Laura Bruno Lilly

The road ends, but the journey continues...

Category: Social Commentary (Page 1 of 8)

My Grandmothers, Too

March 28, 2021 / / 39 Comments

Lineage

By Margaret Walker

My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.
They moved through fields sowing seed.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong.

My grandmothers are full of memories.
Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay
With veins rolling roughly over quick hands
They have many clean words to say.
My grandmothers were strong.
Why am I not as they?

Written in 1942.
I discovered this poem in 1992.
Presented here as an homage during Women’s History Month, 2021.

RBG swearing in

r.i.p. RBG

September 19, 2020 / / 24 Comments

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Woman of Substance*

You can disagree without being disagreeable.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

*characteristics of a person of substance and an excerpt from the book, In Praise of Difficult Women, by Karen Karbo about RBG

Open Letter (debut)

July 22, 2020 / / 39 Comments

Dear Teacher,
You were my very first formal classical guitar instructor…

Thus begins an open letter I wrote years ago.

The new vistas that surfing the ‘net* opened up in the ’90s prompted me to try contacting my first classical guitar teacher to thank her for the role she played in my development as a musician. I posted a copy of my open letter on both** of the forums I was subscribed to at the time in the hopes it would yield a lead towards finding her. As was common in those days, this inadvertently started a new thread on each of those forums…that of honoring those teachers who most influenced the direction of our lives.

However, it did not bring about the desired outcome.

I did not find her.

But I can still honor her***.

I have always wanted to thank-you for all you did to nurture my first forays into the world of classical guitar. I think you’d be proud of me. Not because I am anyone famous or great, but because you’d recognize the method of love I use in teaching others about our common bond: the classical guitar...

*a term bandied about along with riding the internet highway in the earlier days of internet development.

**The original ClassicalGuitarList and the LuteList are both going strong after all these years…

***Please find & read my Open Letter page neatly nestled between the PTM and DMW pages on the menu bar as part of my newly revised website.

Giving Voice: people, don't stop tryin' to make a difference.

June 18, 2020 / / 22 Comments


This link goes to a short excerpt of an NBC interview (it’s only 2 minutes, please click and ponder) with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1967…still strikingly relevant to these times…(full interview here).

Quote symbol“White America must see that no other ethnic group has been a slave on American soil. That is one thing that other immigrant groups haven’t had to face…America freed the slaves in 1883 through the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, but gave the slaves no land or nothing in reality…to get started on. At the same time, America was giving away millions of acres of free land in the West and Midwest. Which meant there was a willingness to give the white peasants from Europe an economic base. And yet it refused to give its black peasants from Africa – who came here involuntarily and in chains, and had worked for free here in chains for 244 years – any kind of economic base…”
Dr. Martin Luther King

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
John 8: 32

Memorial Day 2020

May 25, 2020 / / 20 Comments

Please Honor Memorial Day

Find the cost of freedom,
Buried in the ground.
Mother earth will swallow you,
Lay your body down.
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Memorial

I humbly believe this tribute does not take away from the honoring of our Veterans – My Dad, 2 Uncles and Father-in-Law served in WWII, hubby & 2 cousins during Vietnam and various nephews served during and since the Gulf War. My Sister-in-Law, 5 cousins and a niece are essential health-care providers during this war against COVID-19 – thankfully our family has not suffered any casualties.

NYT-front-page-05-24-20-COVID-19

ToDoTuesdayEight

April 21, 2020 / / 24 Comments

ToDo for the weeks following March 24th:

  • Work on those darn face masks √ done
  • Finish Final edit of Michelle’s PhD thesis √ done
  • Work on Final score edits for Goat Suite (Saga) in progress
  • Sew up scraps have on hand √ neutral jellyroll fabric experiment ones done
  • Figure out what to do with various scrap ‘blocks’ √ medium one done
  • Continue to help Flatten the Curve √ in progress

~~~

stay home save livesI’ll start with the most important of these ToDos, albeit the hardest – Continue to help Flatten the Curve –

It seems our diligent work in adhering to this small effort is reaping a discernible curve-flattening reward. Let’s not quit yet, let’s build upon this hard-won glimmer of hope and continue to soldier on in the best way we can: Stay Home. Save Lives.

~~~

homemade face masks COVID-19

No, these are not bikinis!


As for those darn masks. I finally got our three each for both hubby and myself done and done. I admit to not rising to the task of stitching up piles of homemade masks for those on the front lines…I just didn’t have it in me. I admit it. Slacker. Yes, you can hurtle that shaming label at me – but I applaud those who took to their sewing machines cleaning out fabric scrap piles in the name of solidarity for health care workers, family and friends. My own daughter who is in the throes of finalizing her PhD thesis and prepping for its defense made a total of 15 in addition to those she sewed up for herself, hubby and a few friends. I am so impressed. Heck, I’m proud! The darn things really aren’t all that easy to whip up even for experienced sewers – and they’re just too fiddly frustrating for me to do beyond the obligatory need-to-provide for us ones.
Do I feel better for this confession, maybe, but mostly I might have helped someone else out there with ‘experience in sewing’ who felt the same way.
Speaking of middle daughter, Michelle. She’s set to present and defend her PhD thesis this coming Monday. It’s been a long time coming and I’m honored to have been asked to assist her by editing various incarnations of that manuscript over these past few years…more boasting on her in another post!
Floating block experiment - upper lefthand corner, surrounded by pieced scraps

Floating block experiment – upper lefthand corner, surrounded by pieced scraps & circle cut from medium block I didn’t like


About a year ago I tried my hand at ‘floating’ a block using only selected fabrics from a purchased jellyroll fabric pack. The result of that is the large block in the upper lefthand corner of the photo at left. I plan to do some free motion machine quilting in the off-white Kona cloth negative space once I feel confident enough to do so. In the meantime, I pieced together the scraps as shown alongside the large block. I had a medium sized block that I didn’t like so decided to cut it up into a circle (shown). It will form the basis of a 3D fiber experiment that is rolling around in my mind.
Original medium size block I didn't like

Original medium block I didn’t like

That’s it for now. Thanks to Roseanne for sponsoring this linky party.

’Home

ToDoTuesdaySeven

March 24, 2020 / / 34 Comments

ToDo for the weeks following February 25th:

  • Sew up scraps have on hand √ African Fabric ones done
  • Decide thread/quilting for Michelle’s African Fabric wall-handing √ done
  • Work on Final Scores for Goat Suite (Saga) in progress
  • Help Flatten the Curve in progress

~~~

I’ll start with the most important of these ToDos – Help Flatten the Curve –

stay home save livesSupport our Health Care Professionals.
This admittedly hard ToDo is one small effort that makes a huge difference.

It’s heartening to know hunkering down in my tiny home helps in the Grand Scheme of minimizing the spread of COVID-19 – as well as results in rewarding project progress.*

Sample African Fabric quilt sandwich

Sample quilt sandwich ready for experimentation!


Since my last ToDoTuesday, I squared up the scrappy blocks (before photo here) I stitched together from the bits of Michelle’s lime green African Fabric wall hanging. I made one up as a sample quilt sandwich for use in exploring different threads & quilting techniques on the wall hanging and another to share with a friend.
Roseanne's scrap quilt block

A scrappy surprise for my friend (you know who you are!)


Interesting to note that the gold metallic thread shown above and a variegated lime/gold/red metallic thread (not shown) both blended too well into the piece resulting in a blah and dull machine blanket stitch finish around the actual African Fabric blocks. Desiring to use something from my thread basket stash, my eye gravitated towards a spool of copper metallic (not shown) and voilà! Perfetto! (Yep, intentional use of two different language exclamatory words)
As stated before – My creativity trinity is as follows: fiber art – MUSIC – writing. Each is intertwined with the other, offering needful respites between projects which in turn aid in the completion of various Works-In-Progress as new perspectives appear from such respites. Ultimately, it’s all about the music but tracking fiber art Works-In-Progress is lots easier to communicate in such a setting as this – hence the linky-party connection with my friend, Roseanne.
’HomeThat said, I’ve re-started in earnest the Final Edit process of my Goat Suite (Saga) scores. The first movement is completed in two forms: one for insertion into the total three movement GSS score and the other as an individual first movement score with extracted parts.

~~

ToDo for the weeks following March 24th:

  • Sew up scraps have on hand
  • Work on Michelle’s African Fabric wall-hanging
  • Work on Final scores for Goat Suite (Saga)
  • Other

*While social distancing, sheltering in place, and lock-down mode are difficult in and of themselves, please know I fully understand I’m far removed from the huge demands many of you are facing right now, such as parenting children in such an environment (much less ‘expecting’ for that matter and the anxiety associated with the logistics of labor & delivery in these times), or care giving elderly relatives or end-of-life issues or fill-in-the-blank life challenges…I wish I could offer you practical respite. Meanwhile, I pray for mercy & grace to be upon us all.

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