Busy Hands

Saturday was another meeting of our Community House Needlework Group and, as always, it was a delight. This group is in its fourth year of meeting at the Community House in Rockport one Saturday afternoon a month throughout the winter. It is always a pleasure.

There is a core group that gathers and then, beyond that, the numbers vary from few to many. The attraction is simply the pleasure of getting together with a group of other women who like keeping our hands busy while enjoying one another’s company and it is fine company indeed.

Gwen is the core around which we all gather. She is funny and intelligent and accommodating. She loves the Community House which once served the town of Rockport as a school and now is being preserved by the town as a meeting place. There is a monthly book sale, meetings scheduled throughout the week from the garden club to the community chorus and cub scouts to the historical society. Gwen manages it all scheduling the meetings, managing the income and bills, helping to raise funds, and, in her spare time, she is writing a history of that sweet old building.

It is a wonderful place! The big wooden floors creak as you walk across them and light pours in through huge, tall windows as it did on the heads of little scholars a century or more ago. Saturday the light was especially beautiful. One of the members of our group has been taking stained glass classes and brought three of her pieces to show. We asked her to hang them in the windows where the light could shine in and it was glorious! A dragonfly, a man in the moon, and a speckled trout shimmered and glittered as we worked tinting the light with hundreds of colors. Her workmanship is exquisite and her pieces were a delight to watch through the day.

Once the community chorus was practicing in the front room as we worked in a back room. That was a treat! Chorus North Shore under the direction of Sonja Dahlgren Pryor has gained a lot of recognition and accolades for our communities and having the pleasure of sitting together with our work as we listened to them rehearse their Easter program last year made the day even more special.

We always bring food — too much food. Amazingly, though we never say what we are bringing, it always works out to be fairly well-balanced. This week Maureen made roasted vegetables with apples and raisins in it, I brought my vegetable & pasta salad, and Connie brought a fresh veggie tray. Fortunately all that healthy food was balanced by Sandy’s delicious brownies, Chandra’s cheesecake and Rebecca’s dark Belgian chocolates. We have occasionally been short on veggies but never on chocolate.

So we sit together in the sunny schoolroom where children once learned to read and write. Gwen, Florence, Connie and I knit. Rebecca is quilting pillow tops. Maureen is teaching Sandy to crochet. Clare is knitting a tiny sweater for her niece’s American Girl Doll. Once she perfects the pattern she plans to sell them on eBay. And we talk. We talk and talk and talk. We discuss things going on in the community, what we are reading, what is going on in the world, what new projects we have in mind, what events are coming up that we are looking forward to. We talk about our troubles, lend one another support, and teach each other new stitches. Sometimes new people come in with a stalled project they want to get back on track with or simply with a desire to learn to knit or crochet. A couple years ago a twelve year old girl from across the street wandered in. We found extra needles and extra yarn and taught her to knit. By the time the next summer came she had a table at the sidewalk bazaar selling her hand-knitted scarves.

I love community life. I love the warmth of being with people I may never see except at these meetings. Most of all I love being together with a group of women who like keeping hands busy while sharing ideas and thoughts — and food. Our needlework group is a sweet, old-fashioned respite from a world that moves too fast. We are lucky.

Thanks for reading.