A Colorful Thread: June 2020
Weaving together my life as a maker and other spheres of life.
Best of Stitched in Color {June}
On My Mind
Experimenting:: with two new schools for Elora. Our adorable 3 1/2 year old has been formally diagnosed with language delay.
I had been concerned about this from early days, because she was a quiet baby, who didn’t start babbling until 11 months and then continued upon a very slow language path. It wasn’t until she was 3 that she finally fell outside the “normal” categories and began speech therapy in The Netherlands.
Since she has made little progress at speaking (she understands everything we say), she can now start at a special language-learning preschool with extremely small child-to-teacher ratios and teachers especially trained for language development. Three and four-year-old children usually go to this special school for two mornings per week.
We’re also changing to a new “regular” preschool, again with smaller class size and a nurturing Waldorf philosophy/environment. Elora will begin at this preschool for the summer session and add in the language school early August. Our hope is that she will feel more comfortable experimenting with language in these new, more ideal environments.
Reading:: American Dirt by Jeanine Cummings. This novel chronicles a mother and son’s migration from Mexico to America fleeing cartel violence. I am only about a third of the way through, but it is certainly a page-turner. I find myself reflecting on the few similarities and many differences between her migration story and mine.
Following:: Chawne Kimber (@CauchyComplete). Chawne is a talented quilter with a penchant for miniature scrap piecing, though she is most well-know for her word quilts.
Yesterday I was grateful I watched an interview recorded this June with Chawne. Maybe you would like to hear here out, to encounter another perspective about life in America. Maybe you wouldn’t. This section of the blog post is about what is on my mind, after all.
Still Not, by Chawne Kimber
Please remember, when her quilts ignite strong feelings, that they come from the heart of a real person who uses her quilting hobby to process questions of identity and meaning. Her blog post about the below quilt begins with, “Every time I sit down to write about this quilt, I am paralyzed with fear, slowed down by obstacles, and overflowing with rage.” This is how she feels. For her, this is true.
Anticipating:: Well, not so much anticipating as bracing myself for the strong emotions that follow mentioning anything political about America. Time and time again I have dismissed ideas I had about what I might say/post in the midst of the ongoing racial tension in America. My motives are so often suspect. I’m trying to get it right. Sorry, in advance for my mistakes.
Standing with love for all people, but especially for those who live in fear for their lives and the safety of their loved ones in the United States.
xo,
Rachel