From The Eyes Of The Doe

I have my daily work schedule down pretty well now. Seven days a week, in the mornings I eat my breakfast cereal and drink my cup of coffee while answering emails. 

Sometimes this process takes about 2-3 hours, give or take. Before I begin work on my new shop items. 

Here's what that work looks like today. What is awaiting me. 

Pillows, waiting to be seamed closed. 

Wounds, waiting to heal.

I have read many stories over the past months. Some are horrifying. Some shake you to your core. People can do terrible, unimaginable things to other people. And often they are those they profess to love most. 

You would think it would give us better insight into how other people tick. But then not everyone ticks the same way. You have to account for that. 

I am honored to read these true stories, shared across the miles. It gives me hope that we women can and do survive some wretched things that life hands us. 

And that we become stronger for having done so. I have learned it is so much easier when we do it together.

In my little pretend world here, according to someone I once knew, I have gained support and friendship. And it is real, and much appreciated. And that cannot be taken away from me. 

I was told recently by someone very wise that I needed to go ahead and let myself grieve. For my kitties that I miss every single day. For my home that I so loved. For the gardens where I poured so much of my energy. For my neighbors that were my support group. 

And most especially, for a dream from which I was finally shaken fully awake from. To the knowledge that, yes, it was just a dream and nothing more. So you grieve for the death of that dream, or you can't go on, I'm also learning.

So tears become another part of your daily ritual. And you let yourself feel the magnitude of it, so that you can let it go.

And the hope I poured into so many years, I am finally letting go of too. For it was very much alive, and now it has died. I am making myself watch as it swirls and finally disappears down the drain.

It's hard to take hope from someone. You cling to it with everything you have. It has to be forced from your clenched hand. 

That is the human spirit. 

"How strange a thing is death, 

Bringing to his knees

Bringing to his antlers

The buck in the snow...

Life, looking out attentive

From the eyes of the doe."

- Edna St. Vincent Millay