I am sitting in one of my favorite coffee shops in Northampton situated about a block from where I live. Up until about a month ago there was a fabric store next to it that was very dear to my heart. I can still remember the spring day that I went in and as I was paying for my finds the lady at the counter mentioned that they might soon be looking for part-time help. At the time I was busy finishing up a year of teaching, but thought that maybe in the summer this might be ideal. I remember how this idea metamorphosed in my head on my short walk home and how perfect the idea sounded by the time I reached my front door.
At the time I was working a very hectic full-time teaching job consisting in Latin, English, Child Development, and typing. Was certified in only one of these subjects, and had only a year to complete pass one of the most difficult MTELs I had every experienced. Needless to say, it became apparently more obvious that I needed a job for the summer. My only stipulation was that I go home to visit my family for two weeks whom I only get to see twice yearly. This turned out to be grounds for concern for me being a dependable worker at Valley Fabrics. A New England school year already goes until June 20th and to add two weeks onto this was half the summer gone by, but gradually this was conceded as I agreed to work some of evening shifts during the school year and one Saturday per month. I was in!
And so my love affair with fabric was increased and refined. To say that I didn’t already have one going on would be a blatant lie, but to say that it didn’t rise to a new level, that my taste in fabric didn’t become more refined, that I didn’t learn and grow to love name brands in fabric, or feel the difference in the quality of the cotton, or acquire a more discerning eye regarding reproduction fabric, or learn by osmosis how certain techniques were done, or sign up for as many straight out technique classes where I learned how to quilt would be further from the truth.
I enjoyed every minute of being in that shop! Being a highly visual person who adores pattern and color, there was always something new to contemplate whether it be new fabric, a new quilt or quilt block, or, when there was a little extra time, from one of the quilt books on the shelf. I found that the more time I spent with the fabric, the broader my appreciation grew. Folding fat quarters or cutting fabric for someone that I hadn’t really considered before would make me reconsider. If I could sum up the essence of the shop in one word it would be “bright”, and bright was something that I learned to appreciate more and more. There was something so happy in the quilts that incorporated some bright fabric that I could never bring myself to condemn. Polka dots and stripes took on a versatile role and batik and Asian fabric were microcosms of their own. I was the most smitten, or course, by the medium colors--some would say pastels—that have always been my favorite. I am also a great aesthete of 1930s style quilts with their bright and varied patterns on solid backgrounds of white or yellow or green. We would periodically get in a selection of these charmers and I would eat them up. The Civil War era fabrics were also interesting, far more geometric and funky than one would suppose, but overall too bland to be very tempting. Although, it must be said, these were thought to be my favorite by the owner of the shop the entire time I worked there.
A world of fabric: a world of fun. I even enjoyed (with few exceptions) interacting with the more demanding customers either of the “tell me what I like” or “tres indecisive” variety. It was enjoyable to me to discover how everyone fit so differently into this fabric universe where the walls were bolts, and the decorations were quilts and the eye candy at the register were fat quarters and six packs and little pins made of felt. It was a world of ideas, where the only thing stopping you from completing your project was finding the right fabric for it. It was a world that existed outside of time, and, although concessions could be made to the element of time within the shop, but they weren’t truly believed until one was thoroughly outside and on the sidewalk again. It was primarily a woman’s world where plastic bags were refused on the grounds of husbands, “If I just slip this fabric in here (pointing to a purse or a plastic fabric carrying device) my husband won’t have to know,” I heard many times and from many different women.
My own ideas for my still hypothetical business flourished here. And with my employee’s 30% discount the fabric quickly followed the thought. It was a common joke among the employees (all fabric-minded women) that it was hard to earn actual money that didn’t go directly back to the shop through purchased fabric. This was definitely true for me, but I didn’t really mind. I guess I must have had enough saved up from the year to pay my rent and utilities and I looked at the fabric job as an investment. It’s not that I haven’t acted on my impulse, either. I have preshrunk and cut and calculated so many cuts of fabric in the past year and labeled it and put it into separate little zip-lock baggies ready for sewing that I feel about half way there. I have also acquired some quilting skills that I previously lacked which will be essential for my business, and formed a friendship with a lady who will answer my questions for me if I get stuck. Valley Fabrics is gone now having fallen on hard financial times and I am greatly saddened, but the way it came into my life and filled the void between desire and ability in terms of quilting, business, and design skills was indisputably fortuitous. The time for purchasing and planning is over and the time for sewing and selling has come. I do not need to be tempted by more ideas, but ought now to go for my dreams. Thank you, Valley Fabrics, thank you and adieu.
When asked by my room mate today how she could use fewer paper towels, I jumped at the chance to enlighten her. I suppose this was owing to all the pent up emotion I have from the times I have found her drying the dishes with paper towels and other like sins. I have seen her wash her hands and tear off a paper towel to dry them without a thought for the calculated cost divided by three of us room mates paying for them. I have seen her likewise rip off a piece of paper towel to clean a smudge of residue from the countertop when the dish rag was right in front of her, waiting to be used. In short, I have suffered greatly.
As a teacher in a small school I deal with some of the students knowing a little too much about me. One day I made the mistake of answering my student's question of "What kind of car do you drive?" and I live with the ramifications every school day. For some reason, these two students take endless fun out of threatening me about my car, "Ms. L., how was your car yesterday afternoon? Did you notice anything unusual?" they will ask, "No, well we'll hire somebody else next time, Bob's not working for us." Or "I noticed you didn't park in the usual spot today, you think you can hide from us?" They've even said, "Ms. L., do you know how many people are planning on doing something to your car the last day of school? I suggest that you park far away and walk to school." Is it any wonder, then, that I am a bit paranoid lest they mean some of what they say or that saying it so often will make them bold enough to actually do something someday? What their motivation is for this, I scarcely know. Their manner and conduct makes me think that it is as much a tendency for bullying as crushing on me, and their work and relationship to my class is generally negative with either boredom or pointlessness ruling their opinion of the class and me.
"Never a dull moment" they say in regard to teaching, and today I would really have to agree. It all happened in my D period class--my class full of characters. They were all just starting to settle into their seats when one of my students called out, "Ms. L, do you have a band aid?" "Yes," I replied, "give me a minute and I'll get you one." Now, I hear this all the time. "Can I have a band aid?" for this and for that. One of my students currently has two tiny band aids, one above and one below his eye where a girl punched him and they stand out quite distinctly on his black skin. Ninth-graders have barely outgrown that stage where they would ask for a band aid for a sliver which I remember from when my sister was young. Needless to say, I was not in a rush to get this girl one. A minute later, I went over to her with the First Aide kit and asked her what size she needed. That's when I noticed that there was an awful lot of blood on her finger, and it kept coming. At this point, the student sitting next to her started opening some alchohol wipes and several of my students went next door to get some tissues. Somehow, she managed to stop the bleeding enough to get the some band aids on her cut. At this point, I had blood on my hand, too, and availed myself of the wipe.
I would do almost anything for a snow day; I wouldn't sell my soul, but, that's about the only thing I wouldn't do. To enjoy the luxury of sleeping in until 6:30--7:00 if I want to, taking a leisurely shower, trudging through 8 inches of snow into town to get my car. I wouldn't care if the snow was 4' deep and it took me hours to unbury it from the snow, it would still be worth it.
There we were at a nice Mexican restaurant in Worcester: Karl, Anne, myself, and Quintus Horatius Flaccus. I guess you could say that Horace was the most unwelcome of the diners, at least to me, because he's so dang hard to translate, but there he was, and he was the reason for the gathering after all.
Monday was a good day. I mean the whole having to wake up at 5:15 after a week off and having to really leave the house by 6:00 to walk to the lot since Northampton called a "snow emergency" for a flurry of snow and having to teach again and actually grade those quizzes and all that. Surprisingly, the teaching day even went pretty well on account it would seem of the students being even more sleepy than I was, but the real interest of the day came at the
Ahhh, the question I like to hear so much that, even though it was the middle of Latin class, I took the bait and answered. "It's only my favorite book in the whole wide world." I believe is what I replied. "Really? I just finished
It is amazing how those words have been resounding in my ears. Maybe it was the African accent, maybe it was the fact that it came from a student whom I really like. But I don't know, it seems to come down to the fact that we frail, unconfident, human beings are simply needy for love and admiration. Is there one among us who can boast of not needing this? Is there a one among us who is so detached and self-sufficient that a compliment or kind word rolls off our back like an unnoticed drop of rain? I think I could answer for us all a resounding no. And so, while I think I may be a little shy in interacting with my student for a day or two, I ponder what compliments I left unsaid, especially to the troop of acceptance-seeking teenagers in my charge. What is it that I need to say that would resound in their ears. . .
It is the Eve of Februar'; the midnight chime draws nigh,
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