Living with Roger Swain

If ever there was a man I wanted to spend time with, it is Roger Swain. I love his humor, his passion for plants, his sense of adventure and just all around really nice, happy, joyful man. Now, thanks to Netflix, I can come close. People, Plants and Places, hosted by my dear Roger, has 46 episodes availble for viewing. I clicked “yes” to allowing Roger into my studio and 46 eipsodes now play one after the other.

I now go cheerfully through my house cleaning, sewing, working in the studio into the late hours to the sound of Rogers voice around me. He tells me about tulips, and gound covers and tree. He demonstrates that tools I dream of having, He landscapes yards I dream of owning. He takes me places I want to go.

….instead of being here.

Love

It isnt enough to love someone.To remember yourself in the relationship, you have to love not only them but what they bring to your life. You have to love who you become loving them. Love will change you, if the change that comes makes us ugly, then turn away from it and let it go away to someone else.

Love should cause you to bloom, cause you to become more beautiful, more fulfilled and capable of going beyond yourself. If you find yourself with less, find yourself with more sadness than joy, You need to turn away from this love, it isnt for you. Being free leaves you open for new discoveries. Be free and open and turn true to yourself and your own needs, never someone else.

Pattering

It’s January still. I await February and then March and most of all the first rainfall of the new year. I love the pattering on my rooftop , like thumbtapping of a happy hand, awaiting bliss inpatiently. I know it will come. I trust its presence in my life, every year, I smile when when I hear tapping so softly at first then with a celebratory pounding of its arrival back into my life. I smile and lay back in my bed, happy. It’s the turn in the year. For once the pattering has come on the roof, the flowers will come, the sun will be warmer and the smell of grass with fill the air during manly whirring sounds. The trees will no longer be silent but sing rustling tunes to the wind, as if soft whispered clapping and I can choose once again to be in light or shadow, every day with grass beneath my feet.

Keep warm for winter and listen for the coming of pattering.
~Susannah

Some People

We go through each day passing by person after person. Some say Hi, some don’t . Some become a friend or not and pull away, or stay only to later drift away after years of comforting our heart. Some people land in our lives and bring an immediate irritation to our day and we try to quietly step past them.

But some people are stumbled upon by accident and we take a look only to see what slowed our step and out of curiosity we take a longer look and discover a value that we decide to look upon further. Sometimes these people shine and brighter our lives. Sometimes they bring light so bright that we will never be the same, we become illuminated in a way that we never knew we could become. Sometimes their patience and nurturing allows us to bloom and become beautiful in a way we never knew was possible.

It always seems that these are the quiet people…they sit quietly waiting for a wandering soul to pass by so they may as quietly shine and nurture them before moving on to another lucky soul.

I love my mentors as they gave me light in a darkened world…and showed me where to find the sun.

Other people’s Art

You never appreciate someone else’s art until you try it yourself. That is what graphic arts is for me. I have no idea what I am doing in the world of graphic art. It looks easy. It is not until you try to create what you want that you realize what an incorrect conclusion that one was! Thank goodness for google and its unlimited supply of information and learning tools.Google, I would not have a business without you…. ok I might….. but it would totally lack advertising and hangtags.

~Susannah

I was Ballerina Once

I was a ballerina once, long, long ago. The sky was either blue or rain, the ground was green or snow. I was a ballerina once, with hair down past my knees, silky soft and curly too, at least I felt it so. I was a ballerina once, in the pinkest shoes I knew, I also wore my Mickey socks as well with the cutest bow. I was a ballerina once and the crowd cheered loud and long, while they sat in all our dining chairs, lined neatly in a row. I was a ballerina once my tutu couldnt be found, so I used my silky dressy slip and was so pretty just the same. I was a ballerina once, even though my brother laughed. I spun and bowed and walked tippy toe, so proud of what I was. I was a ballerina once when the sky was bluest blue, I was a ballerina once when when all my dreams were new. I was a ballerina once, that once so long ago, I miss that little piece of me, that never got to grow.
~ written by Susannah Allen

Crookedness

What is wrong with being crooked?. …..Why do lines need to be so straight? Roads are never straight, they meander along the rivers and homes that lay upon the ground. The road simply travels amongst what lays. Straight lines are not a product of nature, rivers, streams, and the earth itself is round. Plants never grow in straight lines, they pop up wherever they want. Even the earth takes its toll on what we build, time and age are the natural processes that remove our linear lines and create graceful curves in the roofs of the homes we build, gentle dips appear in floors as they age, and yet we remain attracted to straightness, control and linear appearances in everything.Why must I make my life so linear?

Quilting is linear and precise but I like my quilting crooked….or at least straight lines lain in crooked directions.Lines that head to who knows where , meeting up with other lines ..or not.
How many times I have headed out and changed my direction, like Robert, I headed where I saw no steps…and when of the mind, I took a turn …or two…. and found myself here. Each arbitrary turn or change brings us to a new place, passing those who follow their own paths into their own unknown.
Where willl tomorrow take me? What lies beyond the very next bend? Maybe something extrordinary, maybe something boring, maybe something more painful than I have known before. If I am afraid I can always stop and sit awhile in this place in which I find myself for now, for knowing it makes me feel safe….and once I have rested here, my fear may subside and once again I will rise and take steps in a new direction and become the person those turns create. I may embrace who I become or find myself in grief for who I use to be.

Colors in my Yard

Summertime brings a quilters palette to what was once a blanket of snow,so crisp and white,cold and quiet,now summer brings the squeaks and twits of busy birds, a ground so green, so dewy and warm under my barefeet. Summer creeps in its bed of green and bits of laughter pop out its head in colors under the sun. Pinks and purples, blues and yellows giggle in the warm air until the grass turns brown and cold again.


Thank you for visiting
~Susannah

 

Sadness

It is a truth that some people live lives that are very sad.No reason really as to why they are singled out amongst the rest of us. They just are.They seem to have things that we value but you will find that they worked 4 times as hard to have what we have.They seem to be void of friends and relatives that take interest in them. Why? There never seems to be a reason. People they know die sooner, move away regretfully or fall away from them by circumstances. No matter, the sad people end up alone within their walls that required more effort to end up in the same place as the rest of us.

Life just seems to miss some people. Life seems to land on others, even robustly on some. The sad people seem to have missed it all. They are somehow passed by.Sadness is a state of mind that waits for release, waiting for the cloak of joy they hope is to come, they hope will make all this worthwhile. It typically doesn’t.They typically pass away in silence in some forgotten corner alone, as they breath their last breath in the solitude they have come to know, that has come to embrace them, that has come to be their comfort by way of nothing else to fill the void. Sadly, joy does not find us all. Love does not come to all who wait. Sadly, sadness is the friend to many simply because it was all they found in the world.

Winter Passing



When winter slithers in during late Autumn, I relish its arrival. Its sends me fast into the house to rest my gardener’s weariness. Shovels and hoes are cleaned and set aside for the new year. I set myself inside a fire-warmed house and dream of next years seedlings. I welcome the rest from the ever-calling landscape that surrounds my house.
But winter has rested outside my window for far too long. I am quite rested now and grow weary of this lifeless house. I grow weary of the whiteness that blankets my northern landscape. My heart longs for green buds and the sound of the birds that I know will wake me with the sun. I peer out the window’s sashes that enprison me inside. I watch the snowfall melt away and a picnic table appears on my lawn, once hidden in the snow, I see even its legs. Soon, even the tables feet will appear and soon after that I will see dark yellow straw-like grass, still sleeping its winter nap. But I know the secret. After the snow melts and shows the yellow grass so still, the sun of spring will come and waken it again to green. …and then out the door I go and back into the garden.