Block #43 For Kristi S.

Why Am I Doing This?

I am starting to get questions about the birds. People at work ask me how long they take to make and say things like “you mean you HAVE to make one a day all year??” as if it is a homework assignment that I am being graded on. Obviously, this is my choice and its not always easy. So I thought I would take a few minutes tonight to elaborate on why I am doing this.

About a year ago I stumbled across the blog “A Thousand Quilted Cranes”. The writer of this blog was inspired by Margaret Rolfe’s peace quilt and dedicating each crane to a person that as affected his life either negatively or positively.

Immediately I wanted to do it too, mostly because the crane was an amazing pattern and I thought the idea was cool. At the time, it was only a cool idea. I never started the project; I just didn’t have enough passion for it. Then this year at quilt festival I was in a class and recognized someone from a previous festival class. I noticed she was always working during class so I asked where she worked. She worked at a BIG company and I know someone at that company, Daniel, so I mentioned him. Turns out, they were buddies and I thought “small world”. During our conversation, I mentioned that I really hadn’t seen him in several years; that we used to work together but we had both moved on. She made a comment that really stuck with me, it was something about friends flying in and out of your life, I can’t remember the phrase exactly, it was something about “seasons” maybe.

While Daniel and I were friends and he is awesome, we were never “tight”. But, it still got me thinking about all of the people I was once very close to and how I don’t even know most of them anymore. Some of them I miss and think about often. All of them have shaped me in some way. That is how I found the passion for this project. I wanted to bring back the memories of those those long lost friends and honor the current ones as well. Tonight’s block is dedicated to one of those.

A Short Story

I met Kristi S. when I moved to “The Big City”. She was a friend of my husbands friend. She was my very first friend down here. She was going to the same college as me and we started out as carpool buddies. It was nice to have company and help navigating freeways. My husband worked offshore and she was single so we became friends and hung out together all the time. She even went home with me once at Thanksgiving and slept through one of those crazy earthquakes. She was my lifeline here, and I can’t believe that I have no clue where she is now. How can you be in someone’s wedding and then 15 years later, you don’t even know how to get ahold of them.

Are people really only in our lives for a season? Is there some sort of limit to how many close friends you can manage at one time, and socially, the herd gets thinned as it needs to? I have no clue.

Date Made: February 12th, 2015  
Block #43
Days on Project: 43
Blocks Made: 46

For Kristi S.