A difficult day…

I set my alarm clock every morning to wake up to NPR on WNYC public radio, NY.  I listen to a gentle familiar voice, telling me what’s happened and what to expect from the day.  I expected this morning to hear of all the havoc wreaked by the nearly 5″ of rain that fell on northern NJ when the rivers had already crested earlier in the week.  I expected to hear all the routes that were closed, nearly 60% of my town is in the flood zone and expected to be under water.  Our house is on the dry side of the hill, but major routes out of town would be closed.  I wondered how my son would get to work.  I didn’t expect to hear the morning news recounting an 8.9 magnitude earthquake that hit northern Japan and subsequent 30 foot tsunami and the Pacific locations that were bracing for their own tsunami’s like Hawaii, and the Pacific coast of the US.

I realized I had to get up, and was now running late, my daughter had to get to school, fortunately the High School is in the opposite direction of the flood.  There wasn’t much coverage on the news, in reality, our underwater town is a minor inconvenience compared to being swept away by a tsunami.  Eventually with some internet checking, I was able to get a handle on what routes were closed and what areas flooded.  It isn’t good news.  My son texted me from work, to let me know that the basement had taken water.  He lives down there.  He is 21.  The organizational parts of his brain don’t function.  He lives in a dump.  His dump was now wet.  Crap…

More news, protests in Riyadh  Saudi Arabia.  My husband is in Riyadh.  I haven’t heard from him since early this morning.  Though he usually hikes in the desert over the weekend, Thursday and Friday are “the weekend” in Saudi.  He is due to fly home on Monday.  I’ll feel better when I hear from him tomorrow.

Around lunch time I did another check of closed and flooded areas of town, and did a quick surf of Facebook, to find information from friends about who was displaced and evacuated.  I did not expect to see a post from a tapestry weaver talking about the death of one of the most respected tapestry weavers in the country, my friend James Koehler, always quick with a big hug whenever I’d see him at a conference.  He died suddenly last week, at 58.  I am 55.  This really hits home.  He was a brilliant weaver, his academic approach to color and design was spot on, and I had the pleasure of taking a seminar from him a couple of years ago,  on Sacred Geometry/Divine Proportion in Nature.  I’m really sad today.  It is a tremendous loss when we lose one of our own.  I took these photos in his studio when I visited him last summer in Santa Fe on a tour with Convergence.  I don’t know how he died, just that it was unexpected.  He was at the top of his game.  What a great loss.

There were a couple of bright spots today, and I’m holding on to them.  The sun came out.  And it was nearly 60 degrees.  I think I asked for that in my last post.  I didn’t expect nearly 5″ of rain to fall in the interim.  I need to be more specific when I put in a weather request.

My Amaryllis bloomed.  My husband ordered and presented me with this amaryllis before he returned to Saudi last month.  I watched it slowly grow from a stump in the pot to this.

And I did make tremendous progress in the commission I’ve been putting off, probably because the only way to get through today was to just stand in front of the loom and weave.  I started it yesterday, wove about three inches, and decided I didn’t like the proportions and took out the entire thing, reprinted the bottom of the three panels of silk that made up the image, dealt with running out of ink in the printer and a splatter of ink jet ink over the panel as the cartridge gave one last gasp.  Yesterday wasn’t a great day either.

But I managed to get the panel reprinted, and the first three inches rewoven before I went to bed last night, and today I wove more than half the commission.  My sister’s father in law asked if I would weave this piece for him, of his three children, he handed me a ratty faded crinkled wallet photo he carried around with him for more than 40 years.  It was healing to focus on innocent children in another era, it helped me get through the difficult day.

I’m off to put another load of wet clothing into the washer, the mound reached the top of the washing machine, I have many more loads to go.  At least I am in my house, many of my friends are not.  And in Japan, many don’t have houses to return to at all.  And in a studio in Santa Fe, the looms are silent and a great man and his work are no more.  He leaves a legacy behind and it was a privilege to know him.