Trina Machacek
I have been sitting on my laurels for the past while. In regard to writing another book that is. I have not been sitting on my laurels eating bon bons as I sit on the couch watching old movies.
Oh, be still my dream machine. But. Yes, a desire driven “but.” A few weeks ago, three people asked me when my next book will be out and what will it be about. I started a story ‘bout a year ago that was going to be fiction, but fiction is hard to write.
Keeping track of all the people is hard. Fiction. It’s hard and work. I am not looking for work. It ended up put in a file and filed away, behind one pecked out long ago. A kid’s book about fishing and one about… I could tell you, but then I would have to actually write it.
No, I like projects that come easily, but create something amazing. Like the ladies that make quilts! WOW. I am not in any way saying creating a delicate and intricate quilt is easy. If you have done it for years, it is something that you love and chances are that for you it’s fun, easy and emotional.
Like writing a book, or building a car, or doing any “inside magic.” Truly, there is something inside each one of us. Don’t shake your head at me! You have a hidden do dah in you just like the guy who built and sold a million-dollar plus Shelby that just sold on Barret Jackson in Phoenix last weekend.
Man, that was a pretty little thing. Midnight Aztec blue with white racing stripes and chrome from here to there. Sigh. Come back to earth Trina. How about the people who look at a piece of a tree, grab a chain saw and zoom, zip, gurrr that saw to let lose the cutest bear that has been hiding inside that tree for who knows how long.
I talked to a guy at a gun show once that made the most amazing duck decoys from wood. These babies were real pieces of art. Not the styrofoam ducks you tie up in a line and throw in the water at 5 a.m. then quack-quack with a quacker to entice real ducks to become your duck soup dinner.
Oh no, these ducks looked like they would get up and walk away at any minute wiggling their tail feathers at you as they go. In awe I asked him how he learned to make such pieces. “Easy,” he says, “you just carve away anything that doesn’t look like a duck.”
Well OK then. Like the guy with the chain saw that freed the bear that was hiding in the tree. Yes of course I have one of those bears in my house.
Quilters are a special section for sure. Go to a fair or to a shop that sells quilts and just look at the pieces of Americana made from a scrap of this and a piece of that. I think we should bring back quilting bees.
Ladies sitting in a big ole circle all working toward the same finish line. Where thimbles were worn like armor and the chitty chat was punctuated with laughter and talk of a coming baby or a foal that was just born with a perfect star on its forehead.
The days past had some good society activities. Today? Many of our secret want to be things are done in hidey holes. Until the projects are done. Then they come out to meet the light of day and for the most part they are met with, “WOW! I had no idea you could braid leather like that.”
Or whatever your “inside magic” is. Not every inside magic is tangible either. That is to say, we don’t all have it withing ourselves to make something that you can hold in your hand or set in the corner of your living room, like my carved Jerry Bear.
Or a book or quilt or duck. I know people who have magic they share with others in ways that are just as memorable if not hold in your hand things. I know a pilot that gives good friends rides in his zippy airplane, making skies full of smiles.
I had a friend cut, color and curl hair that lightened the faces of her clients. At her funeral I looked out at the group of older ladies that all had basically the same hair style and each one had a tear falling down a cheek. They would never forget Kamala, the girl that lifted them up each and every week. What’s your “inside magic?”
Trina Machacek lives in Diamond Valley north of Eureka. Email itybytrina@yahoo.com