soul food

Let me just describe to you what it means to be spinning at my ripe old age.  I was telling my daughters the other day about how I used to be intrigued by a pottery shop that was about a mile down the road from where I lived during my middle and high school years.  It was at the end of the main drag through town (it's still there, I'm not).  The only people who saw it (unless they were going there on purpose) were those who were leaving Bend.  The point I'm making is that it was a low profile little nothing of a building.  In my 15 year old imagination, what went on in that place was akin to magic. 

I was completely intrigued with weaving looms and spinning wheels.  I loved books about these marvelous old world skills.  Books with block printed covers, monotone block typeface that screamed late '60s, early '70s. Ridiculous for a modern girl of the '80s...

I loved to touch linen, wool, 100% cotton... in natural form, in yarn form, or made into clothing and home items.

Here is where I show myself confused.  I wanted to move back to southern California.  I wanted to be considered big city.  I desired the shopping malls and yuppy districts.  These are the things I strove for the whole while my soul was fed by the alien world of natural fibers and pottery.  I didn't understand about knowing yourself.  I didn't get that people were different and that that was a good thing.  

I never learned to knit, weave, spin, never touched a pottery wheel... I didn't even purchase these beautiful products.  I just stared and stroked them when I was near them, then took off and bought the contemporary flowered acrylic blouse!  How much time I wasted...

But let's not cry over spilt milk.  The years that the locusts have eaten are being redeemed!  Next on the list.. I'm looking into pottery classes in the fall.  Both of the girls are loving the idea.  We may not be able to make them until spring if we have to go out of town, but go we shall.  So, I'll just learn alongside my next generation.  Or should I say, they'll learn alongside me.    

I feel like my 'self' has found home.  It fits.  It's right.  The one thing I did do when I was younger, the reading about these arts, has been a tremendous help.  It's like I did all of the studying and now it's just time for the labs.  When I learned to knit, my hands may have fumbled but I had an understanding of the fiber and the cloth.  I have enough background information and images, complete with sensory stimulation stored in this data bank of mine to write my own book.  Even if my fumbly fingers have never actually thrown pottery or...

So, just stand back and watch me soar!  Charlotte Mason Karen Andreola calls mom's pursuing of interests ~ Mother Culture. I call it... soul food.  And I am eating like there is no tomorrow!

Blessings, Debbie