I've never been privileged to witness someone operating a weaving loom but I've seen the end product and tapestries are amazing. The intricacies of the design, the variations in colors and shades, how they can start with one simple strand and piece by piece create a breath-taking scene is amazing to me.
My first strand was put in place 45 years ago. I was 5 of 7 in a Japanese-French American family. My parent's love story is a sweet one and I will be happy to share that with you some day. I came along at the end of my Dad's Air Force career so I cannot be called an Air Force brat because we only moved five times and the final move happened when I was in second grade landing our family in what was at the time a tiny suburb of Denver, Colorado. During my teen years Aurora was always jokingly referred to as Kansas but in the years to come I would find that there was still a lot of Colorado between Aurora and the Kansas border!
My childhood memories were woven in my highly imaginative world of make-believe. I was always acting out my favorite episode of "Little House on the Prairie" and as much as I wanted to play Mary, I always got stuck in the role of Half-Pint, Laura Ingalls, first because I was short, secondly because I had freckles. My hair was never long enough to braid though. For some reason my mom always thought I looked best with short pixie cuts. The closest I came to long hair was my junior high bi-level - don't know if any of you remember those but the front past the ears was more of a pixie and the back was long. You could liken it to a mullet but I would never claim to have had one of those. lol.
Elementary through Junior High were spent at a plaid skirt wearing Catholic School. Friends came and went there and when we were off to High School everyone was split up and I had to start all over again. I wasn't the most out-going girl during those days. Being shy and quiet, short and pretty much invisible made it easy for me to just sit back and observe all the drama and avoid being in the streamline of those daily activities. It wasn't until my 8th grade year that I started to pull out of that, finding myself part of the "popular" crowd on the cheer squad. Of course I was always out front and never the flyer because I was too short. Although the flyer was shorter than me, she was a gymnast which ranked her higher than my inexperienced self. Watching her fall a few times cured me of any thoughts of jealousy that may have clouded my thinking. Amazingly enough my "first kiss" happened my 8th grade year with the one and only short guy left in the class (at the time that is). We could almost see eye to eye so it wasn't too intimidating but that peck on the lips left me red faced and giddy for a good week. I saw him a year later and he'd had a growth spurt that put him on the starting string of the basketball team his sophomore year.
High School was for the most part anti-climactic. I was part of a class of about 36 females at the all-girl Catholic High School I was forced to attend. I say forced because I sincerely desired to attend the public school just a couple miles from our house. There they had a ton of students, it was easy to "blend in" but they also had the most amazing drama department and music department I'd ever seen. My hearts desire was to be part of their productions but it was not to be. I loved to sing. Had been playing piano since third grade and played for various talent shows and events. By Sophomore year I quite taking lessons because I was sight reading extremely well and playing advanced piano so we figured I could just keep playing for my personal enjoyment. At school I accompanied sometimes, but most of the time I was the lead soprano. I was reputed to have the voice of an angel. Freshman year I was one of three freshmen that made it into the musical revue. It was so much fun! Sophomore year was a hard year. Some health issues started, a very cruel man came into our music department and did his best to run me off. If it wasn't for my very brave older sister I probably would have quit sooner. She watched out for me though, we were both in glee club at the time and he picked on me incessantly. One day she told him off. I was in awe of her bravery but meekly turned in my drop slip and left the music department afraid I would never again be able to perform. But my junior and senior years were blessed with the arrival of Miss Jolene Black. Someone who believed in me and encouraged me. She trained me vocally and had me compete on several different levels and finding myself coming out on top! Those days were filled with incredibly bright blue strands (the colors of the ribbons on the medals!) I was invincible. Everything I competed for I won. I auditioned for a play at the all-guys school down the street and was one of 8 chosen to be in it. But being on stage frightened me. It wasn't the singing that was the issue, it was the acting. I could live in my imaginary world but there was nothing imaginary about standing on a stage and "acting" like someone else and having to recite memorized lines. Every night up until performance I would have a nightmare about going on stage and forgetting my lines. Fortunately it never happened. I never connected with the other actors. For some reason I wasn't allowed to go to the weekend retreat where they all got to know each other - it may have been a vocal competition that kept me away - whatever it was, they all came back very close and buddy-buddy and I was left standing in the wings. Aside from my friendship with the lighting guy, I was pretty much left alone.
It was the lighting guy that ended up being my first "love". I put parenthesis because I believe it was more infatuation and eventually lust that drove the relationship. We were never right for one another but somehow we were drawn to each other. In the end we married because of the responsibility of the child I was carrying. The marriage lasted just over a year. The breaking point came when the burden of being provider and trying to go to school became too much and he left. Those were dark strand days for us. I was hopeless to see our future but plugged away because we had to survive.
The brightest points in the tapestry of my life during those days were my moments with Bethany. I had the majority of the custody which was huge! She would spend every other weekend with her dad but the rest of the time she was with me. I loved being a mother. I loved our bedtime routines, reading books, dancing to salt and peppa, watching strawberry shortcake, playing together at the playground. We did everything together, I told her everything about my life and she in turn loved me unconditionally.
More dark times were ahead though with rejections, accusations, harsh words, bad choices, you name it. It wasn't that life was careening out of control but my threads were beginning to fray a bit and I knew something had to change. Enter Daryl Johnson...
And here's where I sign off for the day - I guess I am trying to catch you up to the point where I can begin sharing deeper things with you - but for now - happy weaving.
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