Changeover in my old life in Anchorage meant changing the tires. Drive to the tire shop with studs grinding on roads gritty with leftover winter sand, air full of dust (also returning geese and hints of warmth), and drive home suddenly lighter, friskier with summer tires.
Here a winter-for-summer changeover trades pillow covers. Two sets of patterned fabric cover the nook bench pillows according to season. This year tulips broken off by a hard rain and brought inside prompt me to it – they need spring cover colors to be a pleasing scene.
Setting aside other chores, I sit down to sew. Spring sunshine pours in – the window beside me open for the first time in months. I squeeze each pillow out of its winter cover made from a Bali sarong – stylized tropical flowers and birds on warm-toned backgrounds of khaki and rust – and change to garden blossom colors in stripes, polka dots, and flowers.
When I used to make quilts, I treasured such quiet moments of stitching – the needle rhythmically piercing the cotton, in and out pushed by a thimble. I could listen for ideas about what was next.
Clearing thinking space can be tricky some weeks, and a good thing for my skittering mind is to read some part of Brenda Ueland’s 1938 book “If You Want to Write” – even just the introduction. In it, the writer Andrei Codrescu admits his own need to have “inspiration refreshed regularly” – and he always finds renewal in Ueland’s book.
Codrescu identifies Ueland as a teacher who is a believer whose faith is contagious. Codrescu says Ueland believed in “…the power that comes from paying complete attention to one’s circumstances. The joy that infuses attention pays off beyond one’s wildest dreams. It’s simple, but still secret, because it takes Courage.”
The fresh covers lift my spirits – like road tires instead of winter treads. They smell like the bar of lavender soap they’ve been stored with all winter.
In the midst of the task, I wonder what life will be like at the next changeover. You never know. But this is a chance for gratitude for life going on with comforting routines, a chance to recognize a change of the season – and a chance to pay attention.
her spirits rose... 
Like your water color paintings, your quiet and tender eyed,
down to the detail scripts are always pleasure to read.
——- Its the first time to know, you are in Anchorage,
where the change of the season must have much more
dramatic meaning than rather dull London.UK.
(We make a joke, here there is no season, just wet cold
days or not too cold days all year long)
Hope to see more of your blog and paintings.
Yoshizen: In Anchorage we make the joke, we have four seasons, Early breakup, Mid breakup, Late breakup and Winter. “Breakup” of course, being that ever-changing rain-snow-slush-ice period that seems to go on forever… Who knew we each viewed our seasons so similarly?
Katy,
I loved this post when I first read it in 2010, and love it even more after re-reading on a bright September day in Alaska. It certainly is the paying attention that brings joy to the comforting routines – like the way a second (or third) reading can bring a deeper understanding of the words and a closer connection to their beauty and meaning.
Crump