Author Archives: Sandi LoConti

Keeping It Simple

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“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher

Come to find out we’ve got just the courage to move in that opposite direction.  This week we are celebrating life on Stowe Lane for what it is, simple.

The love of a dog.

Reading, writing, cooking from an old recipe box.

The snap and crunch of a Pink Lady.

The promise of a garden and the beach.

At some point in time, it no longer takes courage to go in the direction of simple.  It’s a joy, a relief, a necessity.  You grow weary of the “chasing slow” as Erin Loechner says in her book of the same name.  “Sometime when we’re not looking for what we want, we find what we need.”

We are finding what we need….

Complacency

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It is so easy to forget where you came from in the day to day ordinariness of life, you forget.  But not this week, no not this week.  And believe it or not I’m not talking about the inauguration, exactly…  I’m talking about young people who don’t know what they don’t know and how that could possibly have happened.  Complacency.

When well intended becomes an excuse I have to question just how much well intention is going on and who is allowing it.  An email that came across my laptop this week rocketed me to parts unknown.  A separate Instagram post did the same but that will need a whole another post.  Both of them sent by 30 somethings, both of them reeked of naiveté and a lack of historical reference. You remember historical reference don’t you?

When a woman separates people who are in the same position by gender, having interacted with the man first then letting the others know that she thinks, “This info might be of value to you ladies also” so she’s passing it along I damn near fainted.  “You Ladies”???The eerie feeling that comes over you when you know you’ve seen this before is jarring and infuriating. This from a woman who never wasn’t allowed to wear pants to work. Pants to work, yeah that.  It’s a real juncture for me because it was in my lifetime.

I am so grateful that I had the presence of mind to direct my rant away from her and check to see if I was overreacting.  Am I being an asshole or did this just happen? It happened. Thank you to the two souls that heard me out and let my rant go on until it couldn’t any longer.

Long story short I cooled off enough by the NEXT day to have a kind conversation with her and explain that what she did, no matter how well intended, counteracted everything that old women like me had ever fought for. Seems funny now to be having a conversation about wearing pants to work… I hope she could hear me, I hope she understands, I hope she’s reading all about the Women’s March on Washington.

The one good thing that may come out of a Trump presidency is a resurgence of women uniting in all things female.  I am disappointed that I didn’t go to the march and I can’t explain why I didn’t go as I’ve been an advocate for women my whole life.  Perhaps I underestimated the power we still have.  I’ll figure that out at some point.  But I will be in full participation of the 10 Actions/100 Days follow up. Every 10 days we will take action on an issue we care about.

“The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day; a movement is only people moving.”  Gloria Steinem

In whatever way you can, I hope that you will revisit an historical timeline of women.  What we have today hasn’t always been, what we have tomorrow may be diminished or lost entirely, adopt a beginner’s mind assume you don’t know what you don’t know and seek historical reference. Ask someone about their experience it may surprise you.

The Women’s March was unprecedented in its size, its peaceful intent and execution, it is yet to be seen if it accomplishes what will be necessary for women to maintain and boost their status in this country, particularly during this term of office. To those of you who marched I applaud you and thank you for your magnificent representation of us all.  That said, I am cautiously optimistic for the first time in more years than I even realized.

Enjoy some of the pictures of the march courtesy of News and Guts, Dan Rather’s newest venture in reporting.

Threads

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I wanted to pull the thread, unravel the scarf of my silence and start again from the beginning – Jonathan Sofran Foer

This week was a little like sitting on the step of Aunt Nettie’s sewing room.  The step because it wasn’t so much a room as a tiny former foyer.   She sat at her sewing machine looking out onto Woodside Avenue where any number of older Italian women needed to be kept “an eye on”, Gramma Marco, Mary Sinise, Mrs. Spadafrank, you get the picture.  It’s not lost on me that I now sit at my laptop looking out onto Stowe Lane where any number of older women need to be kept “an eye on” also.  Such is the chore of a real neighborhood.

As she worked mending this or that or making a dress for so and so or altering a jacket for someone else my job was to pick up the many threads she snipped and dropped.  There is a golden rule of life that says don’t ever pull the loose thread on your…whatever, fill in the blank, shirt, scarf, skirt.  This did not apply to her (or my Aunt Millie), she could pull a thread and unravel any number of inches that needed to be snipped and resewn or any collar that didn’t lay exactly straight.  These were the squiggly crimped threads that embedded themselves around the loops of the rug and under and over and made it impossible to vacuum but really she was keeping me busy and out of her hair.

Once all done with the threads (that never happened) I could play in the button box. There was every kind of button you could imagine mostly cut off of garments that were so thread bare they had to go in the rag bag. There were some cards of buttons for brand new garments and there were buttons by the dozen in small cellophane bags. There were embroidery snips, tailor’s chalk and thimbles and safety pins all the tools required to take something apart and to put something back together.  I learned much in that room just by watching.

That was this week, unraveling the scarf of my silence, picking up the threads, salvaging a collar, unlooping the squiggly long threads that had gotten somehow crimped around long forgotten memories.  Taking many childhood somethings apart and putting them back together with an adult’s understanding. Using new buttons and snaps to tailor my ordinary photos into stories.

It was sometimes painstaking work, sometimes dreamy spellbinding work, all of it creative work which I’m looking forward to continuing throughout the year.  The path for this generous gift was provided by robin sandomirsky & alisha sommer  through Liberated Lines – Amplify. They have my gratitude.