Why "Holmespun"?
"and why 'Holmespun'?" I asked, with an e e comings start to my sentence. Was that deliberate? I don't remember.
Homespun: adj, spun or woven in the home; simple and homey, unpretentious. Examples, having a rough surface, as in fabric . . . www.dictionary.com.
In my case, a play on words. (No verb: typical me.) I am a Holmes; actually, 1/4 Holmes, Moore, Hovey, Colpitts. Margaret Jane Moore Vasseur. Father Donald Malcolm Moore. Mother, Margaret Holmes Moore. Better known to most people as Peg. I married Bill and gave him two daughters and several cats and dogs. (Now I would say . . . we have two daughters . . . ) The pets came from the pet store or the SPCA, except for Tiger and Elsa who came to us. I love new things: new paper, new fabric, new books (add thread). I love old things: old stories, old boxes, old books. I had two sets of grandparents ~ the city grandparents and the country grandparents. (Wasn't I a lucky girl?) the Moores lived near us in several houses, as they liked to buy and sell; my favorite was the entirely pink within and without house. The Holmeses lived on the farm and that is where my roots run the deepest: the Farm ~ a humble, grey, dilapidated farmhouse in Hillgrove, set in beautiful hills. If you are not of the "race that knows Joseph," (L M Montgomery), you won't know the magic charm of the farm. Those who know Joseph (whatever that means - I think it means they have a great imagination) just settle in by the wood stove with their cups of tea and fall in love with the homestead.
We Holmeses are a creative lot. I remember the spinning wheels and jennies in the granary. It burned years ago, a giant bonfire that brought neighbors from miles around, and Gramp and Gram didn't know why everyone was in their yard. (Gramp had thrown the ashes in there before they were dead.) In that granary, there must have been at least a dozen of these spinning wheels, and they were every color imaginable. That was great-grandfather Charles's doings; he painted everything he could get his hands on, I am told. I love color and texture and variety and spinning and creating. I love to take thread or yarn and make beautiful doilies and mittens and sweaters (I don't think I want to make sweaters anymore), or turn fabric into beautiful quilt tops, or weave words into stories. Some stories are beautiful. Some are sad or tragic. Some just are: no punch lines, no genesis or revelation or climax, just a tidbit handed down, and I can't remember all the details, just an impressionistic fuzzy memory.
To me, the farmhouse is a castle. When I return to it in the summer, I am the princess. (Now, the princess has grown up, not into a queen of the castle, but the realistic viewer of a castle imploding into the present. With the lack of electricity, water, and tlc, and old furnishings - which I recognize is all very necessary, it's difficult to imagine back into a castle.) I travel back in time to my very beginnings, for (many of them) they are wound up in that farmhouse. It is the thought-child for my memories and most many of my stories; even some with no connection seem to find their way back to my homespun Holmespun roots.
"A young girl may dream of becoming a princess, but in the eyes of her parents, she already is. How will our children know who they are if they don't know where they come from?" John Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath."
2014: The first photo is my cousin Karl and me. The second is my cousin Mike in front, me on left and Karl on right, with my Uncle Jim in the background. Farm fun.
I don't know if I really answered my question. I chose the word "holmespun" because of the play on the word "homes" and because I weave words and threads and photo collages and whatnot into something, generally at home, and include them under my multi-sectioned, colorful umbrella. Did I imply that in my essay? It certainly is no three pointer with an introduction that includes my purpose statement, and a conclusion that refers back to the introduction. But, that's okay with me: its a good rough draft.
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