Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back.

I sewed last night.

Into the very late hours.

It was a night of “Can’t go to sleep.”

Jeff, who works his lawn maintenance job starting very early in the morning, was off to his own bed by 8pm – leaving me in a house that was too quiet, yet with too many voices echoing through my head.

I had received this very cute signature quilt from the quilters in my class with the Heritage Quilt Guild in Lockport, IL.  Was that only March of this year?  It already feels like so long ago.

I adore the vintage string block center, and decided to carry the theme to the outside edge of the quilt by adding a string pieced border for more color, using strings from recycled shirts. Many of these strings are the remnants of the fabrics used in the quilt I made for Mark when he was diagnosed with glioblastoma nearly 5 years ago.  The fabric remembers.

I was piecing these during our last “impromptu” Quilt-Cam – July 30th.

That also seems like a whole world-away-ago.

I measured the quilt center before adding the borders – 25 1/2’’.  I decided that if I trimmed 1/2’’ off of each side, that it would be then divisible by 3’’, and my string blocks would work – and I only needed to make 5 more to have enough.

Sitting at that machine was like forcing myself to get back on a bicycle I had no desire to ride.

Which left me to ask myself “Is this what grieving does?  Kills your love of everything that makes your world a happy place?”

I kept sewing.  Pressed, feeling the heat of the iron warm the fabric, and placing each block against my heart – just to feel the warmth there where things feel so still and cold.

Mark and his son, Spencer.

I’ve been talking to my dad.  A lot.  We are so very much the same, and it helps to talk to him about things and feelings.  Real feelings.

When I look over the past 5 years of Mark’s illness I realize that we ALL have been living with a sword over our heads, just waiting for it to fall.  Would it hit him?  Would it miss him?  Things are good for now, but there is always another scan – will something show up then?

I have worked SO HARD to keep myself busy, for a number of reasons.  

To feel ALIVE for one thing.  To create beauty for another.  It feeds my soul.  To give and to share – because it makes me happy.  But also so I didn’t have to dwell on things.  I didn’t have to think about what it would mean to not have Mark with us any longer. (And I am talking PHYSICALLY, not spiritually or anything of that nature.)

53 is too young to die.  Period.  At the time that Mark was first diagnosed with glioblastoma, I crazily booked myself 5 years SOLID into the future because if the calendar was full, nothing could happen to him or to ME.  Life would just go on, you know?

WHO DOES THAT?  I know it is crazy.  No one knows what they will be doing 5 years from now.  And no one can be that busy and sustain it – especially when running from fear, despair and impending loss of a loved one so close.

And as all of this has come to a culmination – I have to face the fact that I am emotionally and physically exhausted.

I need as much time off as I can so I can STOP being busy.  And face this head on.

To the guilds that I had to cancel – I am really SORRY.  But it is time for Bonnie to take care of Bonnie, and that means not overloading myself with make-up dates right now.  I can’t.  I am emotionally and physically and spiritually can not shoe-horn make up dates into a calendar that is already too full.

I already do not know how I am going to continue with the dates that are on the calendar through November until I have holiday time off.  And then Holiday time? 

I am planning on working on our Mystery Quilt.  I know what I want to do.  It is already underway – but I haven’t worked on it really in many weeks.  I want to continue with our Quiltville Mystery. 

I realized this morning that ALL of the reasons that I have offered it to everyone else during the holiday season – all of those good and worthy reasons, now apply to me.  I need the Mystery as much as you do, to create, to share, to lose myself in the piecing and to work through my grief. 

This also occupied me yesterday.

I finished my book edits yesterday on my final PDF –and I hope through all of this that I didn’t miss anything.  I am afraid I missed something.  Something just not evident – something that slips through the cracks. 

As I went over the introductory text to Punkin’ Patch – where I tell of the memories that my two brothers and I shared of going to the pumpkin patch as kids and running up and down the rows with reckless abandon in search of the “best pumpkin ever” for what we would be carving once we got them home – the flood gates opened again.  We were so young and carefree.  Those innocent childhood years.

There is another quilt in the book – Sand Castles – also full of the memories of days spent on the beach in Santa Cruz growing up.  Mark is also such a huge part of those memories that I have asked if I can edit in a dedication to him on that intro page to that quilt.  It just seemed fitting.

And now we wait for a December release, which is right during the middle of Mystery season.

There are PDF patterns to write for bonus quilts that are not included in the book, but will be sent in digital form to those who order directly from the Quiltville Store when it is time.

Where am I going to fit in writing those patterns?  Hopefully in October.  So those “available” spots on my Calendar of Events are really not as wide open as they look.

As for quilting the mini at the top of this page?  (Maybe it is technically a MIDI since it measures 32’’ square?) I wanted to do that this morning, but it is trash day, laundry – copious amounts of laundry—needed folding and put away, cat boxes had to be cleaned, trash and recycling to the curb, dishwasher unloaded, a few more orders processed and out.

I’m also cutting myself some slack and will hopefully tackle that when I return home from Arizona.

All of these “Normal” day to day activities of basic survival are keeping me moving.

Dentist at 2:30 in Jefferson, NC.  I’ll be out of here by noon.

And then up to the cabin for the weekend.

My soul needs the mountains.

*EDIT* For those who have asked about donations in my brother Mark Wilkinson's name, please donate to the Barrow Neurological Foundation. All funds sent to Barrows will be directed toward brain tumor research, www.SupportBarrow.org/braintumorresearch , or 124 W. Thomas Road, Suite 250 Phoenix, AZ 85013.
Thank you.

Quiltville Quote of the Day.

Antique silk pineapple quilt from the American Museum in Bath, UK.

Your heart knows more than you give it credit for!

And I have to believe that mine does too.

Have a wonderful Friday -