going south

Can you see that drip on the window? Rain drops. Some southern temperature is reaching up north here to New Hampshire.

As a child, I grew up in Virginia. I loved the South. Every summer, my mother (from Boston) would take the family up North. When I spoke to an adult, I had to learn to drop the “Yes, Ma’am” and “Yes, Sir”, mandatory in the South and considered almost rude in the North, and … come the end of summer, be sure to plug those manners back in again when I headed back down South.

“Going south” for me was going home. Rain, not snow was what happened often at home in winter. But I always wanted snow.

Now, I’m getting a little Virginia rain in the middle of a northern winter.

In my art, a LOT of time is spent in the set-up: at least 2 days prepping the cloth, several more dyeing for exactitude of color, then many hours of sewing for construction of the piece before it is hung. It can feel slow and tedious. It’s southern in it’s slowness. The tedious is my attitude. How to find a way to accept this part; how to just say the “Yes Ma’am”?

Rain, even up north ….