Storytorch

My day-to-day mood has improved significantly since I visited my hairdresser last week for more than a trim.

The idea to try a longer style grew out of my extended stay last fall in Rochester, Minnesota, when my daughter Mary was in Mayo Clinic hospitals for many weeks. Having visited the same stylist exclusively for, oh, thirty years, fear of the unknown combined with loyalty kept me from stepping into any of the salons in the underground maze of shops and services in downtown Rochester.

During those low-humidity, late-fall days, my natural curl was absent. "I look like Jay Leno!" I would exclaim to Mary and her husband Steve. "No you don't!" they responded. "Your hair looks good!" Did it? I wasn't sure.

Once home in Winterset, a care package for Mary from my daughter Rebecca included fuzzy slippers, comforting tea, activity books, and "The Devil Wears Prada" on DVD. Meryl Streep's chic, platinum grey, slightly bouffant do would be perfect for me! I printed some still photos I found online, took them to my hairdresser, and transition was under way.

As winter turned to spring, Leah and I addressed my hair issues every six weeks or so. We tried to like my longer locks. During TV taping in April, Peg the makeup artist did her best to make it work.

Maybe I will be more ready for a dramatic upsweep of bang when I'm on the eve of my 70th, rather than my 60th, birthday. Maybe Aveda will develop a product that controls longer curliness better than the four or five I've purchased over the past few months. Maybe my face is just too small for larger hair.

For now, the woman looking back at me in the mirror appears happier.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will remember you are no movie star.

Over the past couple of days I quilted a full size top I made many years ago. I loaded it in the longarm machine Sunday afternoon, and, to my own amazement, took the last stitch about 9:30 Monday night. Once bound, the quilt will go to an Iowa couple who made a generous donation to Iowa Public Television during this year's IPTV Festival.

The simple Double Nine Patch was in my short stack of complete but unquilted projects. Just about every top I have finished over the years has gone immediately to a professional quilter because of some looming publication deadline. In my semi-retirement, I have happily gained respectable machine quilting skills. Making quilts entirely myself is delightful.

My now-quilted Double Nine Patch was produced during a series of two-hour lecture demonstrations I did on the East Coast about 15 years ago. For reasons important at the time, I spent three separate weeks making presentations in a regional chain of fabric stores, promoting a group of 1890s-style prints and the just-published Quilter's Complete Guide.

The daily schedule (11–1 in one location, 5–7 in another, with hours of driving between) involved missing both lunch and dinner every day for a week. What kept me going was turning out at least one Nine Patch block per day (while talking), meeting some nice quilters, and winding up with a beautiful quilt top in the end.

Each time I longarm quilt a quilt, I get going at a snail's pace. I'm slow at loading the machine, and the first row of stitching seems to take forever.

Soon, though, I get in the groove. The hum of the needle becomes music. I reach the center row and realize I'm starting to finish! I see that a project I began weeks, months, maybe years ago is about to be transformed into an actual quilt. For my Double Nine Patch, the start and finish dates actually span the turn of a century.

Happily, I've kept back a half yard of the navy blue moon-and-stars fabric all these years, so the binding will match.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will be satisfied with your work.

My yoga teacher recently offered a special Friday evening of Yin Yoga with live musical accompaniment. For Yin, poses are held longer to stretch the body's deep connective tissues.

As I walked to the event, mat bag slung over my shoulder, I was apprehensive. The drumming, singing, and other music a fellow student who is also a professional musician was going to provide would be interesting, but I thought the long-held poses might be challenging, maybe painful.

Tia had the hall nicely lit with candles, and Kit was set up in a niche to the side of the room, surrounded by her keyboard, drums, chimes, flutes, and other instruments. I rolled out my mat among the other students, curious and tentative.

To my surprise, I moved from pose to pose easily. My breathing capacity has recently increased, so I enjoyed lengthening my inhales and exhales in each of the asanas Tia chose. All the while, Kit's beautiful voice filled the room. She hummed, drummed, sang, and chanted, right here in Winterset, Iowa, pop. 5000.

I lay on my back during relaxation, feeling satisfied and reflective. Having practiced yoga every day that week, my flexibility was not, after all, surprising. My thoughts turned to the quilt under construction in my sewing room, a project on which I had not taken a single stitch in many days.

I remembered how long it takes to finish a quilt when you're not working on it and made a mental note to return to my patchwork soon (as soon as I find one more red print). In the same way, I thought, physical well-being is impossible unless you do something to gain it.

Eyes closed and mind drifting, I imagined the fabrics of India.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will work on balance.

On Friday I drove to the Winterset cemetery to place pots of petunias on the graves of my parents, my grandparents, and my aunt. Recent thunder showers had washed the granite and marble, so I didn't need the spray cleaner and paper towels I took along.

Rows of Memorial Day flags were already in place. The veterans install the bright banners, spacing the poles evenly along both sides of lovely, curving drives. White plaques at the bases of the flag poles display names of local men and women and the years each served in the armed forces.

Yesterday, I went back to the cemetery on foot. I cut irises and lilacs from the yard, put them in a coffee can of water, and walked the mile or so this time, making my annual visit to the place that marks the mortal remains of a young man.

Jeremy was my oldest daughter's boon companion, a friend of our family from his high school years until the accident that ended his life at 25. Our home was headquarters for the adult friends Hannah gathered from Iowa City and beyond for the funeral.

I always feel inadequate on my pilgrimage. I loved Jeremy, but I was only on the periphery of the fun times the kids had. I was not his mother, his brother, his girlfriend, or his housemate. Each May since 1999, I visit his gravesite to stand in for those who might go if they weren't far away.

At the cemetery, hundreds of flags were snapping in the breeze as I added my bouquet to others already there.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will remember loved ones who are gone.

One evening a week or so ago, in need of an emergency ingredient,* I dashed to our little town's single grocery store. A friend's son was about to celebrate his 31st birthday, and I had promised to whip up some homemade ice cream for the party. Off I went while our electric freezer churned away.

My block-and-a-half walk took me through the town square, and I stepped into the vestibule of my bank on the northwest corner to get cash from the ATM. While my request was processing, I took a look at a receipt dropped on the floor by a previous customer. A withdrawal of $30 had left a balance of $128. Wow, I thought, remembering early marriage.

Money in hand, I continued to the store, noticing freshly-painted lettering on the door of the shop across the street:

BETSY'S PLACE
GIFTS
PARTY SUPPLIES
CUSTOM SANDBLASTING

Yep, I thought, the time is definitely right for creative entrepreneurship.

Earlier in the day, when I walked west down Jefferson on my usual loop, I passed the historic Henry Wallace home, still with the For Sale sign in the yard. Weeds are out-competing flowers in the once-beautiful perennial garden. The lawn of the handsome home, on the market now for over a year, is mowed but seedy.

Henry Wallace, who lived on that corner in the 1870s, was founder of the magazine Wallace's Farmer. His son, Henry Cantwell Wallace, was US Secretary of Agriculture (1921-1924). His grandson, Henry Agard Wallace, was also Secretary of Agriculture (1933-1940) and 33rd Vice President of the United States (1941–1945). The property has changed hands many times over the years, and has been on the National Historic Register as long as I can remember.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will think about the economy every single day.

*If you fold a container of Cool Whip into a batch of homemade ice cream after churning, the ice cream can be stored in the freezer section of your fridge and not get too hard to dip the next day. Use an electric mixer to incorporate the Cool Whip thoroughly. (The flavor of the ice cream will not be affected.)