Volunteering with Enthusiasm

Have you ever been proud of a skill that you have mastered?  

Never could I sail, run marathons, quilt, ace chemistry exams or debate with confidence, but often I could do projects with my hands. And stitching embroidery was one of those feminine and housewifery activities that I learned at my mother's knee.

I was always proud of my samplers, praised for my dexterity in pulling embroidery floss up and through fabric to make a pretty chain stitch, then moving forward to work with silk ribbons in the 90's to create more intricate patterns on lingerie or sachet pouches. I still feel accomplished in creating pretty hand work with thread ends skillfully knotted and tightly tucked under on the back side of fabric, surely worthy of a prize if entered in the "Needlework" category in any county fair.

Yesterday, I picked up our local Senior Beacon, its target audience honed to those over fifty years of age.  I was waiting for my eyes to dilate in the dimmed room provided by the ophthalmologist when I read various volunteer opportunities made available through the Beacon.  Lo and behold, there in front of my now blurred vision was a blurb that embroiderers were needed at our local quilting shop for November 14, next Saturday.  Embroiderers were requested to work on ribbons for Breast Cancer Survivors, among a few other causes.  Proceeds from the sale of the ribbons would go back to their respective charities.

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Thinking that perhaps I could meet a few other women who had the same burning desire to share their talents for a cause, I decided to take the plunge and offer my assistance at the fabric store, if only for a few hours next weekend.  It would be fun to have coffee with a new group of people.  While there, I would peruse quilting designs.  My mind and I decided to seize this opportunity.

Carefully, I tore out that magazine notice with the published contact telephone number. Still waiting in the dimmed room, eyes becoming more blurred from the atropine drops used to dilate pupils, I could barely see the listed phone number.  But why should I wait until later to call?  When later came, I might decide to pass off the moment to share my handwork talent.  They probably really needed me.  With fierce bravado, I dialed on my mobile phone, was connected, then put on hold, then reconnected to the appropriate person designated to coordinate collective expertise of volunteers.

"Hello, my name is Nancy and I would like to volunteer a few hours next Saturday for the ribbon adornment embroidery work you are coordinating."  This felt so satisfying.  I was thinking of the finished ribbons and that maybe they might even sell for $5 each!

"We are so happy you called," the woman on the other end of the line responded, "and what hours can I put down for you?" she added.

"The afternoon would be best, maybe after 1:30," I said, reviewing in my mind that Julie and I could still have lunch together and that I could go from Mesa Manor and then home after putting in an hour or two on the ribbons.  "And should I bring my materials with me?  Will you provide patterns ?"  I was mentally taking stock of what I would take: embroidery scissors, flossing threads, needles, my magnifying glass that hung on a cord, resting on the top of my bosom, intensifying the sight area where the needle embellishment was to be worked.  I really needed both the magnifier and my bifocals to see well.  Hmm, still thinking...

Coordinating Woman responded: "Oh, yes, please bring your threads.  And what type machine do you have?  What embroidery disks do you have?  Do you have a letter font disk?"

What?  What machine did I have?  What disks?  A font?  "Oh." Ding, on went the light bulb.  "I don't have a machine.  I was talking about hand embroidery."  Cringing inwardly, I realized she was talking about machine embroidery whereas I was referring to 18th century embroidery, the skill of which I was so proud.

Coordinating Woman: "Thanks anyway, dear," pause ..."that was nice of you to offer.  Here we work with machine embroidery only."

It was then I realized that she must have thought my little crafting skill was anachronistic, certainly not of value in 2015.  After all, their business sold expensive embroidery machines, along with every costly doohickey available. They were in business to make a profit, and they make good money keeping up with technology in embroidery.

Chagrined, I inwardly shrank, felt  stupid and senior-ly old, out-of date, obsolete in not only my thinking, but also in my skill set. What a truly humbling, ego deflating experience.

Next Saturday, I will stick to cleaning  the garden area around Mesa Manor and will not be offering my old fashioned expertise to embellish ribbons with floss.

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“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”  ― Colette

Mereta, Texas and a Cardboard Box

It appears that I have abandoned this blog in favor of Path to Writing, but alas, that is not the case. Seems that  now I am spending more time for my class with writer Sandra Dorr.  And it also occurs to me that I have not shared a picture that my talented brother and commercial artist Charles H. McCarroll put together some years ago of the farm house where we spent our formative childhood years in Mereta, Texas, dry farm land in Central Texas.

Here is his rendition of our farm in mixed media:

... this is my rendition of the farm house in watercolor (yes, it was a pink house)

I wrote about a corrugated refrigerator box where I made-believe when I was five years old.  It can be read here if you are interested, which is a stretch of the imagination, even for me.

A New Venture

Over the past ten days, I have committed to try learn to write in a more conscious manner.  This new desire has been spurred on by meeting eight women who write in a manner that makes me think in different directions, expanding my spirit, exercising my mind in styles that I embrace.  I want to do that, too!  This new venture came about from participating in the women's writing retreat held in Redstone, Colorado last weekend, directed by Sandy Dorr.  Then I signed up for her writing class "Path to Writing," eight sessions extending through April.

Homework for the pathway to writing has consisted of reading and discussing other writers and their work.  So far, we have read from Ursala Le Guin, Jane Hirshfield, Sara Teasdale, Rebecca Lee, Claire Keegan, Jamaica Kincaid, Robert Pinsky, Sharon Doubaski and Ellen Bass.  Many more authors were discussed but I was so full of words and pages of writing that I cannot hold them all together in one hand right now.

If you are interested in my pathway to writing, hop on over to my new blog, Path of Writing.  Please comment and give constructive criticism.  I value your thoughts.

I leave you with this image and verse shared by Katie who also attended the women's writing retreat.

Redstone, Colorado in Winter

There was yoga (Susan, our esteemed teacher practitioner)

At the ice skating rink, skates ready for fun

 Chrome Hubcap Sculpture in front of Redstone Inn (by O. Louis Wille, obituary here)

A few of the group

Initial Writing Exercise

Directives given in first assignment:

Think of an object

What is its shape?  What is its texture? What color is it?  What does the object evoke in you?

Write about this object.  Timed for thirty minutes maximum.

Green Man on the Shed Door

He lives on in the cold January exterior.  His face is a yard wide, painted on rough cedar planking in acrylics of burnt sienna, thalo green, color of lemons and limes interwoven in the giant leaves of his face.  Stark black outlines his wreath of greenery making up his features.  Green Man's wide mouth, though worn down and made more faint by five harsh summer sunbeams and the like number of winters and cold rains coming down on his weathered cheeks, is nonetheless visible in a malevolent moue. His brows are painted veins of leaves twined between foliage.

Frozen boards below him are stiff with winter chill and the skiff of ice on the shed entranceway gives warning of careful entry into his kingdom of plastic chairs and worn pots.  He guards entrance to the lawnmower, now stiff from disuse, with his silent stare.  Guardian of the tool shed, he is a symbol of earth, of all things green and growing.  He is a mystical creature, a keen observer of creatures moving in the garden, animals gambling on the lawn.  In day, his countenance is obvious, but at night, he keeps close count of stealthy foxes and raccoons, always on the lookout for night creatures of mice skittering through tall buffalo grass.

The Green Man smiles, at least his painted-on moue perhaps grimaces at some unknown secret not yet revealed.  Maybe he is contemplating his future of soon-to-be warm days when perhaps yet even more undiscovered observations will occur under his benevolent, hooded eyes.

Is that smile on his face?  Or maybe it is I who sees a generous future harvest of wild flowers, showy zinnias, blue iris, herbs, all welcoming a much anticipated spring, and his face is reflecting my wishful gardening thoughts.