Author: Sandy Webster

Lovely morning over my subdivision. On my way to coffee with the corner crowd.  One of them simply cannot resist being one of those annoying evangelicals wanting everyone to believe all the things he reads in “his” bible. I asked, no told, him to just put a sock in it! Is there anything more annoying than being told how and what to believe!

As my basket friends were going home after their conference in Tasmania, the blank parts of the page got to me so I filled in more drawing. It is so peaceful.

Then a bit more baking…..pear in puff pastry.

And a delicious pumpkin cream sauce over pasta and spinach.

I took a more recent picture of myself the other day after seeing on FaceTime an old friend from graduate school. We tend to look a little rough after a certain age so I will put a picture out there now, so we can ease our way into how it will be.

Yesterday I worked on getting 35 poems all in the same font for a new book I am putting together. It will also have several short stories written since my last series of books and a few essays. Something about a good check in the mirror makes me want to “hop” to it. Trouble is the “hopper” has slowed a bit.

I do love my new routine of exercises and punching the bag to get out aggressions. Isn’t it odd how one leg is stronger than the other when it comes to balancing? I am quite sure I used them both the same for the last 81 years…so why is one weaker than the other? I am determined to get it up to speed and perform as expected.

Not sure if I posted this one before. But with Australia on my mind, here is one of the poems coming in the new book. There were six more trips down under after this was written.

Come and Gone in Twenty-Nine Hours

I continue to come back

eight times in thirteen years.

I am more tired

and this tiredness is beginning

to feel familiar.

It is harder to be here alone

and I sense this may be the last time.

 

I have opened myself to this country

in a deep private and personal way.

But this time I feel the loneliness

of solitude

quietly seeping in.

I am more a foreigner

than I had hoped for.

 

Australia has not lost its magic.

I am older

and the vision for that magic

is somewhat diminished

due to a combination of age

and awareness of time

that have more or less

besieged me on this trip.

 

And I am here

on this precious soil

just twenty-eight hours.

I think I am feeling the loss

of this country before I have left it.

 

Australia feels like an old dear friend

that I am seeing slowly turn away.

Or am I shifting my gaze

toward the comforts and familiarity

of home.

 

Is it becoming time

to give up the adventure

and content myself with memories

of what we used to be to each other?

 

I am feeling the loss

with each eucalypt I see

as if for the last time.

I miss it already.

 

Seems a bit of a sad poem about loss and age. But there is not a time I read these words and not smile. I wrote it in my sketchbook after a long walk to get to a park to just sit down among the Eucalyptus trees. My feet were sore and I was just beginning to feel some of the aches of aging. I love the drama of a woman with sore feet trying to put her feelings into words to look back on.

Anyway, back to the sorting and font sizing needed for the book layout.

Til later…..

 

The National Basket Gathering was going on in Tasmania this week. I try to join them by working in my Gathering Book just to pretend I am with them. So many good memories that pull me back to all those with materials and such desire to share information. Anyway, I got my sketchbook out and started drawing some odd beads that I hung onto….just in case. Then on the next page a very old Mary Hetts basket of ash and oak caught my eye because of the attachment of handles. It felt good to just sit and draw.

Next I drew in one of the combination pottery/basketry pieces that Ted Cooley and I decided to turn into a workshop. The negative spaces were filled in with random strands of weaving materials.

Turn the page and a bit of sewing and patchwork that so many at the gathering do while together. A rock because it was handy to the page. The scraps of cloth came from Wafu Works in the Hobart area and my first stop when arriving in Tasmania. My most favorite hostess, Jude Walker, would fetch me at the airport and we’d head over there before stopping for a savoury muffin and a flat white.

The opposite page and latest drawing is another clay fish with woven fins and tail. And a scrap of cloth with bits of grasses peeking out. The conference has ended and they have all headed home. It was wonderful seeing the posted photos of so many familiar faces beavering away over bits and pieces of unruly natural materials, contact printed cloth, and dressing up stones.

It brings such calm to just sit and draw…and remember. Thank you.

And another bit of relaxation is a good gin and tonic drunk from the first glasses Lee and I made from wine bottles. This was a dreadful Corbet Canyon wine that had the best shape for fitting in the hand. We did very simple bamboo leaf resist shapes near the top. They fit the hand perfectly and are just right for a gin and tonic.

I was catching up on the latest alcohol book of labels. The new ones in the book are mostly from wine tasting events where I think a bit more of something good should be in the cooler or on the shelf at home.

Now that the latest and perhaps last political installation is in place, I will return to writing and drawing/stitching. A couple of lunches/dinners out with the friends I miss seeing, coffee with the fellows in the morning, and I have exhausted my social skills. I have accepted that ignorance has brought this country to new lows and it is likely to continue in a society of fear from retribution. I see a soulless-ness when I look into the eyes of those now in control as well as in the eyes of  more and more of their supporters. Thank you to those who still protest to regain the rights we all fought so hard for years ago and now see eroding.

Sadie keeps me company when Dilly is busy napping. A cat’s purr is so comforting…

Til later…

There are thirty-nine pincushions. When I first started in 2016, it was fun to make them. Try to capture their essence and what made them so despicable. Stick pins in them. Then stuff them tightly in a plastic bag with little to no air for them.

Back then it was their new leader, Trump, Mitch McConnell, Kelly Anne with her “alternate facts”, and Bill Barr shoving their words toward a possible legal truth. Combine it all with the endless lies of Fox “News” to an angry, bigoted population, and it festered to the surface for a second chance to expose our weaknesses.

All of them have a red dot…the mark of “being sold”. And sold is what each of them have been. Sold souls to the highest and most corrupt bidders.

Even Stephen Miller with his fascist tendencies could resurrect himself in this new administration to direct an expulsion of necessary population willing to carry the heavy load for all of us. More and more sycophants pushed their way into view to be willing to pick up the fight for fellow bigots. They came armed and ready.

They fight for the positions of most obnoxious, most “Christian”, most willing to tell lies, most willing to be bought, etc.

 

Each and everyone of them are headed to the garbage of American history…and so well-deserved for ruining what our country used to be.

So many wanted to see the justice system come to the rescue. But that seems beyond their ability with the stacked and paid for courts we find ourselves stuck with for the foreseeable future. Long after I have left this world.

Before he goes, he will hang his red tie medals around the necks of most deserving of pincushion personas, but frankly, my stomach can take no more.

I am not sure if where we are is what the MAGAs of our time wanted us to be. But here we are. There are over three more years left to take this country further down and then it will be more of their uncontrolled anger continuing or a very slow healing process. Some other country will have to take over for the leadership we so willingly gave up. Obviously we are incapable.

But the sun will still come up.

I will pour myself a nice stiff drink for my solo exhibition later today and wish I lived in better times or a better country.

Til later….but first a poem of comfort….

 

The Shirt        S. Webster

 

It hangs there, just waiting

for me to reach out, and remember

the times it held me close.

When no one else was giving

needed comfort

and wanted touch.

I pause long enough

to run my hand down the arm

and hold its hand,

before moving on to one that

has no history.

 

A very large rally last weekend. I saw no trumpers driving around being their usual ornery selves.  My job is to drive through with flag-waving supporters in the car giving the thumbs up to those waving their signs along the route.

Speaking of which, here is an idea I had for those looking to design a local billboard.

The “next time vote” part came from a discussion with Aussies over wine six years ago. They were completely surprised that so few Americans vote and that those that do would pull a trump lever. There country will fine those who do not vote and increase the fine if it happens again.  Here, Republicans are trying very hard to eliminate voting altogether so their despicable dear leader can stay in power. Now with trump into his second term and hell bent on ruining world orders and decency, the Aussies are convinced we are headed into irredeemable times. I don’t disagree with that assessment.

In my studio I am working on the last of the smarmy pincushions of this administration. I hate even having to touch them. But all will be part of another solo exhibition in the garage.

So far there are thirty-six. I had to order more pins.

Someone should come up with a game of “Pin the Swastika on ______”.  And it bears repeating that if I worked in a restaurant and had to bring food to Stephen Miller, I would spit in it first.

Anyway, in the exhibition there will be many red ties that can be handed out like “Medals of Freedom” to the creepy ones on his cabinet that are not noteworthy enough to merit pins. But there will be a list of contenders. It will be a pleasure to write a paragraph for each pincushion in the exhibition. So many have faded into the unknown. But Sean Spicer needs to be identified as the first press secretary parroting his dear leader on inauguration crowd sizes who went on to cha cha on Dancing with the Stars. And the nation actually thought that was our low point.

So out to dinner with another Manhattan before salmon over kale Caesar salad. I think I will make them myself here at home from now on….very “thin”.

Dilly keeps an eye on me while Sadie purrs with such intensity when I hold her that my Afib seems to calm itself to a single syncopated heartbeat.

Okay. Enough. I am finishing my G&T before heading to bed with another British crime series. Speaking of British series, I watched the first of the new season of Great British Baking Show. It really is unnecessarily stupid and so much less informative than it used to be. Too dumb to bother watching another episode.

Til later….