2023/19. CROCHET LESSONS

Auntie Annie teaches Anna how to crochet.

The two Ann’s sat hip to hip on the raised hearth of the cottage fireplace. Two skeins of yarn, two crochet hooks, one heart, and one mind. I watched them as I cooked supper, peeking up through the steam rising from a pot of boiling water. The kitchen was close enough to recognize the song of their voices, Aunt Annie carrying the figurative melody and sixteen-year-old Anna adding occasional counterpoint. It was such a lovely song and dance the two of them created on that lazy summer day. 

When you have a settle-in kind of place for your vacation, where people can come and go at their leisure, rotating from beach to lunch to board games then back to beach without having to ask permission, it allows for that emotional space where blank stares and nothing-to-do’s become “Would you like me to show you how to crochet’s?” One needs a good chunk of non-obligation down-time, in the presence of someone who knows how to do something, in order to discover there are things you never thought you’d want to do that you end up loving. Sometimes those simple things end up changing your life for a while. 

A few years ago Aunt Annie invited Anna over for a lettering party. Annie, my ADD girl, was focused at that time on artistic hand lettering. Anna fell in love with it, and still today does lovely hand lettering in her cards and posters. Last summer it was crochet lesson #1 at the cottage in Michigan. Lesson #2 was at our kitchen table back in Farmington. From there Anna and Annie have created multiple items with thick threads. It’s a delight to see them create in their own spheres with the same tools and skill sets. 

My Annie thinks her ADD is a curse, but my old lady ADD brain sees the gift in it. She delights in all sorts of new and exciting ventures, her interests pinging off the walls of her creativity and her focus intense when the project is interesting to her. She accomplishes so much with her fragmented creativity. Her generous heart pulls her adoring niece along with her.

Last week, in honor of Dave’s retirement, both Annie and Anna crocheted gifts for Dad/Gumpa.

Annie created, without a pattern, a darling little Judge Connors Doll, with peppery gray hair and a little tie and adorable black judicial robes. It even has a little pair of mini glasses like Dave’s. It is so cute!

And Anna decided to crochet a collar for Gumpa’s real judicial robes that matched Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s.

The RBG collar Anna made for her Gumpa.
(Dave didn't wear his robes at his retirement open house)

Justice Ginsburg wore her famous collars to signify many things. But she said they first and foremost represented the power of the feminine to make well-reasoned choices. As only the second woman to sit on the US Supreme Court, she broke the common social tradition that women would wear suits, like men, to represent equality. She, bless her, insisted that the feminine which is often prominent in women is an asset to the court and should be celebrated rather than hidden. I love that David’s daughters and granddaughters understand and applaud how he has been, and continues to be, a champion for equity as well as equality, and that, at this time in history, we need to bend a little further to lift and encourage the feminine in the field of justice. Dave happily wore the collar Anna crocheted for him, with not even an inkling of “Eww, this is a GIRL thing”, just as comfortably as women have learned to wear suit jackets that were traditionally men’s wear.

It takes a confidently humble man to recognize  and rejoice in the divine and majestic nature of the feminine, which is often (but not exclusively) prominent in women. Dave is a nurturer of divine gifts. My girls, and boys, are eternally blessed by his example and tutelage.  And so am I.

Tess adores her Gumpa, in all forms.

3-17-22 HOW RBG & I ARE JUST ALIKE

The best thing about getting older and not having a job that requires you to be somewhere in the morning is the sleeping-in. I waited decades for this, and it does not disappoint! Sometimes I think back to all those years of waking up for hungry crying babies, or early school schedules (not made for our family at all!) or jobs I've had, I get all giddy when I realize I don't have to do that anymore. I thought when my kids were on the brink of leaving home that my heart would break into pieces and I would not know how to put them back together. And indeed, it was taxing on my mother-heart. But the rest of me really loved not having to get up so early! Oh, how I love my bed! Well, at least in the morning. It is cozy at night, but I have the darnedest time falling and staying asleep before 2 am. Which leads me to something Dave told us last night.

Two days ago was the birthday of Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She would have been 89 on March 15, 2022. David currently presides over a national conference of trial court judges for the American Bar Association. The particular group of judges who serve in the leadership of this large organization is really dynamic. They are diverse, and brilliant, and cohesive. Dave is an anomaly among them as a white male LDS judge, and he fits right in because of the broad mindedness and general accepting and kind nature of these people. I am guessing there may be a dozen to 15 of them who serve as leaders of state trial court judges throughout the US. They meet a few times a year. Not being one who knows all that much about their  objectives, I can't give you dependable info about their united accomplishments or purpose (Dave would have to do that, and he's currently in court), I'll just say, since I've known this group a few years now, I like them a lot. I sometimes travel with Dave to national ABA conventions, and this group held their annual meeting here in SLC last year, so I got to spend a bit of time with them.

So, anyway, these judges met virtually Tuesday night for their annual celebration of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Birthday. Dave said this year they had one of her law clerks join them and talk a bit about the late Justice from an intimate and personal standpoint, giving them a glimpse of what she was like in the day to day. Dave and I have seen the movies depicting her dynamic life, but this up-close-and-personal viewpoint was something a little more real. This little tidbit from her clerk totally warmed my heart.

She said Justice Ginsberg, if she could, would sleep in till 11 am. Her court schedule did not always allow for that, but if she could, that's what she would do. Her clerk followed that with a pause, saying that more often than not the emails she got from Justice Ginsberg would be sent at 2 am.

You know that feeling when you realize someone else you admire has the same "flaw" as you? Yup, that was my feeling! I felt it all the way up till 2 am, when I finished my writing and made my way to bed. 

(By the way, two of my sisters and I were texting till 3 am, from our beds. It's genetic.)

Here's to all the good stuff RBG left us, including these great thoughts:

Not everything you read on the internet
is the exact gospel truth.
(Including stuff I write. This is third hand info.)