does it include...

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Saturday night while chatting with a friend, I realized that I had not seen a warbler this spring. And I vaguely remembered tossing a dead squirrel into my backyard.

Sunday morning I chose the woods over church. How many times did I stop my legs and move my eyes through the upper branches of the trees? If I had kept a list I would have seen over 30 species of birds; wonderful views of many including one of a Great Blue Heron that amazed me, however, no warblers were seen.

Later in the morning and in the afternoon, I went out to garden a few times. My yard is not huge and I have a sense of where the squirrel was tossed. Now I could have spent all my energy on finding the animal, but what sense would that have made.

So for now, I will have to have faith that there are still warblers in the world. As for the squirrel... I have faith that if it was still there I would have seen it. I will keep my eyes open for these unseen things.


...

more thoughts.... cancer and stained glass

Last spring we only did one craft show, we did not make our booth fee... so far the only time that has happened.

Anyway, a friend, a great man, showed up that day. For 8 months I had been dropping food off for him and his family. He would be curious about my life. He said he wanted to come to the craft show. Pancreatic cancer was killing him.

He bought a stained glass mandala that day.

I recently went back to that design.

I hope that I never call it anything but, Dr. Ed's Mandala, and I will give a portion of any sale of said design to fight this cancer.

sales were terrible that day...

but that is only part of the story. For you, my friend, you are missed...

(clicking here will take you to our Mandala Section in out ETSY shop)

Hey! Don't touch that piano...

.... and while your at it, get out of that stained glass studio"

inspired by Joe Jackson's song, cancer listened to while soldering, with mask.

I dig that piano solo, can we say "seeds to loving jazz."

stained glass sold here.

...

why is traffic low at the craft show... word on the street

There is a PhD on this just waiting to happen. What factors lead to how many folk come to a craft fair? Crafters are generally confused, but more than willing to throw out ideas.

here are some frequent ones...

• nice weather
• bad weather
• in fact any kind of weather can lead to slow booth traffic
• the economy
• the internet
• poor advertising
• increase in admission costs
• change in show's location

This past weekend, I heard many of the above, but heard some new ones...

• swine flu hysteria
• The Kentucky Derby, which was my favored one so I spread the word that everyone was home sucking down mint juleps

On Saturday a few mosaics sold, but no pieces of stained glass. Trying to sit with my funk that evening I was wondering if I was depressed by the no sales of my work or not seeing one person who had told me that would try to come to the show.

The next evening the funk could only be the no shows, for I did manage to sell a couple pieces and Mosaic Woman sold three pieces (all in the final 20 seconds of the show).

Reason number 1035...

hectic lives of good folk who wanted to come, and who will be invited again.

because it comes down to this...

...

News stories, short stories, my stories

Maybe it was listening to stories about swine flu all week.

Maybe it was reading a short story from 1975 about the fear caused by cholera on Wednesday night...

... "No, there is more than the body of a man that you have in there," I said. Because now I was sure what it was. I had heard the talk up and down the river, and everyone was afeared that it was coming back, any day now. I don't mind saying that I was afeared too. And had been for a long time at the thought it was coming.

from The Burial by Jack Matthews

Maybe it was the dead squirrel on my side walk Friday morning.

I love making up stories so all day Friday I found myself telling this one...

Have you heard that Squirrel Flu has come to Lansdale? You see, when I left the house for work I saw what I thought was a dead squirrel on the sidewalk at the bottom of my porch steps. I went in to tell Mosaic Woman that she may want to stay inside for a moment. I was going to head back to the garage for a shovel when I realized I had a snow shovel in the mudroom. It was when I was scooping up the squirrel that I realized it wasn't quite dead. It turned and faced me and with a final gasp, it coughed directly at my face. Knowing that deadly flu viruses can spread from other species, I began to be concerned when I my temperature rose over 100 and I began twitching nervously in the middle of a road not sure which way to run away from oncoming traffic. A concerned friend tells me that the final stage of the disease involves raiding bird feeders and making squirrel like sounds.

Anyway. I have always felt blessed to be living in a country and during a period of time when fear of infectious disease has been so low. Cholera, Typhoid, TB, Polio.... I am also glad that my tax money goes to the CDC. I don't expect them to always say the wisest statements, but I believe in their mission.

I imagine the human brain has a special section to fear diseases that spread causing much suffering as they move through populations. Listening to folk this week, I believe our brains are alive and well, and thus full of fear.

For my part I tell stories. And my students, who know me well, say... "You're lying to us again."

and I say, "part of it is true."

may peace be with you.

best on black... preparing for the Chester County Craft Guild Spring show

At Flickr, some photographers will place a note, best on black. Click on their link and there is their photo with a black background. Usually they are right.

Mosaic Woman drapes our craft booth tables with black fabric while I get our lights set up. Then I take over one back corner for my stained glass, and she takes the rest for her mosaics. But a couple shows back, I thought... "maybe I should put some glass on the black fabric and encourage folk who seem interested to hold it up to the light." It worked and I made some sales.

With our last spring show coming up this weekend (May 2-3) over in Chester County, I decided to utilize that black fabric.

This week, I made three star flowers. Opalescent glass which is hard to show off at shows, however, on black it may look best...

some thoughts on Mosaic Woman

Yesterday, a loud and apparently scary moan brought Mosaic Woman to my rescue. Luckily it was a back muscle not a heart muscle that took me down to the porch floor, a bin of mosaics in front of me.

Friday night I remembered ten years ago. If I had blogged back then I would have proudly called her Poet Woman. On that night in April, the US Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky, was saying wonderful things about her poems as she started her year as the Montgomery County Poet Laureate. In previous blogs I would have celebrated her NEA grant, PA arts grant, and many contest wins. I would have talked of the frustration of coming so close to having a book published.

She is so much happier these days filling bins with her wonderful craft made of glass bits than in the days she used bits of our language to create poems. I have sat watching people being awed by both. I wonder how such a creative woman came into my life.

But yesterday morning I needed someone to love me, not to awe the masses. As she was talking to the neighbor cat, I went in for the final box of mosaics. Twisting through the front door I felt the pain and set the box down. I stood and sent my breath into the pain and exhaled the pain away from the muscle. I have learned the hard way to fight these rare spasms by relaxing not entering a panic. I could hear her talking to the cat on the other side of a monster hedge when I foolishly decided to lean over to pick up the bin. The second shot of pain brought forth the groan and I dropped to my knees. And that is where she found me.

I once again breathed and eventually opted to go to the craft show. It appears to have been the right choice. The pain lessened to become the memory of an overwhelmed muscle. Moving about was what it needed more than bed rest.

Last night she was feeling bit like a fool. A mosaic was sold twice in the same day and she had to refund the money and apologize in e-mail to a woman in Massachusetts, who was too late when she bought it at our ETSY site. Mosaic Woman had thought about shutting down our on-line store down (as had I) before we left for the craft show. We talked about the need to take off the items that has sold. But when we got home a nap sounded better. While we napped the sale happened.

Last night we waited for the sun to go down to go outside and walk in the unusual April heat. We walked... a couple of folk filled with imperfections and love.