A Day with Dragonfly

Once again I'm loosening my rhythm of publishing, but yet once again, I'm living rushed weekends, with my Saturdays becoming my big "do all I couldn't do during the week because I was locked at the office" and my Sundays becoming my "reservoir Saturdays", when I manage all I couldn't manage on Saturday, assuming all places are open for what I need. (Naturally, I usually leave for Sunday the things that doesn't requiere me to go to stores and places that close on Sunday.) Then again, sometimes things fell a little off place and you have to reschedule your tasks and programs in order to keep things going on. Saturdays and Sundays have only 24 hours each and some times the amount of things you have to do are so, that you would actually require three or four of them to get everything done. So when can I sit down and write? By the time I'm finished, all I want to do is lay back, watch some TV and sleep, so, of course, I end up not writing anything in any blog. Any of the four. Trying to wrap your mind around any language becomes too much of an effort to do anything.

My program for yesterdays included running up to the Post Office to sent a letter, which I ended up not sending (will have to wait until tomorrow), and go to Dragonfly's place to learn how to make necklaces. If I had time, I planned to go cut my hair, but I didn't. My hairdresser works up until four on Saturdays, six on weekdays except one week day which she takes free, but I never know which days is that.

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of my day with Dragonfly, talking, meeting her family, learning a nice technique to do necklaces and eating all the great food she and her sister did. We had this meeting planned for weeks ago, but there was something coming in between, and Ihad planned to learn more about making necklaces in order to be able to do my friends' gifts myself, and get them soemthing original and made with love, and not just some piece bought in a store that they can find in every corner. There's a certain beauty in handmade things, I believe, and the fact that you get something made by someone, thinking of you, it makes it almost magical.

I have always loved the necklaces Dragonfly makes, those she wears, those she sales and those she gives to her friends and family. She, knowning my passion for green, has provided me with most of my green collection, including my beloved shamrock necklace, which I make sure to wear for each Saint Patrick's day.

While I was at her place,I learned that she and her mom are as crazy for the Cherry Coke as me, which is awesome, bacause in this country most people dislike it. It made me feel like I had arrived to some cool secret place where I could be understood. However, the cherry-coke was the tinest and smallest of details that warmed my heart in this loving family. I must say, I was so taken by the sweetness of all her family, her father's quiet smiles and gentleman ways, her mother's love and care, her sister's shy sweetness, her cousin's outgoing personality that invited you, lured you into deep, pal-friendship. It was all good spirits and laugher, from a family so handy and so active! The goodness of their hearts was breatheable everywhere in that lovely, homely house.

Her mom was there with me and talked to me making sure I didn't feel alone or badly hosted, and only left me alone when I was so engaged making my first necklace that it was evident I wasn't gonna be able to pay attention and I needed to concentrate. But even so, from time to time she came checking uo on me and makimg some small talk, which makes all the difference when you are a guess at a house. She showed me a few handmade creations she has done and talked to me about the newest crafts in town. How she was learning this and that, something called "telar", which produces a kind of woven fabric much thicker than what you can normally create with needles. She told me, just like Dragonfly, that her family has a thing, an inherited hability to do arts and crafts. They knit and crochet and embroid. The father isn't an odd one in this talented family, for he makes furniture. Dragonfly told me that all her furniture, in her room was made by her father. I couldn't be more impressed. She has such a beautiful dresser and a small table for her stereo... In a family, particularly a family of the socio-economical level of ours, a middle class household, a handy family can make the difference. The home also becomes so much warmer, things are so much more cherished and taken care of, when you know how much love and hardwork was put into building the dining table, and crocheting the tablecloth on it, when you know the hands that gave form o the dishes and the food on it. It's not only a matter of economical questions, but also a matter of value, of love and of care.


I also learned something else about Dragonfly: she's an order "freak", which I LOVE!! I couldn't help but stand in AWE watching all the cool things in her room and the way she orders everything and keeps her things in perfectly matching boxes, and all her beautiful necklaces and earrings, which she made herself, hanged so beautifully, unlike mine, all tangled and locked up in boxes. (Have been thinking on getting small bags and back them all up individually to keep them from tangling.) Looking at her room, as well as at her house, I realized once again that you don't really need big spaces, because you can always fit in smaller places too, assuming you are tidy and you keep your things ordered. Big places, actually, only aid you to have a bigger mess.

Well, I was impressed, but above all, I would like to thank Dragonfly for teaching me some of these lovely arts and crafts! ^_^ I love having friends like Dragonfly!