What are we underneath it all?

Loyal?  Certain?  Happy?  Known?  Maybe... mostly... here?

Yesterday I sat in the sunshine with my husband and some friends who have walked with us through it all.  We tossed around jokes, sorrows, existential brick walls, questions about gardens, goats, guilt, the works.  The conversation twisted and turned in unpredictable ways while kids wove around us chomping on carrots or offering kernels of popcorn from sweet, sweaty little hands.

While we chattered I watched my friend's man deconstruct a skateboard with a confidence that surprised me.  He took it apart.  He stripped it down.  And quietly, simply he made it new.  He knew exactly what a skateboard was underneath it all and how it should work and what it should be.

I didn't say so then, but his work reminded me of quilt-making.  Most people take a quilt for granted.  They don't know what it is inside, what steps it takes to make one, that it's just three layers bound together - nothing more, nothing less.

I made this backing for my Doodle Doodle improv quilt from leftover solid scraps I'd saved in a basket from the making of the quilt top.  Little random bits that sew together to make decent blocks, that combined with orphan blocks become eventually a large swath of colorful cloth.  And soon a backing.  And soon a finished quilt.  It'll be something that delights and amazes and blesses someone.

But underneath it all, it's just bits of fabric cut up and sewn together.  So simple, underneath it all.