Turkish cushion covers

Arrived by mail from Istanbul a few weeks ago. Bevan had brought new ones to me in Cape Town after I washed my original covers and saw the dye bleed out. Sniff. My red pomegranates turned pink. Sob. Anyway, my mom loved the covers when she saw them and Bevan suggested we leave those to live on the Cape Town couch, and he'd send more to me in the land of the Infidel. Which he did.

I have romantic notions about the embroidery of these covers. Real hands, with clever fingers and an artist's eye, working on this fabric now in my house in Brooklyn. An old lady, somewhere in Turkey, near the light of a window, stitching away. A kitten at the doorway, drinking its saucer of milk, a white goat outside, poking its head in. The new leaves on the grapevine about to be harvested by a daughter, to make dolma.

Tell me it's so...

These deep oranges that I need in my life, flowers, fruit.

I procrastinated before ordering new pillows - the covers were larger than the old ones. I found a place online, in Delaware, selling goosedown inserts, as they are called when naked, and they arrived the next day, regular shipping. It was amazing.

Thank you, Bevan Ali.