When the Wild Things Are Gone

Hello and welcome.  I am very happy to be back; this past year as been amazing in spite of some experiences that have been devastating to much of what I believe in; but here at Mystic Wood I will turn my focus to the gentle things and thoughts of home and family that I love.

    ( The quilt below is from the estate of Sallie Inez Williams of the Rocky Mount Mill Village)

I always like to post about comforts of times past. I believe that coverlets and quits may be two of my favorite collections. I lived with quilts and quilters when I was small. I know how warm and comforting they are and I learned the dreamy, magical ways of the quilter. When my grandmothers quilted and stitched their hands worked by patience and great skill learned from years of experience. That kind of automatic skill leaves ones mind to wander free so as your hands work the threads; your mind and soul work the spell. Fair weather for planting and the harvest, great love and many children  for the newly weds that will be gifted the quilt. Their eyes saw into the future; how many tomato  plants would be planted and how many quarts must be put by for the winter that would come.

                                                                           

I watched as my Grandmother stitched amazing lace and beautiful embroidery every day of her life. 

I lived and played with the wild things of the river and the Mystic Wood; some a part of the natural way of the river and some created only in my little child's  mind.  

That beautiful wild wood is disappearing  as I write. Trees felled and houses pushed down in the course of a day, with the promise of how it will all be better.  No gardens grow behind those neatly remodeled mill houses, no quilters gather on the porches. Each porch is neatly arranged with the same swing and the same chairs all belonging to the developers.  

This house is no longer a home; it's become like some ghost longing to be gone and to rest where life was once lived in better days.   And so we start another journey and look forward to a day of new beginnings and the memory of that beautiful, magical wood and river that once existed but that now is just a memory.