So often I spend days cramming it all in. I read Instagram, blogs, news, newspapers, and the sides of cereal boxes if there’s nothing else. I store up lists of patterns, of quilts to make. In the window of time I have in the day, I join sewing groups, plan trips to quilt conferences. Others head out on retreats, but all of us are filling up the spaces over and over and over.

The last two days I’ve been emptying out, which often happens when you leave home and live in a hotel space and walk in a strange city and ride busses (thankfully, given the time of Covid, they are somewhat empty). That first day is like detox, and you are anxious to pull out the stitchery in your bag, or read something or sew something, anything.

Then you find this notice on a crosswalk button and you smile. You have ten places to chose from for lunch, if you keep walking. You had great cookies yesterday, so you know where to find those today.

You notice where the tracery of pulled-off ivy creates a conversation with succulents and images inked in below.

You think: this would be a great wall for a quilt photo, and you see other nooks, crannies, painted spaces, architecture, houses. You notice.

At the end of looking out of windows in hotels, busses, beauty shops (when you decide to get a haircut), your busy life hovers at the edges. It’s now looking in at you, waiting for you to come and pick it up again and make colors and fabrics dance in lines and curves and triangles.

Coming.

Also coming in the next post: Block Three of the New York Beauties series, plus some insight into how I figure out some of the weirdness of FPP.