Defining Patience

I quilt.  Yes, as my mother used to say, I cut up pieces of material and sew them back together again.  They say that a quilter has the patience of a saint.  I'm not a saint.  I race through the piecing -- the cutting and sewing of pieces of fabric into the pattern of the quilt top.  At first I cut and pieced by hand piecing which took forever and was not very accurate, but when I learned how to use a rotary cutter, it was a new world.  Now I wheel off slices of fabric at warp speed and sew them together by machine.   I can get a quilt top put together in a couple of days.

Once it’s pieced, the top becomes the top slice of bread in a sandwich.  Batting is the filling, and the bottom slice is a wide, long piece of fabric backing.  The sandwich is quilted together by stitches in a pattern.  Some people do that part by sewing machine, and I have, on occasion, done that.  I don’t have a very good machine, though, and I don’t like to sit hunched over it.   

Instead I quilt by hand.  Yes, I sew every last stitch by hand, and, believe me, there are a lot of them.  I quilt when I’m doing something else like watching TV or, well, TV is about it.  The show takes up most of my attention, and the sewing goes on slightly below the conscious level.  You get into it like you do with any repetitive activity, and I’d name one if I could think of it.  If you think about how much time it will take to make even a baby quilt or how many single stitches you have to take to complete a quilt, you’ll never begin one.  If you just work on it without focusing, well, it’s like that proverbial march of a thousand miles:  it happens one step -- one stitch -- at a time.  Quilting does not take the patience of a saint, my friend says, it takes the patience of an idiot. 

First, you slide the needle in and out, easily, smoothly.  You use a very small, slim needle, and the challenge, to the better quilting, is to see how many stitches you can collect on the needle before you pull it through the fabric.  The quilt I’m currently working on is a collection of appliqued kitties separated (or joined, depending on your viewpoint) by sashing with little black birds on it, shades of Heckle and Jeckle.  The whole thing makes me laugh.

I usually quilt in straight lines or a wandering sort of bee’s path.  For the first time, however, I have a quilt that lends itself to using a stencil I bought long ago and have stored for years in the bottom of the closet.  The stencil is the kind of old fashioned pattern I’ve long wanted to use.  A wreath of leaves encircles the backing beneath each kitty, and vines travel up and down the sashing. 

I have to admit I like the pleasant mental fog of watching Judging Amy reruns while my needle goes in and out, up and down.   I try to solve Inspector Morse's  latest murder while the leaves take form, the circles complete themselves.  It’s not a quick process.  You have to be stubborn. 

But the patience of a saint?  The patience of an idiot?  Oh, dear, are those the only choices? 

The Boy Who Got It Right

The neighbors were over visiting when their boy was three or so.  Being just a little guy, he REALLY wanted to make friends with our cat, the dearly departed Elaine.  Now as you probably know, Elaine was neither the friendliest nor the most tranquil of cats.  She hissed and hid under the bed.  Rich reached for her just as my husband yelled, “Don’t touch her!”  There were two yelps, and Rich came away with a bloody hand.  However, he also came away with a determination to be friends with that cat.  Thus began the friendly siege.

For the next several years, every time he came over, he would sit near her.  Eventually he was able to scritch her on the head.  [NB: a scritch is a tiny, light scratch.  This is not a typo.] Next came the gentle pets on the head and learning that she didn’t like her haunches touched (even then arthritis was setting in).

During elementary school, Rich came over once a week for help with his Language Arts.  Before our lesson, he’d search through the house, find Elaine, say hello and have a little chat.  After our lesson, he’d say good-bye to her.  When we were out of town, he would come over and feed her. 

Rich, now 12, came over the day before I had her put down.  We sat near her and talked about her for a while, and then I went into the kitchen and left him to say good-bye.  I heard him whisper, “Say hello to God for me, Elaine.”

The next day after school, after I’d buried her furry, little body, Rich came over.  It was Halloween afternoon, and he wore the cowboy hat to his costume.  We walked out to the garden.  He removed the hat and said a few words over her grave.

“Well, Elaine and I were friends.  She only liked Mrs. Simon and me.  I think she was afraid a lot.  She was a good cat.  I wish she could have been braver.”  We put a couple of (really old and quite dead) roses on her grave.  Rich really wanted me to put a tombstone on it, and to forestall his making a wooden one (can you see it now, rotting in the snow and rain?), I moved a plaster cat lawn ornament to the site.  He asked for a picture of her, put it in a plastic bag and anchored it under the plaster kitty.

That night, when he came trick-or-treating, he asked me if he could go again to pay his respects to Elaine.

“Any time, Rich.  Any time you want.”

He was out there a good five minutes. 

All I know is, from the time he was oh so little, this boy got it right.  He was patient and tender and loving.  Some girl’s gonna get a good deal.  

The Wren and Me

Every summer I buy the first red hanging geranium I see.  I hang it from the front porch of my house. The red flowers match the door.  They're the only flowers I've found that will survive there other than impatiens which get awfully leggy. Besides that, the impatiens want daily watering whereas the geraniums are much hardier even in the full blast of Virginia's afternoon sun.  That's important.

It’s not that I forget to water: I don’t. It’s not that we travel so much, although we do, but I could get a neighbor kid to pour some water in there when he comes over to feed the cat. It’s the wren.

The geranium attracts a house wren. I have no idea how long-lived they are, but it can’t have been the same wren for 19 years. I could, of course, do some wren research. I would probably discover that the planter is simply in a location wrens like, but I prefer to think it was the first wren's daughter and then her granddaughter and her granddaughter coming home to roost. She’s always a dainty, brown thing with a delicate beak and a fierce stubbornness. This is the spot she chooses for her nest, and this is where it will be.

One year Elaine, a much younger, feistier Elaine, spent summer afternoons hopefully under the nest.  The fledglings grew and flew on schedule  One year I watered when the birds were almost ready to fly and scared them all into the sky.  I searched the yard but waas happy never find one had fallen.  One year I mistakenly brushed away what looked like a clump of debris, realizing only too late that I’d destroyed an almost-completed nest, but within the week, my little lady was back, weaving and building. The nest was ready when the time came.  It's been a learning process, and I'm glad Lady Wren has been patient with me.
I water the geranium ever other day until one day I tip the watering can and my wren flutters out. She’s no larger than a large moth, but I know now from experience that she's begun nesting.  I stop watering:  I don’t want her to be frightened or anxious. All expecting mothers should be tranquil.
I still water the other two geraniums, the ones in the large terra cotta pots on the wide front step. They seem to turn brown and cease flowering if they’re not watered.  The hanging geranium flowers on. Of course, it gets some rain water, especially if the wind is in the right direction, and it gets shade from the eaves; still, know how it manages to survive.

If I’m patient while looking out the tall window beside the door, I can watch the wren bring twigs and grasses and built her nest. At first it looks like a bunch of crumpled, dead leaves. Slowly it takes structure and becomes a tubular oval, almost a welcoming door. I check it almost every day.  Sometimes, if I stand on tip toe, I can sight the eggs, but often their too deep in the nest for me to see. They’re not here yet, but the nest is finished, and I expect them soon.

The eggs will, naturally, hatch into hungry baby wrens which grow quickly to nearly the size of their mother. Often I can't see them, but if I brush a geranium leaf, they open their beaks -- maws, really -- hoping their Mom has come with a treat. She tries to satisfy their insatiable hunger. She's so small and works so hard. One day I’ll look, and the fledgelings will be gone

.  

[This baby's mouth looks like a flower peeping out of the nest.]

I never seem to see any of the fledglings after that, but I won't take the basket down, just in case. Maybe they come at night. Maybe she rests there when I’m not around.  Maybe there's a runt down at the bottom of the nest I haven't seen.  Yes, yes, I told you I could research it, but the magic comes in letting it be.
In October, when the geranium is well and truly dead, I’ll take down the basket and harvest the nest. Wren’s nests are tricky because they are woven like lace, but if you’re careful, you can scoop it out of the pot without damage. I've only been doing this part for a few years, and a couple of the nests disintegrated , but when I can dislodge a nest, I take it to the old buffet that sits on the back porch and set it there with the rest of my bird's nest collection. I’ve got a couple of sturdy ones that came out of branches that were blown down and a couple of wren's nests.  I set this year's nest there and wait for next summer, for her to come home again.