My mother passed in 2011 and I still have a paper sack of her slips in the hall closet. Half-slips, mostly, that nylon that feels like nothing in your hand. I've moved that sack to three different houses.

Here's the thing nobody tells you. I have known for eleven years what they're for. There's a quilt in my head that's nothing but those slips and strips of my daddy's work shirts, and the reason I haven't started it is that I'd have to cut them. Right now they're whole. The minute I take the scissors to them, they're cloth.

My daughter says Mama, that's what she'd want. And she's right and I know she's right and I still walk past that closet.

Meanwhile I finished a top last month out of old denim and feed sack and it came together in nine days, no arguing with it at all. Easy work is easy, I guess.

The sack's not going anywhere. I'm not asking y'all what to do with it. I just wanted to say out loud that it's there, and that I'm not ready, and that not being ready is allowed for a while.