Crumbs: An Introduction

All our words are but crumbs

that fall down from the feast of the mind.

Khalil Gibran

CRUMBS: Plural noun: small fragments or scraps of a larger whole

This project began with a New Year’s Resolution.

Last January, as I looked back on how I had spent my time in 2015, I realized that I had allowed work to dominate my thoughts way too much. I love my work and much of it involves creative problem-solving, so ideas have a way of overflowing into off-duty hours. However, I was paying a price for the non-stop cognitive churning. I was pushing my brain so hard that on Friday nights it would slam into a wall and the only thing I could concentrate on was wine, cheese, and BBC costume dramas. Not that that’s a bad thing. But I longed for some “down time” that was more soul-nurturing. In the dark of winter, when puttering in the garden was not an option, it made sense to turn to art. The art supplies nearest to hand for me are fabric and words. So I made two resolutions.

Resolution #1 was to engage in the mindful meditation of sewing by hand, which had a corollary aim of trying to use up some of the many cotton scraps I have saved from past quilting projects. Without worrying about a larger color scheme or pattern design for a quilt, I started sewing tiny pieces together. It’s called “crumb quilting” because you sew together even the tiniest usable pieces of fabric. The photo above is of a “crumb quilt” rectangle that will eventually go into a full-sized quilt.

Resolution #2 was to read more poetry and to write about it. I find inspiration and solace in the magic of poetic language. The idea of responding to the power of well-chosen words about Big Ideas by ruminating and reflecting on them in my own writing was appealing. I committed to a process goal of choosing several poems and writing about the themes that came to mind in connection with each poem. After collecting a treasure trove of amazing poems, I began to feel paralyzed by the choice of where to start. To get going, I decided to limit myself to short works by female poets.

To be clear: I have been writing for my sanity, not for publication. (This is my excuse for violating copyright on poems and failing to document sources of biographical data about poets.) Making time to pause and reflect was the overall goal; creating proof of that accomplishment in fabric and words was just a way to hold myself accountable to greater life balance.

I never planned to share any of this. However, as the year 2016 comes to a close, I have come to realize that I owe thanks to those who unknowingly sustained me in the effort of sticking with this resolution. You who are receiving a link to this blog have been in my thoughts during my hours of meaningful solitude this year and the thought of you has, in some way, inspired me to push on when I felt embarrassed by what I was writing and wanted to quit. This final product does not reflect the quality I aspire to, but I am glad to have made the effort.

Please accept these crumbs with my deepest thanks for your love and friendship.