Empty Bobbins – Page 2

Empty Bobbins: The Last Unicorn

Empty bobbins are moments in life where we pause and reflect. It’s like when your bobbin runs out in the middle of a project, and you have to pause everything you’re doing to reload. Here’s one such reflective moment. This is from a moment when my daughter, now seven, was two.

As a parent, one of the best things ever is getting to introduce all the cool stuff from your childhood to your kid. So one Saturday evening, I took a chance and busted out The Last Unicorn. Any kid from the 80’s remembers this film, and I was a little concerned that the Red Bull would frighten her. I was right about the Red Bull, but after her initial fright, I think she even liked him. She certainly talked about the Red Bull for a long time after that – and not in an anxious way, more like an old friend.

Anyhow, so we got to the end of the film, you know, where the unicorns all are freed and come running out of the sea (spoilers!). There’s a chorus, and by this point you’re super invested in the fate of the unicorns and stuff. So was my two year old. I watched to see what she’d do once she got a load of all the unicorns instead of just the one.

The moment was worth it.

Her mouth parted, and she was barely breathing she was so excited. She finally whispered to me, “can I sing?” Of course, I told her to go for it. Now, she didn’t know any words, so she just sang long with the notes as best as she could. But each syllable she muttered was an attempt to join in on the magic.

It was the magic that comes along with forgetting you’re sitting on a couch and that an adult is nearby.

It’s the magic that comes when you completely let go of pretension and just savor the moment – whatever moment that may be.

It’s the magic of everything around ceasing to exist except the story in front of you.

Somewhere along the way, we become too aware of our surroundings and forget how to do this. But kids, they know how to do it instinctively. And in my kid’s joy of singing along with the unicorns, I, too, forgot for a moment I was sitting on a couch on a Saturday evening.

Empty Bobbins: The Musicians Who Raised Me

A while back I discovered Pandora online, and I later downloaded the app on my phone. In addition to their pre-made stations, you can make your own, liking or disliking songs to fine-tune the algorithm. I made several different ones: Broadway, 90’s pop, Classic Rock, movie soundtracks. Heck, I was even in a “dark chocolate” mood one day and made a Danny Elfman station. But by far my favorite station, and the one I curate the most, is a station I named “Lilith Fair”.

My Lilith Fair Pandora Station

Lilith Fair was a music festival from 1997-99 with a revival in 2010. It was a celebration of female singer-song writers and musicians. Check out the names on the main stage from that first 1997 festival!

Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman, Jewel, Paula Cole, Suzanne Vega, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Fiona Apple, Joan Osborne, The Cardigans, Emmylou Harris, Lisa Loeb
Indigo Girls, Shawn Colvin, Meredith Brooks, Tracy Bonham, India Arie, and Natalie Merchant.

The second and third stages also had some powerful names as well. I know I spotted my beloved Dar Williams and Dido on those lists.

These ladies and many others fill my Pandora station. And I love listening to it while I’m quilting. It’s a neat dynamic, really, creating and crafting in this traditional art form while listening to the restless voices of these beautiful women.

As I listened one day, I realized exactly how lucky I was to come of age during this musical chapter. The 90’s had a lot of issues, and I refuse to romanticize it. But the nostalgia attached to the music is real and makes me pine for the time when the fanciest people out there had bag phones they used in their cars with an antenna they placed on top of their car with a cord that kept you from fully rolling up your window. Long before names like Nokia and Verizon invaded every aspect of life.

I remember being in middle school and listening to Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill. Her frustration and heartbreak, especially on the hidden track, spoke to middle school me in a way I didn’t yet understand.

But Alanis was only the beginning. As I listened to this station, I recognized, as an adult, how different their messages were and how they’d resounded with me throughout my life. From Paula Cole’s disillusionment with her husband in “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” to Tracy Chapman’s disappointment and longing in “Fast Car”, I grew up with a diet of women challenging the status quo and demanding something better.

Jewel taught me to get indignant when I was being taken for granted, “Well excuse me, guess I’ve mistaken you for somebody else. Somebody who gave a damn. Somebody more like myself.”

Sheryl Crow taught me that “everyday was a winding road” and to keep on trying.

Melissa Ethridge taught me that sometimes folks need to be reminded of how damned awesome I can be in “I’m the Only One.”

Natalie Merchant’s album Tigerlily was one repeat as soon as I bought the CD. She taught me about love and loss in “My Beloved Wife” and that sometimes I am just beyond common understandings and destined for more in “Wonder.”

Meredith Brooks taught me that I don’t always have to be predictable and that it was ok to be a mixed bag in her song “Bitch.”

I remember when Sarah McLaughlin’s song “Angel” wasn’t associated with animals needing help OR Nicolas Cage!

The Spice Girls taught me all about friendship.

TLC taught me all about self love right as I headed off to college.

So yeah, the 90’s weren’t without their issues. We had drug epidemics, race riots, and wished “Peace in the Middle East” to one another in our 5th grade classes. But the music? It was one of the things that I was lucky to have. And I can see on my station where those women paved the way for others, and I welcome them to my Lilith Fair station. They’re in it and fit in nicely with their 90’s sisters.

Empty Bobbins: The Renn Faire Carney

So I love going to the Georgia Renaissance Festival. It’s always fun, and I find some super cool bags and jewelry. This post is about one not-so-pleasant episode years ago. That being said, I’ve gone back just about every year and always have a blast. This year was no exception. But while there, my husband and I were reminded of this story and entertained our friends in the re-telling of it. I thought I’d share with you all as well. Here’s another “empty bobbin” moment for you.

Empty bobbins are moments in life where we pause and reflect. It’s like when your bobbin runs out in the middle of a project, and you have to pause everything you’re doing to reload.

This incident took place about seven years ago when our daughter was about 6 months old. We went to the Renaissance Faire in Fairburn, Georgia, and it was a hot day already. It was also crowded. My husband pushed the stroller over the Georgia red clay of the parking lot as well as the gravel and on in to the actual fair. Once we were in, I took over the stroller duty, and we looked in the different booths as we strolled.

My husband is 6’1”, and I’m 5’ 5.5” (yes, the .5 is important), so it’s easy to understand he’ll often outpace me without realizing it. I rounded a corner, still pushing the stroller, and a lady sitting in the front of a booth to my right called a guy’s name and pointed to the stroller.

I’ll take a time out and comment that it actually wasn’t unusual for folks to point at my daughter while we’re out. She had a large dose of my husband’s Nordic ancestry, and her big blue eyes and fair skin get her a lot of compliments. (She was still bald at 6 months, so her curly blonde hair would come later.)

So the lady pointing to the stroller didn’t really strike me as odd. After all, the Renn Faire folks are supposed to interact with the guests, and they’ll say all sorts of silly things in an effort to interact. Going back to the pointing lady in the booth, I looked over to whomever she called, and a guy working the strength test booth, the one with the mallet and the bell, started walking towards me. He was tall and not exactly fit. He had long, stringy black hair that went to his waist tied behind him in a low-set ponytail and a goatee. He was so tall that it only took a few strides to bring him even with me. As he stopped beside me, he put his pointer finger on the stroller and said, “Stop” somewhat haughtily.

My thought was something along the lines of Okay, not the most polite way to start a conversation, but I’ll play along. What’s funny is that the Renn Faire carnies are the thing my husband likes the least about the Renaissance Faire. I decided to play along in the spirit of the Renn Faire, so I stopped walking and called out to my husband who had accidentally outpaced us, although we were both so engrossed in the booths that we hadn’t noticed. He turned around, and the man with the ponytail beside me raised his arm and hand towards my husband and crooked his finger at him in the “come here” signal. Again, I’m thinking Not exactly polite.

I’ll take another time out to describe a peculiar trait of my husband’s appearance. He has a beard. Not a little, scruffy thing. No. It’s a nice, full, Bob Villa, Viking beard. I love it. And when he’s angry, he bites his bottom lip, making the part of his beard below his bottom lip stick out. I refer to it as his “mad flag.” And when it goes up, you need to back the hell down.

At the sight of this tall, ponytailed man condescendingly signaling him to come to him, I could see from my position several yards away a distant mad flag signaling a warning. In the spirit of Renn Faire, my husband simply replied, “No thank you.” Whew, he chose the path of politeness. We could go.

Nope.

The man beckoned again, and I looked up to my husband somewhat helplessly. Whatever Ponytail had to say had better be feckin’ hilarious, but it wasn’t off to a promising start. In the spirit of Renn Faire – my husband walked over. He didn’t even have time to stop when the guy uttered what would become a family saying for years.

“SHE carried the baby for nine months; the least YOU can do is push the stroller.”

How judgmental could you get? The implications in such a simple statement! In one comment, he’d managed to question both the role of father AND husband. This guy had no idea who we were as a family. For all he knew, my husband could have been suffering from some arthritis incurred from injuries he received from an IED from his days in the service. I could have been trying to get some resistance training in as part of my triathlon conditioning. This man only knew what he saw – me pushing a stroller. He, who probably had neither wife nor child, had decided to take it upon himself to be the Georgia Renaissance Faire Stroller Nazi, and we were a prime target. Except we weren’t. I was married to a Viking descendant. Oh. Shit. At that point, I knew the next move I had to make was in the best interest of everyone. All I could see was my husband’s future mug shot, a bail amount we didn’t possess, and a court date we didn’t have time for.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

I muttered, “Oh, he pushes. He does,” and I started walking, pushing that stroller as fast as I could without outright running. I passed my husband in a few steps, and his gait had definitely increased in vigor as he was approaching Ponytail, mad flag at full mast. I whispered as I passed him, “Let it go.” (Long before Frozen, mind you.) And I kept walking and didn’t look back. Somehow, I was hoping an invisible tether between myself, him, and our infant daughter would pull him along, and he would forsake sacking and pillaging Ponytail and his Test of Strength booth. After a few moments, when I didn’t hear the sound of bludgeoning, I turned around to see him following me, red faced and furious. Whew, it had worked. He hadn’t hit him with his own booth mallet.

Unfortunately, the Renn Faire is in a circle, and my husband’s hackles were definitely up as he spied him through the fair exit. I mentioned something about bail money, and we managed to leave the fair without physical altercation.

I’ll add the disclaimer that the vast majority of folks who work a Renn Faire are really stand up people and fun to be around. This experience reflects our episode with one D-bag.

One good thing that came out of the trip was my daughter discovering the joy of dill pickles.

Empty Bobbins: Mr. S’s Love

Mr. S’s Love

Years ago, my kids and I were walking around the curve in our previous neighborhood, which is mostly retired people, when I waved to two older gentlemen talking in a front yard. Their conversation ended as we passed, and one man, now referred to as Mr. S, walked over to say hello to us. We all said hello, and I pointed to our house. He said he remembered when we moved in that we didn’t have kids. I made a comment about no adult supervision, and then he asked if the kids liked candy.

Was it mean that I immediately thought he was going to offer us a Werther’s Original hard candy?

I mentioned we had enough Easter candy, but he seemed eager, so I finally capitulated and accepted his offer of some mints and chocolate covered raisins. And I do love some chocolate covered raisins. He invited us up to the house.

I’d noticed his house before. It was newer and looked very nice and quaint from the outside. It was certainly in a different league from my 1978 doodoo brown ranch house. He opened a side door into the kitchen, and we walked in. (I’ll add I wasn’t too worried about safety as Mr. S lived alone and was 86 years old. Pretty sure I could take him if need be.) Here’s where the moment became more than just candy and mints.

You see, Mr. S was a widower, a fact he shared with me as we entered the house. He said his wife had passed away about six years ago, and they had been married for 56 years. He said, “When you’ve been married for that long, you kinda get used to one another.” I know our younger family reminds our older neighbors of that period in their lives sometimes, so I smiled and figured that seeing me with my 3 year old and 1 year old reminded him of his own family. But later he informed me they had no children.

And then, he proceeded to show off the house. He said his wife had had it built, and that she had passed not long after it was finished. He commented, “She built me a house and then left me” more than once. He mentioned her constantly, too. At times, it even sounded like he was fussing at her for leaving him, but in a good-natured way.

I’ll admit it – the house was perfect. It was just what I would have designed for myself: wainscoting, high ceilings, large kitchen, sun porch, butler’s pantry – elegant but not pretentious. He showed us all around the bottom floor, and I couldn’t quite figure out why. I mean, yes, the house was gorgeous, but we’d come over for candy and mints. I hadn’t commented on the house much at all. Certainly not enough to warrant a tour.

As we walked, I saw pictures of his wife were everywhere. There were pictures of her when she was younger at the early part of their marriage all the way to gray haired dame. And yet, she still didn’t look “old” at the most recent picture I saw. The house looked very sophisticated and decorated, and I figured it hadn’t changed much since she’d gotten it set the way she wanted. And then it hit me as to why we were getting a tour.

Mr. S was proud of his wife. He was bragging on her, even six years after she’d died he was still beaming with pride. Every detail of the house was attributed her good taste and ability. I’d never met Mrs. S, but her presence was everywhere in that home. If I had walked in without Mr. S there to narrate, I’d have assumed she was still very much alive. The house just felt…complete. It didn’t feel like an 86 year old widower lived there. That house was just as much Mrs. S’s today as it was 6 years ago when it was finished in time for her to pass on.

I suppose it’s a good thing that Mr. and Mrs. S had gotten used to each other after all that time because it’s clear she isn’t leaving him any time soon.

Of course, this was several years ago. I have since learned of Mr. S’s own passing. And while it was sad to know that such a kindly old man wouldn’t be waving at us from his yard anymore or offering mints and chocolate covered raisins, I couldn’t help but smile a little because I knew he was finally back with Mrs. S.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: