Category Archives: inspiration

Sep23

Happy Fall, Y’all!

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Chilly weather, and chili weather…

My cousin Judy has lots of kitchen traditions she has built with her family over the years.  The first snowfall of the season always brings a homemade pie, for example.  For the last couple of years, Judy has opened her kitchen up for “Fall-Chili-And-Hot-Tamale-Making-Day”.  And we’ve already started talking about this year’s installment!  I can’t wait to spend time together, stirring the chili pot, making the mixtures of meat and meal, assembling those little packages of tamale goodness!  We share the work and then share the finished product, with me and anyone else who helped taking some home to enjoy later. And of course, we have to taste and see that what we made was good!  Quality control, after all.

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It reminds me of the times when Mama and “Mamaw” Allred, Aunt Martha, Aunt Ruby and/or any combination of them, would gather in someone’s kitchen to make tamales, or candy, or to can tomatoes and green beans in the summertime.  Shared work provided shared goodies, as well as lots of laughs and fun.  The foods they prepared nourished both body and soul.

I look forward to chili-and-hot-tamale-making-day, for the yummy food we hope to make.  But even more than the physical food, I look forward to the comfort of time spent together with Judy and whoever else can join us (both Reed and Jeff have helped in the past), carrying on the traditions of the generation before us.  And I think this year, cake may need to happen!

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Jul22

In Stitches

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Mama, The Aunts and the fabric of memory

I’ve been missing Mama and The Aunts a lot lately.  Mama’s birthday was July 4, and the second anniversary of Aunt Ruby’s passing is coming up on August 12, so I guess those are a couple of reasons they’ve been on my mind.  While I was blessed to know all of Mama’s sisters well, when I refer to The Aunts, it’s Aunt Ruby and Aunt Martha I am thinking of.

They were the ones who sewed quilts together with Mama, along with Ruby Allred, our next-door neighbor on Ford Street.  I and many of my family members possess these works of art and craft, some stored away in cedar chests while others decorate our beds and couches.  Their colors and patterns brighten our lives and homes with warmth, both physical and spiritual.

It is fairly easy to determine the age or era of our family quilts by the fabrics used to make them.  Lots of the older ones contain material from many of Granny’s old dresses, and they are backed with a type of cotton fabric that Mama and The Aunts called “domestic”.  It was basically a coarse cotton muslin near as I can tell.  Later quilts were backed with king-size bed sheets.  They provided a good expanse of seamless fabric and were smoother than domestic.  I think that domestic had become more costly as well, which may have contributed to the switch.  Some of the later quilts also had lighter-weight batting inside between the patterned top and the plain backing.  These lighter quilts are perfect for use in warmer weather.

The older quilts backed with domestic seemed to pucker up more after laundering, especially if the batting was also all-cotton.  I love that almost seersucker-y texture of an old quilt, as well as the weight and substance of it.  I love the contrast of white stitching against solid-colored fabric.  Mama and The Aunts and “Mamaw” Allred sewed with such precision!  They made such teeny-tiny, evenly-spaced stitches, as Aunt Martha would say, “Ever’ stitch a stitch of love.”

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Nowadays quilts are available in many stores, mass-produced, machine-made items, often designed to look like their older, handcrafted counterparts.  And many of them are good quality and beautiful.  I’ve actually bought some retail quilts over the years.  But even the nicest ones can’t rival the quilts made by Mama and The Aunts and “Mamaw” Allred.  The hours spent choosing the fabrics, cutting and marking, and the late nights sitting around the frames as their thimbled fingers sewed—no amount of money can buy the love they left behind, in stitches.

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Jul9

Plus Size

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It’s not always a bad thing…

Patchwork And Potpourri is not my first foray into the blogosphere.  For anyone who does not know, I underwent radical weight loss surgery 3 years ago in an effort to improve my well-being and quality of life.  As part of the weight loss process, I wrote a blog about that journey, from my first consultation with my weight loss surgeon through my 2-year surg-i-versary, which happened last year while I was in New York preparing to sing a concert with several choral groups at Carnegie Hall.  It was a no-holds-barred look into my experiences with medically-supervised weight loss prior to surgery, the tests required for insurance approval, surgery and recovery and all the nitty-gritty-nuts-and-bolts ranging from periods, poop and vomit to changed relationships resulting from my changed appearance.  The weight loss blog is located at:

http://www.incredibleshrinkingdiva.blogspot.com

I encourage anyone with weight or self-image issues, especially anyone considering weight loss surgery, to visit there and read about the good, the bad and the hilarious stops along my weight loss path.

My total weight loss was 136 pounds, and at my lowest weight I actually dipped a few pounds below my dietician-recommended minimum (although that didn’t last very long!).  In the past year I have regained a bit of the weight because I’ve been trying to comfort myself.  Three friends died from cancer this past year, and, while some people turn to alcohol or drugs to medicate their pain, my substance of choice has always been food.  And as I said to a friend yesterday, nobody eats broccoli for comfort!  “Comfort food” for me is generally laden with starch, fat and sugar.  Delicious stuff for sure…and deadly for some of us if we indulge too much or too often.

The good news is that I have visited with my dietician and started to unpack the pounds I packed on this past year.  I have a conference next week which involves a dressy dinner, and I can zip myself comfortably into the dress I bought for the occasion, which is a victory—and a relief!  I’m still well over a hundred pounds down from my highest weight and largest size, and I’m on the healthy wagon once more hoping to shrink back to my lowest weight and smallest size.

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Even at my smallest, I am not a skinny person.  I never will be.  I have way too many boobs and hips to ever be skinny!  And that’s fine.  God made me curvy.

God also made me sensitive, more than some people in my life have been comfortable with.  Sometimes folks have made me feel bad, ashamed of my tender nature, as though sensitivity equals weakness.  More than once I’ve even tried to “change” how I am, without success, of course.  I have come to realize that big feelings are just part of my basic wiring, and, while sensitive people do require a bit of special care, we’re not broken, as some people would have us think we are.  The same critics who say I’m too sensitive always seem to be grateful for my compassion when THEY need it.  It’s funny how that works sometimes.

Parts of me will always be plus size.  And that’s fine, too.  I laugh and cry bigger than most people, because I feel my feelings more deeply.  Dolly Parton once described herself as having a brain underneath the hair and a big heart underneath the boobs.  I’d like to think that’s me as well.  (Maybe we’re related!)

Am I glad I had surgery and shrank my body?  Absolutely!  Would I do it again, knowing what I know now?  In a heartbeat.  My hips and ankles don’t hurt anymore.  I feel healthier and stronger.  And I feel more free to live my life no longer being ashamed about the parts that are stil big: my personality, feelings, hips, boobs and HAIR!

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Jun18

Present Tense

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Do it.  Do it NOW…

I hate to be late. HATE it!  So, I always wear a watch.  Sometimes I wear more than one watch at a time, as both a fashion statement and a reminder to be where I need to be, when I need to be there.

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If there is one lesson God keeps trying to teach me, it is that time is precious.  Life can change in an instant. Opportunities are presented—or lost—in the blink of an eye.

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Throughout my life as well as in recent months, my world has been altered by deaths of people I love.  Not “loved”.  LOVE.  Present tense.  I cannot bring myself to say that I “lovED” a person who is no longer living.  Just because someone died doesn’t mean that the love stops.  I don’t even believe that the relationship between us stops; it changes by necessity, but I don’t believe that it ends.

It’s as though the person I love has changed addresses, relocating to a place where I am temporarily unable to see or touch him or her.  I have, however, been known to speak to my departed loved ones (not in a way that will result in my being hauled off to the asylum!) and they often visit me in dreams.  The relationships and the love go on.  We are just temporarily separated.

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Still, I tend to take my relationships for granted.  I think most people do…until we get a stark reminder that nothing lasts forever.  For example, several years ago a friend and co-worker was killed in a wreck.  Gone in a split second.  Suicide, both attempted and and completed, has touched my life, more than once.  Fast passings from aggressive cancer, slow goodbyes from Alzheimer’s disease and COPD, sudden massive strokes and heart attacks have all taken loved ones from me and my family.

It doesn’t matter whether a person leads a charmed life of wealth and success, or a humble existence of  living paycheck-to-paycheck.  It is immaterial whether one is educated or not, privileged or not, a have-or-have-not.  Suffering and death are the greatest equalizers, and if we live long enough, we’re all going to get some of both.

Whatever needs doing in my life, I need to do it.  Do it now.  Speak the truth.  Write the letter.  Make the phone call or send the e-mail.  I need to hug and kiss, laugh and cry, and go about the living of my big, loud, messy life.

Do it.  Do it NOW.

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Jun10

Carried

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Words, burdens and letting go…

For nearly 20 years, I have carried a small book around with me.  It’s gone pretty much everywhere I’ve gone.  Inside its front cover I wrote down when and where I bought it.

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I have always loved blank books and journals, their potential for creativity and a place for me to vent my thoughts.  This particular one drew me in for 2 reasons.  First, I loved its cover art depicting the sun, moon and stars against a swirly blue background.  I think it’s permissible to judge a book by its cover when the inside is blank!

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Secondly,  I especially loved that its pages were unlined.  I have enough restriction in my life.  The pristine whiteness of its pages gave me freedom to write whatever I wanted, in whatever way I wanted…upside down, in a circle, diagonally or just crooked.

This little book became my constant companion, a safe place for me to write down the feelings I could not express any other way.  Looking at those words now brings back memories of the extremes in my life at the time…mostly extreme pain and sadness.  It contains the overflow of my broken heart and spirit during the last year of Mama’s life on Earth, a period when I was afraid and lonely, not thinking clearly and not making good choices.

I’m not proud of a lot of what I did during this chapter of my life.  My spiritual life and relationship with God were at an all-time low.  I couldn’t pray, really; all I could do was hurt, and sometimes, feel angry.  I realize now that God heard every anguished scream of my heart, even though I was not talking to Him.  He was still listening.

Even as wretched as I was, as horribly as I was acting and as distant as God seemed to be, I know now that He was right beside me all along, carrying me when I could not walk through life on my own.  And not just carrying me, but sending blessings, glimpses of hope that I could survive this valley.  His grace eventually brought me out the other side, altered for sure, but profoundly grateful.

I don’t think I need to keep my little book any longer, or at least, not the words it contains.  I think I can finally let that part of my life go.  Those pages need to be burned up in the bonfire of forgetting, of cleansing, never again a burden to be Carried.

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Jun4

Good News

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My 90 Day Bible Boot Camp

In 2010, my college roomie, Janet, joined a group on social media started by a woman at her church who was doing a 90 day summer Bible reading challenge.  I had never read the whole Bible straight through before, thinking that was much too grown-up an endeavor for me to try!  But when Janet committed to it, I decided to attempt it as well, enjoying the idea of sharing the experience with her as much as the prospect of accomplishing such a goal.  Little did I know the impact this experience would have on my life.

Every year since then I have done a 90 day “Bible boot camp”, using a different translation each time.  The first year I used the New International Version, reading through my little pink Bible that Mom and Pop Cutshaw had given me for Christmas years ago.  Since then I have read through the New King James version (the Bible my choirmates in college voted for me to receive my senior year; it will have its own blog post in the future, I’m sure);  the Holman Christian Standard version in 2012, when I was recovering from weight loss surgery; in 2013, it was the Revised Standard version Bible that my childhood church gave me when I was a rising third grader, the summer Aunt Ruby died; and last year I revisted The Way verison of The Living Bible from my youth group days, completing it while grieving my friend Lola’s death in late July.

A disclaimer is needed here.  Reading the Bible has not magically transformed me into a good person.  I struggle, and I fail in my walk of faith all the time.  What God HAS done in my life through this process has been gradual; over time, He has given me peace in places that used to be filled with turmoil.  I pray that He will continue to work in those dark places of mine, bringing light, love and forgiveness.

I can trace my history in many ways through what Bible I was reading when certain events happened, and I have begun writing those details down inside my Bibles so that someday, whoever inherits them will know what happened when, and where God provided comfort, inspiration and strength for my journey.

This year, I chose to read through the Good News Bible, another nod to my past and my childhood church.

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When I was a kid, one of our pastors introduced us to Good News for Modern Man, The New Testament in Today’s English Version, a paperback volume with a cover designed to look like newsprint.  Uncle John Flanigan gave a copy to Mama and inscribed it to her.  It’s a memento I cherish.  Eventually the Old Testament was translated into Today’s English Version as well, and renamed The Good News Bible.  Among other features it contains beautiful line drawings of many of the scenes, a modern twist on the older Bibles that used to have prints of classical religious paintings inside their gold-leafed or red-edged pages.

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The past 3 summers as I have recovered from major surgery and experienced deaths of people I love, I have sometimes wondered if I’d complete my 90 day odyssey through the Bible.  Sometimes reading was the last thing I felt like doing.  Sometimes physical pain overwhelmed me; other times it was emotional anguish that threatened my progress.

But here’s the thing.  God provided comfort for my pain, strength for my path and balm for my soul, all throughout my boot camp and beyond.  He continues to do so, day after day, through seasons of grief and joy, spiritual peaks and valleys, rocky places and still waters.  He speaks through His creation, through my friends and family…and through His word in scripture.  The Bible’s story of God’s love, Jesus’s life and death and redemption…it is MY story.  How blessed and fortunate I am to live in a place where I can have access to His word, and where I am free to read and learn from it when-and-wherever I choose.  Millions of people throughout our world are not as fortunate.  I pray never to take this gift, this Good News, for granted.

May18

Patina

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Worn-in versus worn-out…

A friend and music colleague celebrated birthday number 51 earlier this year, which is the same birthday I am about to observe.  On social media, he posted that someone had told him that, at age 51, he was “officially on the downward slope of life”.  Odds are, this is true, if one does the math and considers the law of averages.  Still, while I know neither the context of the statement nor the person who made it, its tone sort of…crawled all over me!

Thoughts are like birds.  Some of them fly overhead quickly and are gone.  Some land on a person’s shoulder and stay a while.  This thought about the downward slope landed on my head, brought in twigs and mud, and nested.  

Our society is overly focused on beauty and youth, and usually the two are tied together.  We don’t hear much about the beauty that comes with time, wisdom and, yes, age.  I think we are cheating ourselves and the generation behind us when we tell ourselves and them that we lose beauty as we gain years.

All of this got me thinking about the many things in our lives that get better with age.  My favorite jeans, sweaters and t-shirts are the ones that have been worn-in over years, sometimes decades.  They are more comfortable, softer.  When I lost all my weight and I was replacing my wardrobe, I made many eBay purchases, and I purposely looked for jeans that had been “pre-loved”.

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I tend to gravitate toward things that show their marks.  Again, after my weight loss, I bought some new cowboy boots, but I bought a pair with a “distressed” look to the leather.  I wanted them to look a little beaten-up from the start, and I am enjoying the process of leaving more marks on them.  I think cowboy boots look better the more worn-in they are…but maybe that’s just me.

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I have always been a finger-tapper.  It’s just a nervous habit, I guess, but I find myself tapping my rings on my work surfaces.  As a result, my rings get little dings in them.  When I was a new bride, the first time I “ding’ed” my wedding band broke my heart, and I felt like I’d ruined it.  I realize now, though, that all those marks just tell its story.  Gold frequently worn develops a mellow glow that new gold cannot replicate.  I love and value every single scratch on my wedding ring, and on Mama’s chunky gold band, which bears both the marks of her decades of wear, and now the ones I have made on it.

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Part of the Merriam-Webster definition of the word “patina” is as follows:

“The surface appearance of something grown beautiful especially with age or use”.

I love that.

Last week I had the blessing of enjoying some time with a couple of different longtime girlfriends who are also around my age.  As I sat with each of them, I appreciated the  various paths down which we have traveled.  Each journey is unique, leaving its marks behind, and we have all experienced both much joy and great heartache.  And I appreciated the radiant softness in their faces, a kind of beauty that can only be built by years and experiences.  Younger faces, younger hearts, lack the depth that only time can provide.

In a couple of days, I will no longer be simply 50.  I will be IN MY 50’s.  I look in the mirror sometimes and it scares me to death!  My lines and spots bug me, and it seems like I see new ones every day.

Here’s the thing.  I’ve never been “beautiful” in any conventional way, so losing my beauty is not my concern.  Sure, I want to look as good as I can for as long as I can.  But feeling healthy and strong, showing compassion, being open and tender with the people I love, singing with joy and gratitude to the God Who gave me my voice…those things are way more important.  And the ability to do those things has come with time and experience.  They are part of my unique patina.

More years of my life are indeed behind me than ahead of me.  That’s fine.  The fabric of my life is still being sewn, stitched into my body, my face…my heart.  Like that ancient flannel blanket my Mamaw made, I pray my life will be remembered by those close to me, and that its patina leaves a soft warmth that envelops everyone I have loved.

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May14

Well Seasoned

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Some things improve over time…

I remember once

as a young bride

trying to fry up some potatoes

like Mama used to do.

I was using a brand-new

shiny skillet.

Mercy, that skillet was beautiful,

but my potatoes

stuck to the pan and

smoked up the whole kitchen.

My shiny new skillet

was not

well seasoned.

Now, nearly 30 years later,

I have some of Mama’s old skillets.

I think they were Granny’s first.

Any good cook knows

what a priceless treasure

a hand-me-down skillet is.

My favorite one

bears the scars of age and heat,

scraped mercilessly

as forks scrambled eggs

and that old metal spatula

flipped slices of bacon.

It’s the best skillet in the whole kitchen.

It hasn’t been shiny in decades,

but it lends a

depth of flavor

to whatever is cooked in it.

Raw ingredients go in and get

transformed into

well seasoned food

for belly and soul.

No matter how hot the skillet gets,

nothing will stick to it anymore.

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May1

Dear Lola

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Just In The Neighborhood…

I drove by your house the other day

I was just in the neighborhood

Had some time between errands

and thought about you

My car seemed to know the way

by itself

having gone to check the place

so often after you died

I was curious to see if

the new owners were changing things

A car sat in the driveway

and a wreath of yellow daisies

hung on the front door

limage

Not your style at all

but still

signs of new life

in your old house

and I thought

This is good

Someone is making

a fresh start here

Meanwhile

I snuggle under your blanket on my couch

I see my candle glowing inside

one of your wine glasses

and your drums and basket

nestle on my bookcase

And I too

try to

make a fresh start

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Apr24

Touched

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From their hands to mine…

Once upon a time, long, long ago, ladies wore gloves and carried handkerchiefs as part of their apparel for activities like church, shopping or lunch with other ladies.  It was a more genteel era, an age of structured dresses, pillbox hats and cultured civility.  I often wonder if I wasn’t born in the wrong time because I sometimes yearn for the days of gloves, hats and hankies.

As a lifelong collector with a large extended family, I have inherited some of my Granny’s, Mama’s and aunts’ gloves and hankies.  The detail and craftsmanship put into these tiny items is impressive.  Many of the gloves have decorative stitching or embroidery, and little bitty pearl buttons sewn onto the cuffs.  Most of the handkerchiefs boast intricate stitching and lace as well.

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From the research I’ve done and the variety of items I’ve inherited, there seem to have been specific occasions when a particular length of glove might have been worn, or when a certain hankie might have been carried.  Some of Granny’s handkerchiefs are decorated with motifs for Christmas, weddings or Valentine’s Day, while the gloves range from just-wrist-length to halfway up my arm.  Generally, the longer the glove, the dressier the occasion.  There used to be strict etiquette guidelines for such matters and those rules can still be found in old books and online.  It’s fun to look back at how fashion and manners used to be.

There are also treasure troves of items like these in antique shops, flea markets and on the Internet.  Vintage textiles fascinate me, and the gloves and handkerchiefs in particular, items that began as strictly utilitarian objects, started being decorated and embellished.  They became both useful AND beautiful, petite pieces of art, suitable for framing, shadow boxes and any other display method one can imagine.  I can only begin to imagine the stories behind these tiny treasures.

I guess that’s why the gloves and hankies from my family mean so much to me.  The stories that come with them are part of my heritage.  There were the gloves that I wore with my wedding gown that belonged to Mama, and to Granny before her.  Even though Granny had been gone for 13 years by the time my wedding day came, wearing her gloves made me feel like part of her was with me somehow.  Granny also kept her diamond wedding set tied into the corner of a little hankie when she wasn’t wearing them (which was most of the time because they were fancy and she didn’t want to lose them).  I wish I knew which hankie she used for that.  Before Jeff and I were married, his Aunt Ann made me a beautiful lace-decorated basket and pillow, and wiith it she gave me a handkerchief that had belonged to her mother, Jeff’s grandmother.  What a sweet and meaningful welcome into the family.  I carried it on our wedding day.

I can imagine the church revivals, weddings and funerals where those gloves were worn…the tears of grief and joy wiped from the cheeks of loved ones with those soft squares of embroidered linen and lace.  Ages later, I look at these mementoes and I feel the women of my family in the things that they once Touched.

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