Again, lulled back into the comforting rhythm of kantha. Into the near hypnotic motion of running stitch. Waves across the surface of cloth.
Much is held here in this cloth. Memories. Snippets and scraps. Like the oddly arranged, seemingly incongruent events of my life– held to the light. To be examined. Revered. Treasured.
Memory–like kantha– weaving the ground, holding the story, supporting the whole.
We’re painting our living room. And it really is THAT. The room we live in. Read in. Work in. Talk in. Be in. Sometimes eat in. And the color just started feeling all wrong for me. In the pictures, before might look better than after. 
But pictures can be really deceiving. The original color was too much like–something unpleasant. Couldn’t put my finger on it–was there too much brown in the tint? I don’t know. But the color was life less. We’re painting with “crisp linen.” And just now, typing that name, i’m getting it for the first time. Linen. My maybe most favorite fabric. On the wall, it has life. Light. Energy. Spirit? Yes.
The man was not at all happy about the idea of painting. 
But yesterday, claimed he loves the energy (my word) of the new color, amazed at how awful it made the original color appear, and would still be blind to its “awfulness” if I had not become a maniac(my word) about getting rid of it.
So even though we thought we could paint w/o disrupting any thing (ha)–as in just move things on each wall a bit, paint and then move them back–not wanting to create chaos/havoc/disorder–that was impossible. Every thing had to be moved.
We have some furniture. Yes. A couch. Two sitting chairs. A wooden cupboard thing for hanging coats since there are only 3 tiny closets in this house. A desk. An antique washstand and an antique sideboard stuffed full of–yes–old tablecloths and linens. Oh yeah–we have a handmade table and two benches. That’s about it for furniture. But our “things.” We’re overflowing with an abundance of “things.”
I’ve moved a lot. I’ve moved these “things” a lot. I look at some objects and marvel at their fragility–that they’ve survived so many moves unscathed. And I wonder why I’ve held onto these items. Rocks and pieces and parts of things. Why? I really started thinking about that. How is it possible? That an inanimate object can possess so MUCH? Can HOLD so MUCH? Can be repositories of life, memory? Place holders?
Grace at windthread has been talking about altars. What they mean to her. And I’ve been thinking about that. Not altars in the usual religous sense, but altars as, perhaps, place holders. Reminders of . . . whatever it is that is being held. And this will vary with the object and with the one being reminded. But I’m realizing right now, that this is what my things are. Altars. To life. To love. To what is of essential value to me. And I keep these things around me because of a need–and a desire– to acknowledge. To honor. And to remember.
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