Heidi Greco's Blog, page 3

A quiet art

When I was little, I used to love going into my gramma's workroom--at least that's how I thought of it. I have no idea what she called that room, but it was a magical place to me. It was where she made quilts. 

There was a frame she used to build them on, rolling the edges as she sewed--always by hand--the same way I liked to sew the doll clothes I made. Must have been something in our genes.

On the weekend, I attended a quilters' exhibit, and as you might guess from the photo above, I wasn't the only one amazed by what I saw. If you click on the photo you might be able to tell that the images on the white background are bits of applique. It's an art that confounds me; I can't imagine needlework that could be more demanding. 

Reading the sign next to that quilt, the artist reveals it took her a year and a half to finish it. Not surprising, considering the demanding detail involved. And also not surprising, this was the quilt that won both main awards: the prize for best quilt as well as acknowledgment at being the people's choice. Hear, hear and bravo!

This woman, working on her own small piece of applique didn't mind my taking a photo of her at work. Inspiring, but not an art I feel capable of taking up.  

Bizzy

Or should that maybe, with that bee so hard at work, be 'buzzy' instead?

This rhododendron, which is probably 12 feet tall, has in the past always done me the honour of opening on Mother's Day. But this year, it decided to open early. 

I'm not complaining. It's always beautiful, but usually opens after the lilacs are spent. This year, both of them are gloriously in bloom, almost as if they're trying to compete with each other. 

In my mind, neither is 'winning'--I'm just grateful to have so much beauty outside the front door. 

Coming home from Vancouver on the bus I was happy to spot...

Coming home from Vancouver on the bus I was happy to spot, in among the ads for everything from real estate to debt relief, this poem by Michelle Brown. 
It's part of a long-running series called Poetry in Transit, a program whose name I am sure must have been inspired by a song from long ago, "Poetry in Motion". Oddly, Johnny Tillotson, the singer who popularized that tune, died at the beginning of this month--the month when we in Canada celebrate National Poetry Month. 
I was doubly glad to have found this particular poem on 'my' bus, as the book it's from Swans , a book 
that's currently on my reading table, a nice way to close off this year's National Poetry Month celebrations. 

Celebrating the Earth

The miracles that nature delivers continue to amaze me, though you'd think after so many years on earth, I'd be getting accustomed to them. 

Still, looking at the photo above, it's hard to imagine that at least some of those flowers will sometime in August be ready-to-eat peaches. 

But miracles aside, it seems odd (a polite term) that today should be the day when our own "Mr Drill Baby Drill" should finally be releasing details of his party's platform, one that will no doubt include plans for more pipelines, more reliance on fossil fuels, more pretending that climate change isn't a critical issue. Am I the only one to notice the irony of these announcements on Earth Day? 

As I'm finding my own ways to observe this year's Earth Day, I'm happy to think of it as an event we should be celebrating every day!

Low-rent accommodation

Once again, the birds have taken up house in one of the lanterns that hang outside. Luckily, there wasn't a candle in there, or there wouldn't have been room for the three little eggs currently inside. 

Other years, they've gone to a different lantern, one that allowed them to see outside, even though they were quite protected, nearly invisible while inside. 

It will be quite a trick to get the nestlings to perch up on the rim of their 'house' when it's time for them to learn to fly. It's something they always seem to manage though. We'll keep watching. 

And if only it were that easy for people to find themselves with such a thing as low-rent accommodation. 

A different sort of celebration

According to T.S. Eliot, April is the cruelest month, but that's not a sentiment I share. 

As someone who loves poetry, I'd have to counter by saying that April is the coolest month, as that's when we celebrate National Poetry Month in Canada. 

One of my plans for this month is to give away a book of poetry every day in April. For one thing, it's a good way to cull my (admittedly too large) collection of these books. After all, two bookcases full probably means more books of poems than I will be able to reread in the remainder of my life. 

I did something along similar lines back in 2011 when we travelled across the continent of North America. Considering that most of that trip was through the US, I'm sorry to say we won't be repeating that journey this year (and I guess not until 2028). Like so many other Canadians, in conscience we're just not able to cross the border for now. 

The League of Canadian Poets has selected Family as this year's theme, and that's a word that means different things to many of us: blended family, adoptive family, nuclear family, extended family. Or, to interpret it the way that makes the most sense to me: chosen family, those people we hold dear as friends, a new kind of family, chosen at that. 

The books at the top of this page each offer a very different take on contemporary poetry. For more suggestions click here to see a list compiled by the brainy folks at The Tyee. 

Springtime in Canada

...or at least here on the Lower Mainland of the West Coast. 

While I admit that the tulips are store-bought (though raised on Vancouver Island), the forsythia brancches are ones I brought in from outside. 

Today marks the Vernal Equinox, when things are in a kind of balance, as the sun is above the equator, making the hours of daylight and darkness equal--the day we refer to as the first official day of spring. 

After this winter, spring is more than welcome. Snow. Cold. Disruptive news. Balance sounds like something that's very badly needed. 

Up and down, round and round

Trying to stay 'up' on what's happening in the news has become crazy enough to just about give me a kink in my neck. 

At least I've finally found a term to help me make some sense of it: yo-yo diplomacy. 

Reactions from this side of the border have been nearly as up-and-down as the pronouncements coming out of the mouth of the person who's currently occupying (and I use that word intentionally) the White House. Ontario's premier has waffled on threats as extreme as cutting off power to three northern US states. Our premier here in BC has put forward a proposal that would give a kind of 'War Measures' powers to his government. 

I suppose the action of a yo-yo is ruled by the laws of physics. If only there were some kind of law that might help control the current up-and-down chaos. 

Rights. Equality. Empowerment.

It was nearly a hundred years ago that my grandmother got a job as an assistant to the sheriff in the city where she lived. No doubt--besides her brain--the tool she relied on the most was a typewriter, not unlike the one above which remains in a place of honour in my office. 

Not a lot of women worked outside the home back then, but she was a single parent--and heck, with four kids to feed, she needed an income. 

Oddly, for that era when women mostly stayed at home, my other gramma had a paying job as well. She worked in a bakery which, lucky for me, meant I was privileged to get fancily decorated cakes for birthdays and other special occasions. She also had four kids, along with a husband who was unable to work. 

On this day, International Women's Day, when we celebrate women and our many accomplishments, it seemed important for me to remember these two brave women from my family who preceded me, with a legacy I am proud to claim. As for those words in the subject header, they constitute the theme of this year's IWD, and I can only hope that soon they will actually be true for all of us who identify as women. 

What year is this?

As we come to the end of Black History Month, I'm left scratching my head over a 'decoration' I spotted in a nearby neighbourhood. It looked like an odd way to celebrate Christmas, but worse, I couldn't help but wonder who lived in that house. 

No, I didn't stop and knock on their door. In truth, I'm not sure I would have wanted to get to know them. 

Nonetheless, it made me question whether anything at all in our world has actually changed.