Grieving. And living. All of a piece.

I have started listening to audiobooks - it helps feed my desire to read, without taking as much time. (Not that I don't still read regular books, but some of what I would have read now gets read as I drive, which is nice.) One of the ones I picked up at the library on a whim was Anna Quindlen, reading her book Loud and Clear. I was very touched by it and very much liked it, but the last section, section 5, "Soul", had some essays / columns / whatevers in it that struck me to the core - about loss, and grieving, and the death of parents. Struck me in a good way. I need to read them again, and take notes; and so I bought a paperback copy to go through. (It was interesting to find: for some reason, a book containing a series of journalistic columns, many of which have to do with politics or 9/11 or other things, had gotten shelved in 'self-help'. Thank heavens for the store's computers that helped me find it!)

I began searching the web for information on memory quilts this week. I am debating making one for my parents, but I'm not a quilter and I don't use quilts, so this is an idea that is very likely to fade away all on its own. However...in the process of searching, I came across references to tote bags done in a similar style. Which reminded me that I both need reusable fabric shopping bags and have fabric that I have not yet found a use for. So now I have been hunting up and storing sites on making tote bags, with the intent of actually perhaps some day maybe doing something with it. It might end up on the shelf of "what if" projects, the kind that never actually happen; I don't know.

I'm posting still more often over at my LiveJournal, but ... this post seemed most appropriate here.