Behind the Doors

Months ago while I was visiting a cousin in Idaho and was wandering about there with her, we went to a house to pick up a quilt that had been quilted by the woman that lived there.  It was a quilt made by my cousin’s mom for my cousin’s daughter who was getting married.  Due to the great size of quilt and time left for the project, the wedding quilt was taken to a quilting artist to do her magic.  My cousin’s mom who made the quilt would be finishing the edges.

I was surprised, delighted with the lovely quilts that were here and there on the backs of chairs, heaped upon the table which might have served as a dining table if the surface could be found beneath the swatches of fabric, threads and the various quilts.

I admired the various cotton colored fabrics that had been wrapped on a paper roll with the vast quantity of their companions now made into quilting art pieces. Ah, heart, slow your wild thumping in my chest and excuse me while I drool. Space and time to do all that you want to do, dream on, dream on.  

As an artist, I stink, as a quilter, I am a babe in the woods and the quilts I have made are simple log cabin patterns, simple blocks of color which I have made into warm articles to cover our beds.  I made a quilt for my son when he was quite young, I think that he was five or six years old at the time. I took him with me to select the fabric, explaining the need for a red color for the heart of the pattern. He was very solemn when he picked out the colors for his quilt.

I was quite surprised when my little son kept coming into the room where I worked on sewing his quilt in his grandmother’s house before going back out to play checkers with his grandfather or to read with his grandmother. I complained to my husband about his lack of interest and enthusiasm in what I was doing while working on the quilt for our son; meanwhile his son was checking on his mamma quite frequently. Thinking back on it, my son was continually asking when the quilt would be done whenever he came into the room as he was at the age of asking us frequently, ”Are we there?” Or, “Can we go a different way?” during our driving around town on errands or on long trips. I wondered if he still has the quilt as it went to New York with him so many years ago along with a blue knitted afghan made by his grandmother for his bed.

 

I started this little blog in September 2015 and today it is the beginning of August 2016.  Where has all of the time gone? I can look in my mirror for one of the answers, it went to getting more gray in my hair (I have stopped coloring it, though I only just started about two years ago coloring just for the novelty of it), I am getting closer to retirement and I have a great sense that maybe just maybe, I should adjust to allowing myself more time to relax, to breathe, to mediate, write and simply be.

  

Which is precisely what I am doing today.  I am taking vacation time off to spend the afternoon at home to do whatever my mind might choose to do.  Apparently, working on this blog is one of the items on the unpublished list in my cerebellum. As well as cooking up some garden peas and pasta for dinner. Ah, but back to this blog and the title “Behind the Doors”.  Curiosity is a gift and wondering about the world is part of that gift.  Behind every door is a wonderful or dreadful existence that so few of us can have a glimpse, a notion or a grasp of.

I have often thought about writing about the stories behind the doors or my idea of the life behind the stained glass door, the stark red door in the side of a blue house, the door hanging on one hinge banging in the wind. So many souls coming and going in this day upon day.  I know that when I was younger, I felt closer to the infinite divine presence which seems for the most part lost in my present day to day living.

Here is the story behind my door, I exist. I walk out the door, open another door into my car, drive away to still another door which I open with a wave of my badge to open yet other doors to walk into my office to greet other door openers who exist.

I can talk about the doors in my mind that open and close to reflect my mood, to contemplate what is going on around me but the other doors that are constantly opening and closing as well around me, I can never imagine.  But what a glorious spectacle is unfolding, what a miracle it is to be part of it.  Yes, most of the time I forget that part,that behind the doors is a miracle and I am still part of that miracle.