Maria Scott Herndon: Fabric Of Being

Okay. Here goes. This is project #1 of my new endeavor: Blending my love of writing with my doll making.... "Tomato Soup" Stan stared at his wife across the table, noticing for the first time that her sweater was on inside out. Every morning he would lay out her clothes on the bed in a specific order, so she’d know which item to put on first. But it didn’t guarantee how Ida would put on each piece. He’d have to pay more attention before they went out. Their usual waitress, Sarah, appeared, holding a large tray holding two cups of tea. “How y’all doin’ today?” With Alzheimer’s disease, there were good days, and then there were challenging days. It was a challenging day. Ida was preoccupied, scrubbing a stain on the wooden table with her finger, forgetting it was a permanent fixture of their booth. They’d been lunching at this diner once a week for years. That blemish had been there since day one. “Today’s actually a very special day for us. It’s our fifty-seventh wedding anniv...

  Confinement can suck. But being safe and alive doesn't so we deal with it. “First world problems” I tell myself. Having said that, confinement prompts some of us to invent tasks. One of those on my list is dusting a small closet in which I keep my coats, old shoes, and other stuff that I don’t use daily/seasonally. That’s when I saw my travel pouch with all my tiny bottles of shampoo, deodorant, moisturizer, toothpaste etc. There will not be any traveling this year. None of the usual excited planning our annual trip to Catalina. I took out all the bottles and decided to use them. No sense keeping them until . . . the virus is no more life-threatening? I felt quite sad.   In addition to doll-making, sewing handbags, making jewelry and painting landscapes by numbers, I now make To-Do Lists every day with nonsense tasks such as: water the plants just to remain relevant to myself!? I laughed, because I had been doing that too! I am finding many of my friends – especially...

  Often, when it's late at night when no one is around, I travel back in memory to less complicated times with my older sister Amy. I don't have a lot of scenes to chose from because she first left my life when she was thirteen. In my mind, she was like a super hero. Let me back up for some context. It was the mid 60's and the most stable thing in our lives at that time, were the two TV shows we watched together no matter what: “American Bandstand” and “The Smothers Brothers”. They gave us a chance to laugh. Even at seven, I was somewhat able to grasp the dry political humor coming from these “folk singers” Brothers. With “American Bandstand”, Amy and I would literally roll on the floor laughing. Why? Let me explain. My furthest memory of when we'd watch ABC together I suppose it was like any other teenager and little sister throughout America would watch; to hear the new singles coming out and to, of course, critique the dancing girls' outfits, boots, hair sty...

Long ago, in 1973, there was a movie called “The Way We Were,” starring Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford. Cinematically, it was not a hit. But musically, it marked the first time Streisand notched a No. 1 song on the charts. Originally a song about college love, today its opening lyrics can read like a reflection of the effect of COVID-19. Here is the opening: Memories light the corners of my mind Reading those lyrics now, it’s easy to understand the appeal of the times that came before the world was overtaken by the novel corona virus, which has now infected more than 17 million people worldwide and killed more than 150,000 Americans. Perhaps you’ve picked up a favorite old novel, or streamed reruns of “Cheers,” “Little House on the Prairie” or even “Family Affair.” Or, like a high school friend of mine, made her grandmother’s beloved strawberry shortcake recipe that transported her back in time to the summertime church socials of her childhood. A wave of nostalgia is coursi...

In, 1982 when my after died, some of my relatives went through my father's ranch in Washington state. There in a study was a roll top desk In that desk was a middle drawer that was locked. After some effort, they they managed to open the drawer. But wait…let's take a look back. * Walter Scott Herndon, I had assumed, was the anti-social type. Even though he left when I was a year old, I didn't start thinking much about him until I was about nine. When I was fourteen, I somehow found my father's address. So I hid myself away and wrote a letter introducing myself and tried to impress him by telling him about my big decision to become a psychologist when I grew up. It seems so funny and sad now. I had always heard about my father's “creative genius”. My mother told me that men like him could not be good father's because the art would always come first. This was my mother's theory, and it made sense to me. It kept away any anger because he obviously had a ...

This year has been a disaster. We are living through a global pandemic yet have inadequate health screenings, medical equipment or a viable vaccine. We are witness to public killings of black people at the hands of law enforcement yet our legal system continues to be slow to act if at all.  Our schools and hospitals are starved for resources yet police have riot gear, tear gas and army surplus tanks to patrol the streets.  Climate change causes unprecedented storms, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather yet our policymakers refuse to take any action to change it or even acknowledge it’s happening.  We’re experiencing record unemployment and a stalled economy yet the super rich loot and pillage recovery efforts to record profits.  Refugees with nowhere else to go seek shelter at our door and yet we respond by rounding them up like criminals, separating them from their children and caging them like animals…or kick them out alone and afr...

In California, where I grew up, we were the generation who watched the phases of life on television. TV gave us a twisted, idealized version of dating from "The Dating Game" and how to treat your siblings or be a parent from "The Brady Bunch". Whether it be Saturday morning cartoons or after-school specials, many parents didn’t feel that they needed to be as involved in their children’s lives as their own parents were in theirs. This freed them up to “find themselves”, leading to the “Me Generation” for the adults of that time. When our parents came of age in the ‘40s and ‘50s, they felt torn between setting limits and setting us free, so we weren’t really sure what the rules were. We were given many opportunities to explore the world on our own. We walked to our friends’ houses or to the store by ourselves, and no one thought much about it. The 1970s were the height of feminism. I remember sitting at countless kitchen tables while my friends’ mothers lectur...

This is “Miss Spirit” She is the first doll I ever made. Occasionally, I get asked about how I got started making dolls.  In 1981, I had made one rag doll for each of my two daughters who were two and three at the time. They were very simple...not much more than pillowed stick figures really. But they loved them because they were from Mom. Life went on, and on, and on until I had almost completely forgotten about it. Then, about eight years ago, I was going through a mild depression due to chronic depression and two things happened; the desire to control my own destiny and remembering “the zone”. I was experiencing a lot of rejection within my journey to employment. I realized that the impact that has would only be equal to my dependency being hired. So, I wanted to carve out my own way of at least creating a stream of revenue until I find something of a “real job”. But could I do? What are my talents? What materials do I have/need? How much would it cost me to...

I was having a discussion with a creative friend yesterday, and she mentioned that she believes her creativity doesn't come from within herself but that she is channeling a higher power. In other words, she is a conduit for creativity — she is only the wire, not the electricity. I thought a lot about that. What do I believe about my creativity and where it comes from? What is the source of human inspiration? The ancient Greeks had their Muses — female spirits that whispered in the ears poets, writers, and artists. What do I have? Like any artist, I have had the experience of going into an almost meditative (or blissful) trance and creating something, a “zone” if you will. I've come out of that mystical place, looked at what I've written, or a doll I've just finished and thought, "Where the hell did that come from?" I didn't know I had it in me. Not a clue. I know I created these works but it seems like the ideas were placed in my head. Creepy?...

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”   Edgar Allan Poe I'd say in about one third of the dreams I remember, I'm somebody else in the dream. Like, I'm in their body, I know who they are and it feels totally normal... and it's not me. For reference, I'm 60 years old. In my dreams, I've been men and women of all different ages, races, etc. This is just a normal thing. I don't generally remember their names, and the dreams are pretty standard dream stuff - sometimes it'll be a fun "wow, I can fly, let's glide over this lake!" dream, sometimes it's an awkward "I really have to pee and the only toilet is in the middle of this crowded cafeteria for some reason" type thing; sometimes it's mundane, sometimes it's wild, sometimes it's scary, sometimes it's funny.The only weird thing about it is that the person I "am" in the dream, is not who I am in my waking life. It...

Mom was is dying. Slowly disintegrating into an unknown existence. First her mind, then also her body. All she remembered was her name. She was elderly and had dementia for at least her final 5 years, probably even longer the doctors said. It got very bad between us once the paranoia of the dementia became very strong. Unfortunately, I was the only one she had to which to focus all of her fear, her anger and understandable confusion. She would've be horrified by the wicked games of the dying brain and the dependency on the others. In the end she was just an old fragile woman who wanted peace. In the whispers of her ultimately foggy mind, her love broke through like a flower breaks through the asphalt; briefly piercing through the dementia and always unexpected. I wish I could've given that to her. I knew Mom too well. At the time I did not even know what narcissism was. I just thought I wasn't good enough to love. If I would have known what narcissism at that ...

Across cultures it is accepted that it is a terrible thing to die alone. During the present Covid-19 epidemic there are visions of refrigerated trucks on TV. It's all so sad and tremendously disturbing to say the least. Of course it is tragic when large numbers of people die. It is also frightening. There is a real human fear of being unknown and alone when you are dying or have died. It feels as if that life is un-celebrated...discarded and unmourned with no funerals. What about their families? Loved ones can't visit those who are sick and dying. I don't know if it's sadder for the dying or the one's left behind. I would imagine that for those who, for whatever reason, have not made it to the death bed in time may be crippling. During this pandemic, the escalating fear of the unknown spreads like the virus itself. Responses to the horror of the hard to predict scope of Covid-19, the uncertainty of who dies next, and visions of people seeming to be abandon...

So this is week…four (I think?) of self-isolation. The days blend in together. I watch the news to see when this will all pass but there are no clear answers. Lately, a small part of me fears that we won’t ever go back to “normal” again or we'll forget what normal is. But when you think about it, isn't that life anyway? Life keeps moving along changing everything. It's just in these strange days, everything is more stark. But actually, that can help us see everything more clearly as to what our choices are...of who we want to be in all this. There is no mistaking that this pandemic, our political polarization, and even climate change exhibited in near biblical proportions, has re-prioritized everything in each of our lives. As for me, this last month has been wonderful therapy. Before this pandemic I rarely left the house. Part of that was due to being broke but truth be told, a lot of it was depression. Now, the weird thing is it's as if all of you are along...

It killed her slowly and painfully. Schwannomatosis; Pretty fancy word. Just like my sister, it's extremely rare and never let's you forget it's presence. Her illness was characterized by multiple tumors on nerves throughout her body. She was in extreme intense pain all the time. My sister was not defined by this war on her body for which she did not enlist. All the years since, she pushed all that ever knew her out of her life. Sadly, her pain and lack of the ability to really connect deeply with anyone left her angry and bitter. People say that “she's in a better place”. I hope that's true. Grief registers as experience. When Death slammed the door with my big sister in tow, internally I beg for another look; beating against the gate for another twinkle I can cherish forever. I am living each day again and again with all the words I should have said. Against my consent, my grief is woven within a global pandemic panic. We are all grieving fo...