8.26.25

sting **

A State Senator was scheduled to arrive in a neighboring town this morning.
She’d been invited to speak at a ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate
the completion of a years-long roadwork project for which she had helped
secure funding. Protesters, having been alerted the day before, lined the main
artery, shaking their signs as drivers came through. They were not in the mood
to celebrate, the Senator—in their minds—having made critical errors
of judgment throughout her decades in government. With a midterm
election on the horizon, they were taking every opportunity to make
their presence felt. The Mayor and Councilmen, seeing the bottleneck,
moved the proceedings to the town hall. The protestors followed in a line
snaking up the stairs and filled the gallery. A few residents were sitting
in the front pews. There was a policeman by the door and another
on the right wall, just under a window. The Senator was introduced
and the shouting began. She rose to the podium and opened a thick binder.
She wore a light blue suit and pale heels. Someone yelled “Shame!” and then
another voice followed and then “Shame! Shame! Shame!” became an anthem
while the Senator raised her hands in an effort to speak. Eventually, it got
quiet enough for her to say one or two things about the roadwork project,
which had taken more than two years and detoured traffic out of town.
Businesses had suffered from the loss in revenue. A few had closed.
But now there were new sidewalks and ornamental light posts and
planter boxes filled with seasonal foliage. The Senator didn’t say this part.
She thanked the Mayor and Councilmen and the beautification committee.
Then the shouting returned and intensified and the mayor raised
a gavel and struck it fruitlessly against the lectern. The Senator closed
her thick binder and gave it to her assistant, who handed the Senator
an oversized pair of scissors. She snipped the ceremonial ribbon positioned
in front of the podium and someone took a photograph. Fifteen minutes later,
she left through a side door and entered the passenger side of a dark red SUV.

late summer picnic table
a drip of ice cream
sometimes the bee doesn’t sting


© Maya Stein

Announcing PLOTHOLDERS
A potholder series inspired by email subject lines

Late last fall, I enrolled in a potholder-making workshop at the wonderful Waterfall Arts nonprofit arts center in Belfast, Maine. The class was taught by my friend, Richard Chalmers, an extraordinary furniture maker and artisan who’d taken up a new hobby. I confess I had a challenging time in that class—not because of Richard’s teaching, but because I struggled with the mechanics of keeping the cotton loops from falling off the metal loom, and also the additional ambulatory work of taking the whole construction off of the loom when all of the rows were complete.

But as often happens when I don’t connect the dots right away, I was hell-bent on successfully completing a single potholder on my own. Richard generously lent me one of his looms and invited me to take a few handfuls of loops home.

That week, I finished my very first solo potholder. And then I spent the next 5 months fastidiously constructing potholders in my spare time. I purchased a bigger loom and hundreds (thousands?) of loops. By April, I’d assembled more than 120 potholders. By then, I’d discovered the fabulous “Piglet’s Potholder Patterns” website and downloaded a (free!) PDF of hundreds of designs. I’d also found color and pattern inspiration in my email inbox, and had created a series I called “Plotholders” I shared on social media, with particular subject lines corresponding with my designs.

You can see a large selection of these potholders on my website, and they are now available for purchase, with 20% of every sale going to two of my local food pantries, the Northport (Maine) Food Pantry and the Belfast (Maine) Soup Kitchen. For details, go here: mayastein.com/plotholders

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