As I was scrolling through past posts today, looking for something I had written, I came across my February 9, 2014 blog post. The title stopped me in mid-scroll, “Hunkered Down.” Apparently, we’d had a storm and were snowed in. In the post I described being restless, going from weaving loom to weaving loom and not being able to settle on doing anything artistic and, finally, settling on having a cup of tea and watching the Olympics on TV . I chuckled and thought, “Let me tell you about what ‘hunkered down’ means nowadays!”
We are once again “hunkered down”. This time because of the Corona virus and the threat of contracting or spreading COVID-19. It’s a little different this time. With a snow storm in the little panhandle of NW Oregon in February, we know that it will not last long and, if the power does go out, we can hang out around the wood stove for a day or two and know it’s not going to kill us. Today’s “hunkered down” is an entirely different thing. It’s scary and open ended. We don’t know how long the hunkering down is going to last or how much it will even help the situation. There are just so many unknowns. Who’s next? Will it be me? Or one of my kids, grandkids or friends? We just don’t know.
I did notice, in reading the 2014 post, that not much as changed in how I react to hunkering down. I’ve been wandering around the house, scary news headlines filling the room like background music, and wanting to do art of some kind, but not able to decide on anything. I’ve been doing this for a couple weeks, but I think I’m about done with it. I feel art coming on, even in the midst of pandemic. In the picture above, you can see a bunch of circles on a red mat. Those are used K-cup size coffee filters made for the little baskets that you can put your own coffee into, instead of using the wasteful and environmentally damaging plastic K-cups. We’ve been trying to do our part in lessening our impact on the planet. The little filters can be composted right along with the used coffee. And I discovered that I can use them in stitching and in weaving. So every now and then I gather a handful of used coffee filters from the coffee compost bucket, dump the grounds out of them, and wash and dry them for use in various projects.
Today, I was up early. When the man got up this morning, I was still in my night gown, seated on a chair at the kitchen sink, washing off used coffee filters. He made his cup of coffee, leaned over to see what I was doing, shook his head and, cup in hand, headed for the living room. He’s used to catching me doing strange things with garbage.
The little filters on the mat are dry now, ready for use. As I said, I’m about done wandering aimlessly around the house while we are, once again, hunkered down. The news headlines will probably be playing in the background, but I won’t be listening. The man can do that for both of us as he flips channels. I will be doing something with used coffee filters and a little cloth ……
A Little Cloth 