It is almost Christmas. Rain is coming down in a steady pour and the back porch rainspout is making its usual racket of drop, drop, DRIP, drop. The tree is up and lit, the evergreen scent fills the living room air. Christmas icicle lights strung across the front porch roof shine into the room and I can see the bright colored lights that sweep the garage roof from where I sit in this leather chair. It is nearly time to call it a day. The house sits quietly in anticipation of Christmas morning and the afternoon dinner that follows. We are older now. Our children scattered to the different corners of the country. One child remains at home, much to his chagrin he is not yet the adult he has wanted to be since he was born. We are but a stop in his busy day, a place to eat and sleep.

Christmas makes me sad and wistful, happy and content all at once. I am blessed to have this life I lead, the family I have and the work I love. My days are full with creativity, my needs are met, I am surrounded by people I enjoy. Still the sadness creeps in. I miss my family, the family that was while I grew up. My Aunt Lou, my grandparents, parents and siblings. I remember the excitement of waiting for presents and company to arrive. The Christmas tree, always brightly lit and fully decorated in the corner of the living room; created a hiding spot where one child in a big family could hide and enjoy the quiet of being lost in holiday ornaments and lights. All those people that I so long ago loved - gone. Memories linger and if I sit long enough and quietly enough, closing my eyes tightly; I can see them again. Summoning the feelings of those long ago childhood memories, places and people.

Happy Christmas to all and sweet blessings, too.

Recently the shop received in some market quilt squares in little sets of precut fabric that featured fruits and veggies. I loved the colors and every time I walked by the display, I thought I am going to stitch those together for shop samples. Mind you, other than some free form wool felt work and a banner or two, I have not sewn in almost 20 years. I don't really know how to sew, much to my Aunt Gertie's chagrin as she tried, really tried, to teach me and so did my high school. That was way back when home economics was taught to all girls in school, preparing us for our future just as feminism and the ERA was beginning to make some impact.

Anyhow, as I sewed these pieces together in my sunny classroom a few months back; I remembered my grandfather telling me how his mother sewed patchwork quilts at night before she went to bed. He said she would cut the squares from whatever fabric was around, old clothing, flour sacks or curtains and would stack the squares in her sewing basket. She would then begin to sew and he described how she would first sew two by two squares, then four by four squares and kept combining them until she had a quilt top. All sewn by hand. All stitched as part of caring for her family, using everything in the thrift she practiced her whole life.

As I sewed that Sunday afternoon, I thought of my grandfather telling me this and pictured his mother doing this handwork into the quiet evenings. I felt the generations of my family surround me, observe me, sit with me as I worked on this craft with the use of a sewing machine. Timelessness flowed through my mind and hands. Love for my grandfather and this story that all these many years later, still resonates within and about me.

p.s. Please note in the funniest way possible, that the veggie squares have in them french fries and tortilla chips!!! Very healthy fresh veggies, don't you think? I am laughing here!

My breath catches in my chest. I am paralyzed with a sadness that I did not know was coming. My brother, the man I only met briefly at our father's funeral in 1983 and not again until 1995, has passed away. Suddenly. Unexpectedly after a brief, vicious bout with lung cancer. Damn lung cancer. Damn all cancers.

He didn't tell me, my sister in law said, because he did not want to spoil my trip to Paris. He was thinking of me. This was his way, silent, stoic; much like our father.  It was a loving and kind thing for him to do and that makes me cry even more. I am a bundle of nerves and emotion. smiling because of this act of love, crying because I will miss him. I liked having a brother who looked like me. Who had memories beyond mine and different than mine. He knew my mother before she was married to our dad. He had different stories to tell of both my mom and dad. He had a life's story far removed from mine as he grew up far away in remote Alaska and I in the countryside of Pennsylvania. He dreamed of retiring there back where our whole family began. He was going to make a trip to Pennsylvania and reacquaint himself with the memories and place of his very young youth.

It is different to get to know your brother as an adult. Your backgrounds are complete, you are joined by genetics only. A friend insisted that I reach out to him, decades ago when on a trip to Alaska. I was hesitant, not sure if he would want to meet me. He was the last surviving half sibling I had. We met in a restaurant. Had dinner and found we were so much alike. We told stories. We talked about our father. I kept wanting to reach out and hold his hand, he being so much like the dad I both loved and feared.

We met every so often over the next bunch of years. I took Phil and Jacob to Alaska to meet him. I delighted when Jacob liked him and nearly passed out with delight when Phil said we looked alike, acted alike and even spoke words the same way. Our mannerisms betrayed us as siblings even when our lives didn't let us live as siblings. I had a fuller heart. I had family. Someone I could begin to build a past and a future with.

I am blessed to have had these times and memories with him. To have met one another and known each other. To be happy that all along he had followed me through my blog and achievements, that however briefly we were brother and sister.

Still I am sorrowful in my loss. Now, I must figure out what to do with his absence and maybe I will have to make that Pennsylvania trip to see for him what he has missed. Maybe this is the push I need to mend fences with other siblings however painful that journey may be. I have already spoken with my other brother, the brother of my youth and felt comfort in his voice. Maybe in this ending there is a beginning.

Catacombs

One of the things I looked forward to doing on my trip to Paris, was visiting the catacombs. The bones of six million people are arranged there, 22 meters below the earth. I was not however, prepared for the nearly anxiety inducing experience of 130 small circular stairs descending into nearly total darkness and I was equally unprepared for the ascending 83 narrow, wet with slippery clay, steep circular stairs that brought me into welcomed daylight.

I had hoped to feel some of the energy, the stories from seeing so many earthly remains in one place. Unfortunately, with the crowds, camera flashes and noise, I was unable to have a quiet, centering moment to feel anything. It was however, a worthy experience and a place that I am happy to have seen.

Oh, and climbing those stairs down and up? Priceless victory for exercise challenged me!

The entrance.

It was actually this dark in most places in the tunnels.

Small villages were carved into tunnel recesses. 

Coming up into some light before the dreaded spiral staircase.

Piled and carefully arranged to the ceilings.

Structure.

Last month was crazy busy as I prepared all my shops and gallery for my trip to Paris. So much to do that it was like having four children demanding my attention at all times. Plus I could not neglect my family or this or that or anything else. Anyhow, I made it to Paris for eleven days of sightseeing, fabulous food, good conversation, relaxing knitting time, late afternoon studio drawing and general all around down time. My first real vacation since my honeymoon 19 years ago.

C'est moi, in hot & humid Paris.

I found many things about Paris that I loved and many things that caused me to pause and think about the bigger picture in life. I am still amazed at how interconnected we all are with the internet yet how different and unique we each truly are. This uniqueness is reflected in our locations. I knew I was not at home anymore during these eleven days but I also felt so interwoven with the local people and lifestyle.

I feel refreshed, despite having a nasty cold and ready to face new challenges in my businesses. I am inspired by the shops I have seen, the paintings I viewed, the scenery that seduced me. Here then, are the first few Parisian pictures and thoughts.

Sweet details on a Paris shop door.

Pretty little display windows.

A story was told in this window.

Sunrise.

Here comes the light from behind the trees.

Her comes Daisy....

...down the dog trail from her house to ours....

hey , mom...

ready to spend the day with us. A shared dog.

At night in downtown, when the shops are closed, the last of the restaurants has emptied out and the pinball bar is finishing up that final round; I like to walk through town. I move quietly and slowly in and out of the shop doorways, pausing to look into windows and up in the trees at sleeping song birds. Softly, as if my feet were padded, I walk and watch. I see what I miss in the broad daylight. Absent of people and cars, noise and light, I am serene and enchanted moving as if a ghost through the dark, deserted streets. I have peace.