Maria and my lives are about many things; one major thing is finding ways to do good every day. That is what Bedlam Farm is about now. I don’t care what the news tells us; every day, we find the goodness and love in people, the yearning for community and humanity.

We find the people who want to help, who step out of their own lives and troubles to feel the pain and others and try to help. We see the people who need a small act of great kindness in their lives. We listen to them.

This is what government should be doing. This is what we should be doing.

Our world is schizophrenic; it is separated from our government and our leaders and many of the people we keep hearing about and reading about.

Sound is all around us; we did some real good today.

Once again, I saw that the heart beats as strongly as any label, political party, or angry movement. We are drowning in hate. We are swimming in goodness.

Maria mentioned to me a couple of days ago that she had come across a plea for fabrics on a community website from someone we’d never heard of. This woman had asked if anyone had any fabric pieces they could give her.

That’s all she said, but it was clear it was a call for help.

For some years now, Maria has been receiving fabric from readers all over the country, and she is deeply grateful for it; this generosity has been critical to her work and creativity. These gifts become art and travel all over the country and some of the world.

Maria read the request and wondered if she couldn’t share some of her fabric; as she put it to me, “people have been sharing fabric with me; I’d like to share my good fortune with someone else.”

A couple of weeks ago, someone sent her bags of fabric that she couldn’t use.

She called up the woman who’d made the request, and the woman said she was starting to make quilts and had no fabric and couldn’t afford to buy any.

She said she had no means of transportation and lived way out in the country.

Maria offered to drive the fabric out to her. I agreed to go.

The woman’s name was Melody, and she lived way out in the country, a good way from us and in a part of the country I had never been to.

It wasn’t easy finding her place, she didn’t have the correct address on her mailbox, but she saw us driving by and knew it wasn’t a local car. When we called her for directions, she said we had just driven by.

Her house appeared to need repair; cars, trucks, statues, junk all over the backyard.  She finally came out to stand in her driveway so we could find her.

Melody was grateful to receive Maria’s fabric.

She said thank you repeatedly and said that she could never have purchased this fabric if not for Maria’s generosity and her willingness to come out and track down her house.

Melody has been doing good for people; she made masks with the fabric she was buying during the pandemic. When she decided to make quilts, she realized she had to ask for help getting different kinds of materials.

She had a few quilt squares in her hands to show us; Maria said they were beautifully made.

Maria said she saw a fellow artist.

We could see from the house and grounds that Melody was having a hard time.  This was the real complex country, a deep, lost, and isolated, and remote place.

It just shouted struggle.

We could both see Melody was an artist, working on paintings and sculptures all over the yard.

I admired Maria’s reflexive and instant response to this call for help. This is one of the many reasons I love her.

I appreciate her impulse to pay something back in honor of the many people who have sent beautiful fabrics to her in support of her art.

I loved coming along and watching the instant comradeship of Melody and Maria, two artists who are very different yet, in many ways, the same. They instantly began talking shop and fabric.

Before my eyes, I saw colleagues, not strangers.

People were sharing their fabric with them so they could practice their art.

We stopped to get some ice cream; we were both feeling strong and good.

Good people with big hearts are the most influential people in the world. Generosity and empathy can move mountains in minutes.

Good for you, I kept saying to Maria. Good for you to hear Melody’s message and take an afternoon out of your life to reach out to her and give her a chance.