January 2008

"On Tap: Stars and Swirls"

Yesterday afternoon, if you would have tried to look for me, you would have found me waiting for my friend, Stacey, in a small room at a local pub called Thompson's. You would have found me a bit anxious, a littler nervous, and busy trying to calm my beating heart. I had been imagining meeting Stacey at Thompson's for seven long months and it seemed unreal that I was actually there, ready for her and waiting somewhat patiently. It felt like a stage had been set and now only the actors were waiting for their cues as I kept peeking out from behind the curtains. Stacey, on the other hand, had no idea what she was walking into. She had no idea I had been planning that afternoon for seven months, no idea I had been running around back stage making sure everything was perfect and ready to go at just the right moment. This wonderful friend whom I love had no idea what I had done.

Now many of you do know what I had done. You had been encouraging me those seven months long, asking me how everything was going, and listened to my joy as I described where I was currently at with this extraordinary, and according to many of you, insane project. For those of you who don't know me personally or to whom I didn't tell, this extraordinarily insane project was a memory quilt I had dreamed up on a trip to Washington last June. The idea came after I crossed the Columbia River and by the time I got to my Aunt's house on Fox Island in the Puget Sound, my creativity had won the argument against my caution and had said "Oh yes!" to this incredible notion of creating a quilted gift for my friend.

The quilt itself was based on the tap company my friend started several years ago called "On Tap". She teaches classes throughout the week, choreographs all our dances, and is an amazing dancer herself in tap, Irish, and Israeli forms of dance. In fact, that is how I had met her two and a half years ago, by taking her classes and performing in her company in various shows. It has been an experience that has transformed who I am and is still one of the brightest blessings in my life. Dancing has swept me up into it's rhythms, frees me into sounds I have not heard before, and gives me a life I had never before dared to live. It is a light to me and I have loved it from the very first time I took off my street shoes and tried "heel-toe, heel-toe."

Getting to know Stacey was a short jump from there and I discovered in her a vibrant spirit full of joy, honesty, heartfelt compassion, and downright fun. She reopened my eyes to art and theatre and I learned from her the importance of living a life that not only satisfies yourself and honors God, but that benefits the lives of those around you. It is a friendship I deeply treasure and feel honored to share. She is an amazing person.

So as I sat at Thompson's waiting for her, I thought over the journey I had been on while creating her quilt. It was one of the best journeys I have ever taken, one of the brightest, most joy filled, and rewarding things I have ever done. The journey transformed me and taught me a lot about life and how it should be lived. Throughout the experience, I marveled at how good it felt to give so much of myself into something and then give it away, how living one’s life for others and yourself is the life truly lived, and that kindness and love are God’s breath in us all.

Of course the journey wasn't always easy. I had hard and frustrating moments, long nights up late, and times when things didn't always go the way I thought they should. But when that happened, I would lift up my eyes and look beyond to how much Stacey would enjoy the quilt and how much it would mean to her. I would picture giving it to her and that always gave me joy.

So after seven months taking the journey, there I was. The quilt and everything that went with it were all wrapped up, hidden, and ready to be opened. I could hardly wait, but I knew my lines. She arrived shortly after 3:30pm and we chatted about a movie she had just seen until the waiter came and we ordered our drinks. After our favorite drinks were delivered, Stacey requested chocolate cake saying it was after my birthday and before hers and we were celebrating. Then, while we were talking about Christmas, she asked if I had not made a quilt for someone for Christmas as I usually had something in the works around the holidays and she had not heard me talk about anything. I honestly said I had not not made anything for Christmas, (hers was just because), but I did have to ask what made ask that and she said because I was usually working on some kind of sewing project. It was one of the most ironic questions she could have asked.

After our waiter brought us the cake, which was amazing, our waiter left us alone as previously instructed. I gave it a few minutes then said to her, "Well, if it's our un-birthday and there's cake, there's got to be a present." I dug underneath the bench I was sitting on and took out a large purple gift bag with a silver bow and set it beside her seat. She asked astonished, "What's this for?" and I replied it was just because. After some untying and moving of tissue paper, she exclaimed her delight as she could feel it was a pillow, and knowing me, I am sure she assumed I had made it. But delighted soon turned into stunned as she unwrapped it and saw what it was, a quilted pillow with tap shoes in the middle. She asked how I had quilted it, did I do the tap shoes on the computer, and look at the fabrics and the matching buttons! I answered all her questions, thoroughly enjoying myself and the look of joy on her face . After quite some time, she told me she loved it and set it beside her chair. That was my cue for my next line.

I looked at her, grinned, and said, "I'm glad you love it because there's more to the surprise." I then cleared the space in front of us, reached further down, and after some maneuvering, placed a large box wrapped in sparkling purple wrapping paper with stars and swirls onto the table in front of her. I helped her unwrap it a bit and after she lifted the lid and clearing away more tissue paper, she saw the bag I had made for her that says "On Tap" and has two canes across it. Without yet realizing what was inside the bag, she examined every part of it in awe but when she came to the handles and realized what that folded item probably was, she looked at me and I am sure she felt like I had just pulled reality out from under her feet. Stacey then took the quilt out of the bag, lifted a corner, saw one of the photos and went immediately into denial, "No!" Yes. She unfolded it and sat there utterly overwhelmed though she says overwhelmed doesn't even begin to describe it. I am sure I was grinning like an idiot, thoroughly enjoying the moment and her shock. She then proceeded to go over the quilt inch by inch for I don't know how long. As we went, she looked at the photos, read the quotes, and the poems, and marveled at just what I had done for her. We started on the top and moved left and when she saw her baby picture, she asked, "Who's that?" and just as quickly answered her own question by realizing it was her and switched the question to "HOW DID YOU GET THAT?" Even now I laugh, for it was at that moment she realized just how deep my sneakiness went while I answered her I had been in contact with her parents and brother for nearly seven months.

As we went, I told her stories about finding the different fabrics, pictures, and quotes and she told me some of the stories behind pictures her parents had sent me. It felt so good to finally be able to tell her all the things I had been wanting to for so long and she knew just how I felt as she had created special things for other people but as she told me, not to this scale, and no one had ever done something like that for her. I think that is one of the things that surprised her the most, that I would do something like that for her. And I'll tell you, reader, I would do it again. I can't put it into words but to say it was already meant to be created and to belong to her and I was the blessed one to do it. I also think there is a creative voice in all of us, an echo of the eternal, "Let there be!". It was fun to dream something up and then to watch it come together, to bring something from the inside of my heart and watch it come alive in my hands. Creating it was a very special time in my life and I will always treasure it.

After we looked at the entire quilt, I gave her another wrapped package with the CD of pictures and a journal I had written documenting the entire process. This I believe was the icing on the icing on the cake. There were so many things I had wanted to tell her, so many stories and miracles behind the quilt, that I wrote them all down complete with contents and appendices and had it spiral bound for her. She loved that and when she called me to let me know how the day after was going, she said she had already read half of it. She was still reeling from the day before and wants to show the quilt to everyone she knows.

As for me, I am as happy as I could be knowing the quilt is now where it belongs- with her. I know she will treasure and enjoy it, more so than I can ever imagine. She already told me she wants to display it at the fair so all of you who said I should, you will get your wish. It will be fun to hear what other people say and to continue seeing the smile on her face. That picture in my heart of her smiling is all I really wanted from all this, besides the joy of actually creating the quilt of course. Stacey herself owes me nothing. My life has been so enriched by our friendship, I already have what I want.

I have posted pictures of the quilt below so you can see what it looks like and might post another or two after tap class this week. If you would like, you can respond to this newsletter through the guest book and I will post entries about the quilt on this page as well. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported and encouraged me during this time. It made a world of difference as I worked on putting this quilt together.

So as the curtain falls and the cast party begins, let me leave you with a poem Stacey's dad sent to me. I suggest, as he first suggested, that you memorize it. It will guide your life. It certainly has mine.

I shall pass through this world but once.
Any kindness that I may show,

Any good that I may do,

Let me do it now.

Let me not defer it nor neglect it

for I may not pass this way again.

From my heart to yours,

Sarah Katreen Hoggatt

The Rest of the Story...

It has been three months and a week since the day I gave Stacey her quilt. I think she is perhaps now over the initial shock of the experience but I imagine, is still stunned I did it. Over this time it has been absolutely delightful to hear her reports back to me on people's appreciation of her quilt. She has taken it to the Courthouse where she teaches exercise classes, has shown multiple friends, and has made sure nearly every person pictured in the quilt has seen it in person. She is still working on the few that are left. The quilt currently resides in her home and sometime, she would like to hang it in our dance studio. She is also bound and determined to show it at the Oregon State Fair so I am sure we will be filling out an entry form and making a phone call or two to figure out how to display it. You will be able to find it in the Jackman Long Building come late August.

However, for me, this enjoyment of hers, this delight in a gift I delighted to give to her was not the close of the circle. For me, this circle of friendship, this transforming experience of what it was like to put so much heart and love into something and then give it away, was closed twice over, once at the beginning and again at the end. Perhaps that is fitting, that a gift between two people needed two circles to intertwine and close it.

The first closing of the circle came in early March when I made the trip up to Fox Island to see my family, my Aunt, Uncle, cousins, and grandparents. They knew all along I had been working on creating the quilt and had been longing to see the quilt in person. So, I asked Stacey's permission to lend me the quilt back for the weekend so I could show it to them. The quilt safely in the seat beside me, I drove the two-hundred miles north to the island remembering a very similar trip taken nine months before when the idea for the quilt first occurred to me. Having the quilt along on this trip, closed this circle for me in a beautifully poetic way. Something that had only been an idea, a wish, an out flowing of creativity had come into fruition and taken on a life of it's own. And I also came to know that weekend, that as nice as it was to sleep under that quilt again, that it truly did belong in Stacey's hands. The quilt does not belong to me, it was designed for her and belongs with her.

The other circle was closed this evening when I received a call from Stacey telling me that she "and the crew" were headed to Thompson's for beer and chocolate cake and she asked if I would like to join them. I admit, she had me at beer and chocolate cake, but "the crew" was what pushed me to say "Oh yes! Thank you!". The crew she spoke of were her parents and brother who are in town to share Passover. After all their kind help with photos of Stacey growing up and asking her a question or two for me, I wanted to meet them in person and they wanted to meet me. Sitting there talking with them, getting to know them a bit better, eating chocolate cake and drinking Stacey's favorite beer, I could not get over the beauty of how this circle was being closed. God truly is in the details. We were in the very pub where I had given Stacey the quilt eating the same food and drinking the same beer she had so enjoyed over three months ago. Sharing that time with the people who helped make it possible and the person it was all for was

Photographs

"On Tap: Stars and Swirls"	This is a close up of the quilt.	The back of the quilt.
Stacey's bag.	The matching pillow.	I made this for her parent's as a thank you for their help.
Me wrapped up Stacey's quilt before I gave it to her.	Stacey with the pillow before she knew there was also a quilt.	Stacey holding her quilt, I love that smile!
Looking down at her quilt...	Stacey and I with her quilt.

News

I am working on a new product line of photography and art.

Ideas I have had so far is to frame and matt them, put them on cards, or make a calendar.

If you have any ideas of ways I could use them, let me know!

Last Updated: 12/30/2011