by jeanne
back in the day, somebody took a little vacation to japan and brought home a souvenir: a cutting from a vine they thought would take root at home here in the south. they were right: the vine is quite comfortable here in the south, spreading out and making itself right at home. the japanese call it kuzu; we call it kudzu, and though i have no reputable sources to support it and wasn’t even born when kudzu first arrived on the scene (though there are days it sure feels like i was), i often speculate that we added the “d” for dinner . . . as in this is the D*@@&% plant that ate the south for dinner. either that or somebody just can’t spell worth a lick.
now while it’s true that this plant is invasive and aggressive, it also has some often overlooked good qualities. livestock and some people, for example, eat the non-woody parts of it. others make jelly from it, and it can be shaped into the most attractive baskets and wreaths, if you like that kind of thing. it even has some medicinal value, including (but not at all limited to) being a surefire remedy for hangovers and alcohol cravings. i hasten to add that i have no firsthand experience with that, but i don’t break a sweat to imagine that its aggressive, invasive nature has driven more than one person to drink. (another reason for the “d”.) kudzu is also good at stemming erosion, and in the fall, the colorful leaves wash the countryside in brilliant colors.
kudzu can slap overtake the landscape, cloaking trees and shrubs, rendering them almost unrecognizable, and i’m here to tell you that the women on my tree sometimes have a tendency to let others overrun them. but like so many of my ancestors who can’t even spell japan but spent a goodly part of their life dealing with kudzu, my female ancestors are quite adept at turning trespassers into treasures and in playing the hand they are dealt right on into the winner’s circle. it’s just the way we are.
by jeanne
moth
butterfly
butterfly
substitute “moth”
= motherfly
travel day today. fingers will be in motion again tonight or tomorrow, giving my brain a much-needed rest.
by jeanne
chemical changes. waning chlorophyll production no longer produces enough green to mask and conceal the spectacular, bold, brilliant colors. it’s how we are, the women on my tree. it’s just how we are.
by jeanne
grandmother and her black upright piano. mother and her cherry spinet. me and my baby grand. daughter and her electronic keyboard. four generations, each making our own music with our own set of 88 black and white keys.
by jeanne
picture that curly red bubble-haired optimistically pragmatic annie who caught the attention of daddy warbucks singing . . .
tomorrow,
tomorrow,
i’ll be back here
tomorrow
it’s only a
stitch away . . .
by jeanne
sometimes we line the jagged holes with shiny, smooth pearls and tell ourselves the oyster story over and over and over again until we are convinced.
by jeanne
you can line the holes in your life with beautiful ribbon, she said, and they’ll carry you like a boat in the water.
by jeanne
what if this is FUN? using an xacto knife i’d forgotten i had, i made three cutouts then wrapped one of them using 4 strands of floss (2 of each color). used 4 for no particular reason – certainly not for additional coverage because this fabric doesn’t ravel. that was so much fun, i (ambitiously) went ahead and bugged-up the entire leaf. what if we see what else we can do with this? i have a stray idea or two. others will show-up, no doubt, once i get going. might need some magnifying glasses, tho.
by jeanne
what if . . . is one of my favorite motivational tools. when i’m having a fog-covered, moving-at-the-speed-of-cold-molasses day, i play “what if” with myself and first thing you know, i’m perking again. it’s a little bait-and-switch trick i learned/taught myself as a child.
and it still works like a charm. (used it quite effectively just yesterday and again today, as you’ll see . . .)
jude plays a mean game of what if. acey does, too. so does paula, and judith, and cathie.
so today i got to thinking . . .
what if i join in and play with jude, too?
what if i do something i seldom-if-ever do and detour from my current project, setting it aside before it”s finished?
what if i take a placemat that just happens to be shaped like a leaf and use it for something else?
what if i remove the vein that’s shaped with wire?
what if i ponder and sketch and sketch and ponder and eventually come up with an aha that tickles me?
what if i have more show-and-tell tomorrow?
by jeanne
most of the women on our family tree are bookworms. some regularly pour over recipe books; others prefer craft books. some like to linger over decorating books or craft magazines. some could fill libraries with books touted to make them better women. fiction occupies some female relatives; others devour biographies to see how other women lived and coped and thrived. a few even like to conjure words of their own to fill the leaves in blank books.
