quiltersmuse.com Blog

Just for today, I’ll try to overlook the less gifted. They know not what they do.

Just for today, I’ll remember to be thankful for all that I have been given.

Just for today, I’ll try not to get annoyed, when people ask me dumb questions, or request something I cannot give.

Just for today, I’ll try to forgive other people their agendas, remembering that we all have them.

Just for today, I’ll remember that each day is a gift, and that another one may not come my way.

Just for today, I’ll overlook the petty jealousies that seem to crop up in  others, in any profession.

Just for today, I’ll celebrate TODAY, for this day will come but once in my lifetime.

Just for today, I’ll walk in the yard, examining each bloom, one by one, knowing that, like me, the season of each flower will end, and each will shrink and be no more.

Just for today, I’ll try to get the Big Picture, looking behind me, to either side, and then, straight ahead, and like an old horse with blinders, I will continue to plod along.

Just for today, I’ll do all the work expected of me, in full measure, even if that work is that expected of myself only.

Just for today, I’ll avoid dwelling on my aches and pains. Like the 17th century nun, love of reciting my ailments grows sweeter with age.

Just for today, a smile shall be on my lips, and a renewed sense of joy shall mingle with my spirit, for I am here, never to be here again in the same way as on this day. I will be ONE with the universe.

Patricia Cummings

I am stewing. Why? I just wonder how anyone can write about any subject without first thoroughly researching it; and second of all, without getting the person’s name right, who is the subject of the discourse. The whole act seems criminal, and just as “life is in the details,” the details of someone’s life are important to “get right.”

In exploring any subject, a good writer will look at multiple sources to verify the same material. I verified the person’s name in many ways, including her birth and marriage certificates. A conscientious writer will employ critical thinking skills to figure out situations.

I’ll give you an example. It does not seem logical to say that a woman was engaged in giving quilt talks, when that person had just lost her husband, was busy working on an undergraduate and a graduate degree at an out of state university, and was teaching, too. This is not to mention that the book upon which she later based much of her quilt block information and stories for lectures, had not yet been published. In addition, when there is no extant physical evidence, it is doubly illogical to claim the statement.

To come to the conclusion that the woman might not have given quilt lectures during the time in question, one would have to know when her husband died, what years she was in school, and what else she was doing during that decade. One would also have to realize that the quilt book in question weighed heavily in answering the question as to whether or not the person was actively involved in giving lectures during that decade. Without written proof, the statement that she provided quilt lectures at that time, is pure speculation. You get the point.

What does one do when one is a scholar and an historian who is serious about discovering the truth, and then, dismally, realizes that another “scholar” has published/disseminated erroneous information, covering a ten year time span?

There comes the rub. What can one do? It is a frustrating situation, particularly when people line up to take sides. As far as I know, no one has taken sides yet. Knowing human nature, it seems a likely scenario. People make light of the errors of their cronies, perhaps due to a misplaced loyalty.

I am interested in the truth. I uphold it, and I seek to spread it. I speak out when something is wrong, and in the case I mention, things are amiss.

I can’t account for the mistakes of others. Being in a hurry was the excuse given to me. All I can do is to try to retell the story, incorporating the facts, while trying to forget the lack of attention to the facts that has preceded my work.

I could just cry a river over the hurt inflicted on the family, when their relative was not even called by her given name. The error repeated itself, in yet another venue. Instead of honoring the deceased by writing about her, her memory was dishonored. And now, this misinformation has been spread to the four winds, via an article, presentations, and/or journal write-ups that will remain in libraries, forever, possibly to confuse other researchers.

Yes, I am upset when I think of misguided “work” by someone who should have tried a little harder to establish the truth. Now, the information is on record, “for what it’s worth.” I am passionate about my chosen field of quilt history and I just want people to “get it right.” When they don’t, it’s a crying shame.

Patricia Cummings

We are constantly evolving, as people, and it is no news to you that “change” always seems to be the most desirable next step. In some instances, change is for the better. However, change just for the sake of itself does not always reap expected benefits. To turn to politics, for an instant, Barack Obama has achieved his current pinnacle of success on the buzzword of “change.”

Right now, the results of change are troublesome. Schools are turning out students who are lackadaisical about disciplined learning. Graduates sometimes lack critical thinking skills altogether. It is rather frightening. I mean, would you really like to have a doctor operating on you who has barely eeked through medical school with poor grades? I’d rather have an A student taking out my appendix. By the way, what are the standards of medical schools in other countries? Foreign-trained doctors are being hired, left and right, in clinics across the country, and some of those doctors are quite inept.

While we are on the subject, what about the current state of kickbacks – oh, pardon me, “rebates,” to doctors, for prescribing medications? One doctor tried (unsuccessfully) to tell me that I have Restless Leg Syndrome and don’t sleep well. Really? I sleep just fine, and if I don’t, it is perhaps more often due to a certain person, snoring. Yes, sometimes it is me snoring, waking myself up! Ha! No, no twitchy legs here.

Maybe the problem between foreign doctors and patients is sometimes that of language. Some doctors just don’t know how to interact with, or speak with, patients.

I like to remember the time when doctors made house calls, when they knew every member of the family, or at least all of the siblings.

Dr. Joy and Dr. Jalbert, in my youth, were two of the finest physicians I have ever known. One of them visited our house one Sunday, late afternoon, after my brother had split his head open when ice skating with my other brother, and my parents were away at some church activity. Unless memory fails me, one of them came to see me when I had Scarlet Fever. When I think back, I see my childhood as a kind of Norman Rockwell vignette. Even though we lived in a city, everything seemed so home town, right down to the striped poles outside the barber shops.

We went to the bakery on Saturday afternoons. The smell of breads and pastries nearly filled the street. My mother would buy baked beans that surpassed even her own, and hers were delicious. Her favorite pastry was “Neopolitans.” My Dad favored “Apple Turnovers.” Of course, today, the business is no longer there.

As I approach my birthday, I can’t help but think of these kinds of changes – no more house calls by doctors, no more small town atmosphere in Manchester, no more bakery, or dedicated fish market in the “Irish” part of town. Things and places change and we change. It is all so subtle and slow moving, we barely notice from day to day. My hair is gray and changing to white. I weigh more than I did when I was in college. I reach for my glasses, if I don’t already have them on, whenever I want to read, and I’m noticing, more and more, all the little aches and pains associated with aging.

I find myself getting enraged at the mistakes of others who “should know better.” I find that I do not suffer fools gladly, or at all. I have become very outspoken because I have a command of more knowledge, than ever before, and I view it as an injustice and a personal affront when anyone passes along false information.

So, there are changes in the world that are unavoidable: natural disasters, the economy, and war. We have little or no control over the physical changes of aging, in ourselves. The things we can change, we should, for starters:  Education with higher standards at every level; and testing for foreign doctors coming into mainstream medical practices in the U.S. In addition, it would be a good idea to outlaw those so-called “rebates” as they present a conflict of interest between patient interest, and padding the pockets of doctors.

Some change is good; but some is not. The next president will not have time to sort out all the problems because they have been developing for too long a time. We can start making the world a “kinder, gentler” place, in our own workplace. For example, a nice way to answer the phone at a clinic would be, “Hello. May I help you?” – not, “I’m with another patient. Can you hold? (click). The health care system does seem in need of a major overhaul. In life, you will find that it IS the little things that matter.

Patricia Cummings

Unknown artist of the Kuna people who live on archipelagos off the coast of Panama. This mola features pelicans, dates to the mid-20th century, and is 100% cotton. The Alice Cox Collection of molas was given by her daughter, Mrs. Barbara Vallarion to Dartmouth’s Hood Museum of Art.
Accession #177.9.24726. Photo courtesy of Hood Museum of Art

This colorful mola blouse hails from the same donor. Again, it was constructed by an unknown artist, mid-20th century, with cotton cloth and thread. Accession #177.25.25739

Many thanks to Sharon Reed, publicist, for the images.

Important to note is that the Kuna Indians make blouses to wear. Each blouse had a decorative panel on both front and back. When the blouses have served their first intended purpose, they are disassembled and sold to tourists who flock to the islands via boats.

As was noted just recently in this column, mola “cheater cloth,” that resembles the look you see above, is now being sold in the country of mainland Panama.

Molas are a source of revenue for the women of Panama, as well as some albinos who comprise a larger than usual segment of the population, statistically-speaking. Albinos cannot withstand being in the sun and mola-making allows them to work indoors. One book reports that homosexual men also make molas there. For more information, please read my article on molas on my website. To find it easily, along with other entries on the topic, just key in “molas” on the search word function on the front page of Quilter’s Muse Publications.

Please see the previous announcement about the new exhibit of molas at the Hood Museum, on this blog. The installation will be in place until December 7, 2008.
Patricia Cummings

Tomorrow is Father’s Day, a day we set aside once a year to think of Dad. Some fathers are invisible. They were there at the point of conception only. Some are “dead-beat” Dads who have to be forced by the courts to pay support. Some are drunks, or wife-beaters, or cheats. If you have a Dad who is honest, hard-working, and loving, then you are blessed, indeed.

I was lucky to have a decent, God-fearing father. In spite of being preoccupied with work, most of the time, he took time to talk about the “important things” of life with me, his youngest daughter. Important to him were his faith, the meaning of life, and values. When I realize how long my mother lived … into her 90s, I feel robbed that he only made it to age 63. I was 23.

He was generous. After he died, I saw all the many canceled checks for money he had sent to a missionary in Nigeria, a tidy sum. The thought makes me realize that one is not rich because he/she hoards money, but rather because of how much he/she shares. Dad had reached out to provide assistance to people in another part of the world. No one knew. He didn’t do it to brag or to show off. During his life, even my mother did not know of those gifts.

Dad took the time to play Badminton with me, he took me ice skating, and he brought me to July 4 concerts, at the park. We went to the Museum of Science in Boston, to “Boston Pops” concerts, and on the Swan Boat rides in Boston. We went to the Museum of Fine Arts. We were buddies. He bought me horses, and told me to become a teacher (I did) because the training would always stand me in good stead (it has).

Dad read a million books, but the most important one to him was the Bible. He encouraged me to open up a checking account in the Credit Union he organized and in which I saved babysitting money. He wrote me funny letters when I was studying in Spain. I’ve saved them and they are among my favorite family items.

Dad served in many roles and was an active leader in civic and religious organizations. To me, he was “Dad.” He loved Strawberry Shortcake and, twice, he ordered two servings of that dessert, in a restaurant. He enjoyed eating peanuts, by the handful. He liked camping in Freeport, Maine at a site overlooking the ocean.

I like to remember the good times. The bad times were tough to endure when they arrived. So, I’ll linger over the thought of him teaching me to drive in his 1938 Pickup with a standard shift that he named “The Green Hornet” because it was green, (of course!). He would admonish me, every two minutes: “Don’t strip the gears!” Dad and I were a pair, fashioned from the same cloth in many ways. If he were still living, he would be 97 years old. He’d be so proud of his grandson (my son) whom he never met, and his other grandchildren and now, their children.

Life continues in a whirling dervish of activity, but for a moment, on Father’s Day, those of us whose fathers are no longer here will take a deep breath and wipe a tear, as we remember.

Patricia Cummings