A plan for Autumn, and a love letter from Catdog
This week. Well, the car is fixed (the doctor and the boy did it! My heroes!) and the bobbin winder on my beautiful vintage Singer Slant-o-Matic (I really love how that sounds) is up next. Maybe then I can finish the quilt(s) and also either make a bunch of school clothes (ridiculous; I don't go to school) or at least stop thinking about it anyway. It was 60 degrees F this morning, which just makes me want to put on tights and a corduroy skirt and read Nancy Drew mysteries while I wait for the bus. Maybe jump rope or something. Autumn is coming. I am making a plan this year to learn to love autumn, the way I did when I was little and it meant school and new clothes and seeing all my friends every day again, and I can't remember what all else, but I know it was good. I don't know when I started dreading it, and really it's only because it means summer (sob!) is over and winter is coming. And I know you know this, but winter is hard. The dread just builds in my heart, the minute the air changes, and it has. There's a change sometime in early August every year, the same change that makes me start knitting utilitarian cardigans, and I cry inside, but I think I can work on this. I don't have any illusions that I can learn to love winter, but autumn is on the table. The doctor, who knows me better than I know myself, said stuff like "Fall has so much color--get out your watercolors again. Photograph the light." He said, "Fall is when your handknits can really shine. In winter, you're wearing ten layers and a coat like a sleeping bag over it all, but in fall, your beautiful handknits are on display." I got teary-eyed at that. He's so good, and he's right. That's what I'm gonna do. Autumn, I'm coming for you. We're going to fall in love.
Influenced, as always, by the lovely Alicia, I made some macrame hemp necklaces and if I had more beads, I'd keep going. Bracelets next, I think. This kind of thing is so beautifully seventies. I hear Seals and Crofts songs in my head as I work. They're a little itchy next to my neck, but maybe they soften with wear--I can't remember.
Catdog wants you all to know how much she loves you right back. She got all serious for a minute, and very sincere. She is very earnest, like she's saying, "I'm not even kidding. I really, really LOVE you. I would not joke about this." The eyebrows crinkle a little bit as she raises them, making sure I can see her sincerity. I do, I see it. She is a little curled up ball of gentle and wiggly, wagging happiness, at least until the doctor puts on
I tell her she's a good girl, and her tail is a wagging blur.
