Rain chime
How glistening rain, plunging waterfalls, and swaying leaves made a chime...
I looked up and saw her, newly hung on my board next to the other chimes. She looked lovely. Delicate. Interesting. Her leaves occasionally lifting and nodding with the breeze from the ceiling fan. Dainty movements. And a tiny smile.
We had just finished with the last challenging part of wrapping the stick. I took my time and she was so patient. I didn’t want to rush and she relaxed into my hands.
The windows were open in the house and the fans were going. The heat and humidity had passed, and I didn’t need to turn on the air conditioning. The outside street noise, with the occasional road work, lawn care, dogs barking, or sirens going seemed to be absent that day. The cool breeze and warm sunshine from the outside was noticeable, and a relief from the past weeks of steamy rain.
Inklings about making another healing chime came up the week prior and I had started rummaging through my Lao fabrics. I chose one of my favorites — indigo-dyed and ikat-patterned threads woven with natural white threads, creating a simple, soothing pattern. Where the two colors meet, it’s unpredictable. Much like the rain. And it reminded me of a waterfall, plunging down over the edge and crashing below.
Chime liked the rain, because it was during that time when she was being made, when she was emerging into being by the artist’s hands. She also saw how the rain gently led the artist inwards, to a watery, wavy place. She even saw her cry, really cry, with tears rushing down her cheeks. It had been a long time.
Then I chose indigo-dyed silk thread, glistening like sunshine reflecting off streaks of rain. It seeped through my fingers as I held it, gliding around unpredictably. I pulled one strand of silk thread from the skein and started to wrap the stem of a mottled leaf.
Then another, and another. Smooth glistening lines next to splotched colors of ochre, rust, coco, and moss caught my attention. And the rain outside, shimmering, streaking, and seeping.
Over a few days Chime saw how the rain was, with unpredictable downpours and thunderstorms, too. It seeped through and disrupted plans the artist made. It streaked across the window panes in her studio. It kept her indoors even more. It seemed to sway her, restlessly. Chime noticed how when the artist wrapped another leaf stem, the restless sway went to the leaf, too. That restless energy was needed in the leaves, Chime reasoned, because they are supposed to move. She was grateful for the rain.
I remembered the leaves from a hiking trip a few months earlier. On an otherwise nondescript, well-worn trail there appeared this very curious mottled leaf. It had jeweled spots, bespeckled colors, and its own crazy beautiful style. I bent down, said hello, and asked if I might pick it up. I felt a definite shimmy of a yes, and a further nod to being okay with coming home with me, and so I put it in my pocket. Then I turned around and saw another. And another. And up ahead a few more. Many ended up in my pocket.
It had been a while since I hand stitched anything, although the pattern I wanted for the chime was simple and familiar – making seven columns to thread the wrapped leaves through, then tethering them to a stick at the top. Sometimes I haven’t had the patience for extensive hand stitching, much as I love how it looks. The repetition gets boring. The size of it all is too small and I get edgy.
Chime felt herself coming into being as the rainy days passed with the endless gray skies, steamy temperatures, and soaked earth. When the hand stitching started using the shimmery indigo thread, that’s when she felt it the most. The artist seemed restless, though. Like it was an effort for her to do the hand stitching. But Chime also noticed how the artist tried to hold steady. Thread up over and down, up over and down, up over and down, bringing Chime into being. And in that, she felt the artist’s edginess being lifted beyond the edges, and an impatience being quelled into patience.
I wondered about the chime, what healing it had offered, if any. That’s how these chimes tend to be sometimes — a healing for myself or for another, or just in general. When I finished making the chime, the rain stopped. I held the chime and felt a clearing in the air, a lift in my spirits, and a gentle acceptance.
*
Splashing in rain puddles...
LouLou
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