I've been employed here at the Guild for just about a month, and I'm not going to lie--there are things about being a receptionist that are demoralizing. Let me re-phrase that: there are things about being a part-time, underpaid, undervalued receptionist that are demoralizing to a person who is no longer young. Not that I'm having feelings about my approaching 30th birthday or anything.
The positives of this situation are few but distinct: Little is expected of me. It is peaceful here amidst the yarn, spinning wheels, and looms. And I have the opportunity to learn about woven textiles: how fleece straight off a sheep is transformed to a finished rug. Things happen here. And I'm grateful I have the unique opportunity to witness these things and hopefully make use of this information elsewhere in my life.
I have yet to use a loom, but I'm all signed up for a class in November and until then, I'm learning on the fly. What I've learned so far is that the strands that run the length of the weaving, that hold the whole thing together and represent the foundation of it are called the warp. Warping a loom, or putting the warp yarns onto the loom to prepare it for weaving, is the trickiest part because it takes a lot of time and is a bit of a tedious process. The warp yarns have to be just so. Held in perfect tension, able to withstand quite a bit of maneuvering as you wind the crosswise pieces, the weft, between them in the pattern of your choosing. The warp is the constant, the weft is the variable.
I've been thinking about what might represent the warp and the weft in my own life. What holds me in place and what bends back on itself, creating patterns? It's been unsettling at times to start over in different areas of my life: new house, new jobs, new climate, new routines, new friends and community. Everything feels so new sometimes that it can feel like I've started another life, like I've left myself back in Texas. It's heartbreaking to claim a new home, disappearing into the Midwest. It's helpful to think that I am weaving new patterns on the same warp that has supported my whole life. Certain threads stretch back behind every story I've lived already and extend out before me, there to hold whatever pattern comes next. Some of them are hard and knotted, some are fine and light, but they run through the whole of my life, characterizing it as my own no matter what choices I make from here forward. The parts that turn back on themselves a thousand times, ending and beginning on their own terms, the coming and going of people and loves and moments and even places in our lives that pass and merge into something else--these are the weft. They create texture and depth, patterns; they transform us. Only by beginning with new weft from time to time can we grow and determine the patterns that will emerge before us, can we ever begin to feel that our lives are intentional. And almost always, new weft makes us see the warp differently. Where we are from looks different in each new place we go.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Welcome To My Blog
Hello, gentle reader. I am here to tell you a cautionary tale about being a person who loves puns, lacks direction, and appreciates handmade things.
I left my job at the Quilt Festival and moved to Minneapolis only a few months ago, but it feels like ages since the last time I worked at a Quilt Show, bored stiff in whatever city's convention center by day, belly up at the gay bar by night. It was a gorgeous sunny day in Salt Lake City as I said goodbye to my boss, a generous 70 year old mustachioed Argentine gentleman with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. He said I had been a terrific employee, that it had been wonderful working together, and that I could always come back. Grinning, he reached for my face and kissed me square on the mouth in two fast, hard pecks accentuated by loud “mwaaaaah” noises that changed the whole tenor of the gesture from creepily romantic to Mafioso fatherly. His whole body quivered with pride at his own hilariously inappropriate joke and his eyes twinkled at me as I turned, dazed, and left the convention center. When the door closed behind me, I looked out over the horizon to the Mountains and let the tears that had welled up in my eyes finally fall.
I felt terrifyingly light as I crossed the street in my prim little ankle boots and pencil skirt. Though I generally showed up to work in cutoffs and tank tops, I liked to choose outfits that the quilters would notice and compliment me on when I worked at the shows themselves. I wore a lot of overly precious peter pan collars and ballet flats. I liked wearing these sweet wholesome girl clothes and underneath being a dirty, hairy queer. I would sometimes wear these clothes to the seedy gay bars my coworker, C, and I would frequent in the cities we visited, our refuge from the sea of middle aged white women in Capri pants and sensible shoes that filled our daytimes. One Halloween, I went to a leather bar directly from work in my tweed pants and button down shirt with a fussy Airline stewardess tie at the top. I happily took on the role of misidentified voyeur, sipping bourbon and making near continuous eye contact with the receiver of a noisy blowjob.
I'll always miss the Quilt Festival, that is for certain. But fortunately, people who are willing to take jobs that involve dealing with fanatic and compulsive crafters must be fewer than you'd think. I was a shoe-in as the part time receptionist over at the Weaver's Guild of Minnesota. This is the story of my unbeweavable journey.
I left my job at the Quilt Festival and moved to Minneapolis only a few months ago, but it feels like ages since the last time I worked at a Quilt Show, bored stiff in whatever city's convention center by day, belly up at the gay bar by night. It was a gorgeous sunny day in Salt Lake City as I said goodbye to my boss, a generous 70 year old mustachioed Argentine gentleman with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. He said I had been a terrific employee, that it had been wonderful working together, and that I could always come back. Grinning, he reached for my face and kissed me square on the mouth in two fast, hard pecks accentuated by loud “mwaaaaah” noises that changed the whole tenor of the gesture from creepily romantic to Mafioso fatherly. His whole body quivered with pride at his own hilariously inappropriate joke and his eyes twinkled at me as I turned, dazed, and left the convention center. When the door closed behind me, I looked out over the horizon to the Mountains and let the tears that had welled up in my eyes finally fall.
I felt terrifyingly light as I crossed the street in my prim little ankle boots and pencil skirt. Though I generally showed up to work in cutoffs and tank tops, I liked to choose outfits that the quilters would notice and compliment me on when I worked at the shows themselves. I wore a lot of overly precious peter pan collars and ballet flats. I liked wearing these sweet wholesome girl clothes and underneath being a dirty, hairy queer. I would sometimes wear these clothes to the seedy gay bars my coworker, C, and I would frequent in the cities we visited, our refuge from the sea of middle aged white women in Capri pants and sensible shoes that filled our daytimes. One Halloween, I went to a leather bar directly from work in my tweed pants and button down shirt with a fussy Airline stewardess tie at the top. I happily took on the role of misidentified voyeur, sipping bourbon and making near continuous eye contact with the receiver of a noisy blowjob.
I'll always miss the Quilt Festival, that is for certain. But fortunately, people who are willing to take jobs that involve dealing with fanatic and compulsive crafters must be fewer than you'd think. I was a shoe-in as the part time receptionist over at the Weaver's Guild of Minnesota. This is the story of my unbeweavable journey.
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