimes go through weeks or whole months where I feel as if I'm constantly disappointing people that I can't do more, be more, accomplish more. Logically, I know no one probably actually feels that way about me--that's just my own stuff to deal with. But there it is--my overly-responsible-guilt-genes won't listen to my logic-genes, darn them. I wish they would.

But when I'm alone in my sewing room with stacks of fabric under my hands, I don't feel guilt. Or, at least, I don't when I haven't promised anyone I'll make them something--but that's another blog entry. I managed to finish all promised projects several weeks ago so lately it's just been me and whatever the heck I wanted to do whenever the heck I wanted to do it. And all that lovely fabric. With no expectations of me.

Fabric doesn't ask to borrow the car or forget to turn in homework. Fabric doesn't need me to meet a deadline (which is why I absolutely refuse to be part of a round robin right now!). More importantly, fabric doesn't expect me to behave a certain way, believe particular things, or be a particular kind of person. Fabric needs nothing from me other than my adoration--which I'm happy to give.

The first few weeks of my sabbatical, I treated quilting much as I had all my work deadlines--I worked in a frenzy to clear my shelf of as many of the UFOs that had been gathering dust as possible. I gave out a slew of Christmas gifts and when the last UFO got the binding sewed on I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Now I didn't have any UFOs expecting my attention! I had no unfulfilled promises to other people sitting on my shelf! I was free!

Before I rushed into the next project, though, I had to stop and remind myself that I had no deadlines now. There were no expectations about the next quilt. I could take my time and maybe even do a slightly more complicated project rather than choosing everything by how fast I could get it done. I had to keep stopping myself from mentally planning fifteen different Christmas gifts for next year. I repeatedly told myself, "Quilt for yourself. Just see what happens." And I suddenly slowed down, and saw the light.

It is possible, in some cases, to define my own boundaries. Although people may have expectations of me, I don't always need to meet those expectations. But to be honest, in my particular case, I know perfectly well that very few people have expectations of me that are higher than the ones I have of myself. And I need to cut myself some serious slack. I joked with my personal trainer (see the introductory blog post) that I tend to be an "all or nothing" kind of person. If I can't do something full out, I tend to end up not doing it at all. I fully immerse myself into things until I burn out. I tried to be SuperMom/ SuperEmployee/ SuperVolunteer until I found myself getting SuperCranky.

My trainer gave me words of wisdom about the gym that I've begun applying in other parts of my life: Something is better than nothing. OK, so I may not have time for a full 60 minute workout. But if I can get there for 20 minutes, that's 20 minutes more than if I hadn't gone at all. I may not be able to give my son the car every time he wants it, but I can give it to him some of the time and ask him to find rides the other times. I may not be able to meet every need in my volunteer responsibilities, but I can prioritize which ones I am able to meet. My sabbatical is over so I won't have as much time for quilting as before--but something is better than nothing. I've retrained myself to think in 10 minute chunks rather than gnashing my teeth because I can't get hours at a time.

I've begun working on lowering my expectations of myself, and on redefining my ability to meet other people's expectations. I'll obviously continue to struggle with this all the time--I am who I am, after all. Meanwhile, when I start feeling overwhelmed by the world I'll remember how good it feels to pet the fabric in my stash and I'll retreat to the place where no one expects anything of me. And I'll just be.

By way of introduction

I'm just coming off of a three-month sabbatical. During the sabbatical I had a work-related writing project to occupy my time, but I had also set myself the goal of getting myself into better physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Physical health is straightforward enough--sign up with a personal trainer and be attentive to what I'm putting into my body. Check, check. But emotional and spiritual health? Hmmm.

At the same time, I knew I'd be spending more time quilting simply because I'd have more time. What I didn't realize is how large a role the quilting would play in attending to my emotional and spiritual health. It wasn't until my sabbatical was drawing to a close that I realized how much I had learned from the practice of quilting itself. This blog will be an ongoing exploration into those learnings. Without trying to turn quilting into some sort of metaphysical experience (there are any number of ways other people might have similar experiences), I simply want to offer my own reflections on life through needle and thread.

My first foray into quilting was in my late 20s or, maybe, early 30s (isn't it sad when you're old enough that entire decades begin to flow into one another, rather indistinguishable?). I was living at home again briefly with my folks while my husband was off to boot camp for the reserves. Since I'd always loved coloring in geometric design coloring books in high school and college--nothing turned me on more than opening that brand new box of crayons and seeing their sharp little points with all the artistic possibilities in front of me--it seemed like the jump to using fabric would be a quick and easy one.

Ahem.

My mom ended up finishing that wallhanging for me. Although choosing the pattern and being able to put fabric into a colorful order gave me goosebumps, slogging through the technical detail of quarter-inch seams and "pressing-not-ironing" was a little too much for my, at the time, very impatient self. Coloring in Dover coloring books was much more of an immediate gratification high.

Enter a change of life. Years later I had a full-time professional career, a husband with his own full-time professional career, and two older-elementary-aged children. As I grew more fully in the role of mother, I found myself wanting to connect with my own past and learn more about how I was like--and unlike--my own parents. Growing up, my parents led us through a sequence of what I now refer to as "Craft Epochs". At various times we'd tumbled rocks and made jewelry, my Mom being the recipient of the bulk of our dubious efforts--thank God it was the 70s and ugly jewelry was all the rage; my Dad built a homemade loom for weaving, then a potter's wheel with a ten-ton-cement wheel you turned with your feet (woe betide the child who tried to stop it without help); leather tooling; candle dipping; string art; print-making.... the list goes on. Now an adult, I found myself going through my own series of artistic epochs: song writing, various musical instruments, painting terra cotta planter pots, jewelry making. Although I enjoyed each in its own way, every one felt like just a hobby--something that was moderately entertaining and a nice break from my routine life, but nothing that really defined moments in time for me.

A few years ago, my father was ailing and I was spending several weeks over the summer with my mom, helping out. I gave myself the excuse that having my mom teach me to quilt (again) would help her keep her mind of my Dad's failing health but, in reality, I think it was keeping my own mind off it and desperately needing that connection of mother-to-daughter in a difficult time.

Whatever it was, this time it caught. I completed my first wallhanging and ended up painting the entire first floor of our house so that it would go with the wallhanging now prominently displayed. I can look back at that now and know that when you decorate your house to work with a particular quilt, you're truly a quilter! In any case, once the painting was done, I was off and running.

Or, rather, haltingly stumbling along.

I tell people "I've been quilting for 7 years, but only quilting for 2 years". Although I completed that first wallhanging in 2001, the next several years were very hit-and-miss for me in terms of actually sitting at my sewing machine. I didn't have adequate space or time to really be productive, and so although I enjoyed quilting I also found it very frustrating.

In 2006 we moved to a new house and I was able to designate a larger area as my quilting workplace and, more importantly, it now remains set up at all times. I'm more able to work on a project 10 minutes at a time rather than having to take 30 minutes just to get myself set up. My kids have grown less dependent upon me and, indeed, my son now frequently strands me at home without my car--which means I now sometimes have whole chunks of time with nothing calling to me except my Janome. The first part in the new house that I finished unpacking and setting up was the sewing area. I began to feel productive once again.

And then came sabbatical. I was able to finish off several old projects (UFOs) that had been languishing--some for years--as well as complete several new projects. I still spent time writing every day, and in the gym, attending to my other goals, but I began to schedule in quilting time just as I did everything else on my calendar.

Although for years I struggled with calling myself "a quilter", I now do it gladly. I'm not a good quilter, mind you, and I will be very candid with my mistakes and frustrations as I go. I still feel very beginner, although may now be finally dabbling my toes in intermediate. However, I often go to sleep planning quilts in my head, and I check the mailbox hoping for a fabric catalogue. So the fever has caught.

So there it is. You can see the stash of my experiences piled up on the shelf. Time to see what we can make of it.