Art Quilting

 

I lack the desire to write.  I sat down a week or two ago to write another story about my mom, but I fail to feel anything but a deep lethargy.  This past week has been super busy with Madelle’s birthday, early Thanksgiving, and a busy schedule, so I haven’t went back to the topic I started.  Today though, I thought I would share pictures of the quilt I finished on Monday.

When I pulled out the quilt “sandwich,” I was confused.  Sure, the quilting looks wonderful and the pieces are put together with perfection, but there was no pizzazz.  I went to Joann’s to find some fabric for the binding.  I bought enough to also sew on a sleeve on the back.  Though the quilt is huge for a wall hanging, it is also super small for a lap quilt.  What was my mother thinking of doing with this?

 

 

Each time I finished up working on the quilt for the day, I laid it out on the end of the bed to look at it and contemplate as I passed by.  One day, I finally realized what it might be.  The last couple of years, Mom talked about making quilt art.  Now, I think all quilts are art.  She and many others are taking quilting to a new level.  They are adding things to their quilts, embellishing in other words.  I don’t mind an occasional button, but she talked about metal and other things.  Her “art” quilt books are coming to my house and they are doing weird stuff.  I am not into this type of art.  I like the standard quilt art instead.  But my mind started racing.  I went on a shopping trip to Hobby Lobby.

I bought a ribbon, plastic snowflakes, tiny Christmas ornaments, and stockings.  When I got home, I decided right away that the snowflakes were out.  I didn’t like them.  I arranged all the other items and thought it looked good.  Once I finished the binding and sleeve, I got to work sewing by hand the stockings and ribbon.  I stopped there.  The ornaments are cute, but the quilt would lose the quilting part of the pieces sewn together.  Mom would probably argue with me and put the ornaments on.  Of course, she must have had a completely different thought about how to finish the quilt in the first place.  But I am happy with how it turned out.

Held Back

 

I can’t recall ever feeling unloved while I grew up in my mother’s home.  A lot of other feelings come to mind, but I truly thought she loved me.  Looking back, I could analyze everything and come to a different conclusion.  However, I felt very confident that I was loved.  I didn’t see the wonkiness of the things that happened between my mom and me.  My mom constantly watched out for me.  She kept me by her side all the time.  Smothering is a good word that comes to mind.  In one situation, this turned to craziness that changed the course of my life.

 

My first grade teacher was old.  Even looking back at pictures, she must have been in her seventies.  She kept her white hair short with curls that ringed her head.  Her glass filled her wrinkled face.  She wore pantsuits on her plump body, grandmotherly in all the right areas of personality.  Though I think she might have been tough.  We all behaved.  I adored her.  At the end of the school year, I felt so special when she invited us to dinner.

 

She lived just a few houses up from the doctor’s office and on the other side of the street.  Her house fit nicely on the bottom slop of a hill on the nice side of town.  I thought she was rich as we walked into the lovely furnished house with beautifully decorated walls.  The two stories made the house look like a mansion compared to our small singlewide trailer house.

 

Mrs. Delapp’s husband died years prior and her children lived far away.  Only the four of us sat at the table.  I haven’t a clue what we ate.  I do remember feeling comfortable and happy.  When we finished eating, she took us into the living room.  The conversation turned serious.  I couldn’t read well enough for her to feel comfortable with me continuing on to second grade.  She told my parents that they could let me go onto the next level, but she warned them I would struggle because I was so behind my classmates.

 

Concern crossed my dad’s face, “is she slow.”  I chuckle at how politically incorrect that response is for today.  Life was much different back in 1974.

 

Mrs. Delapp reassured him I was quite capable of reading.  The problem was that I missed so much school that I wasn’t getting the right amount of exposure to the lessons.  He had no idea I missed school.  In the morning, he left for work at five and returned at six in the evening.  Never did he think he had to check on my attendance.

 

The rest of the evening, I don’t remember what was said though I do think Dad agreed at her house that I would be held back and repeat the first grade.  I didn’t feel good anymore.

 

At some point, my parents had a long heated talk.  Dad wanted to know the reason why I missed so much school.  Mom said I couldn’t go to school if the weather was bad or if I was sick.  He questioned all of this.  In the end, he learned she kept me home if it rained, snowed, I sniffled, and every excuse in the book that made complete sense to her but not the rest of the world.  I imagine Dad was angry and told her how life would be the next year.

 

From that time forward, Dad took me to the library.  We worked on my reading and continued to talk stories we read until the day he passed away.  Each night, we talked about school.  I never had perfect attendance, but I had to be sick by his standards to stay home.  I didn’t miss much school.

 

Holding me back was the right decision.  I was teased.  Some would say I was bullied.  I hated that, obviously.  I blamed my mother for having to be held back when kids asked questions like why I was a year older.  I worked my ass off to get good grades to prove I wasn’t “slow.”  I also felt something was amiss with my mom’s thinking.  Sure, I was only six when this happened, but Dad and Mrs. Delapp didn’t approve of her keeping me home.

 

Over the years, I asked Mom a lot of questions about her behavior.  She threw her mother under the bus a lot by saying she was never taught to be a mother.  Grandma was sick a lot.  I would get mad and say Mom didn’t teach me either, but I figured it out.  Granted, maybe I didn’t do much better.  The jury is still out on that and I know one person who thinks I was a terrible mother.

 

As I quilt, I think of the changes my life took due to being held back.  I got over the shame I felt when being teased.  By high school, no one cared.  I was blessed with the friends I made as part of the Class of ‘’87 in both Eureka and Libby: Terri, Stacey, and a host of others.  Of course, I was led to study hard and go to college, meeting my dear husband.  I learned to love story and to write.  Who knows how my life would have turned out if I had graduated in 1986 instead?  The quilt of my life definitely would have been different.

Here is the fourth project I have finished for Mom.  I did the binding.

Content

 

A few months ago, life weighed on me.  As I always do, I went out to see what I could read to help me get through the days.  Jerry was at annual training in Iowa.  I thought maybe a book about faith and an absent husband might help.  I picked a book called “Faith Deployed” by Jocelyn Green.  The book is for military wives.  The topics aren’t applying completely to me because it comes from the viewpoint of an active duty wife, but I have enjoyed the chapters I have read.  They are short.  I read one a week to think about throughout the days.

A couple weeks ago, the Bible reading at the top of chapter 8 resonated with me.  She cut parts of the verse out, so it began with “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances”.  I liked the idea of being content.  I need to be more content in all things.  With COVID, I have found myself not at all content.  I want to go to activities that have been canceled.  I want to travel.  I want my daughter socially healthy.  The list of my discontent can go on and on.  If I keep being restless, my life will become unbearable.  I had a lot to ponder for the week.

I went to Mass that Sunday, nothing out of the ordinary.  The Bible reading at Mass caused me to sit up straight.  The New Testament reading was the exact same as the one in the book.  Okay, God is telling me this is really important.  I love it when he makes his message abundantly clear.  I looked up the verses in a couple of different versions of the Bible.  The one at the bottom of the page comes from my Catholic New American Bible, just like the reading at church.

Yes, I need to be content.  I need to be resilient with all the things happening in the world and in my life.  In fifty-two years, God has taught me resiliency and so many other things.  I need to rely on all my life experiences.  I need to rely on the friends and family God sends to me who enhance my life, my attitude, like the Philippians helped Paul.  Most of all, I need to rely on God to get me through the good days and the bad.  He never has let me down and he never will.  My strength comes through the Lord.  This will keep me healthy and smiling.

 

“Not that I say this because of need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I find myself, to be self-sufficient.  I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance.  In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.  I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.”  Philippians 4: 11-13

 

The Quilt

 

Where do I start a story about the patchy relationship between a mother and daughter?  Do I begin with the beginning of the relationship?  Or do I begin with her beginning to point out the clues that might have made my mother who she became as an adult?  I really don’t know where to start our story.  The relationship was like a patchwork quilt.  Some of the blocks did look beautiful in all the right patterns and color combinations.  A good many blocks came together at wrong angles with ugly fabric that clashed, especially at the bottom of the quilt.  Ugly!

Last year at this exact same time in November 2019, I envisioned writing this story as a memoire with the theme of prison.  I felt I was being held hostage by my mother.  I didn’t have one positive, nice thing to say about her besides she was an amazing quilter.  My anger and frustration consumed me.  I dreaded Sunday afternoon calls.  Her hopelessness covered me, suffocating as if a quilt was being pressed against my face.

Now, I sit in my bedroom with all of her leftover quilting projects.  Though I was still angry with her after she died, I couldn’t bear to throw all of her unfinished work away.  All the piles of quilt tops, cut strips of fabric, various stages of done projects were her legacy.  So, I packed them in boxes, nine totes to be exact.  I drug them to my garage, except one I took to my writing room along with the sewing machine stand and her travel machine.

As we prepared the house to sell, I thought of writing.  Traveling the five hours back and forth from my house to hers, I thought of how I wanted to heal through writing like I did when my dad died.  I thought of the coming year of working on the quilting projects, learning as I sewed.  I thought of my daughter’s senior year of high school and my amazingly supportive husband.  The last thing I wanted for them, our home, or myself was to be in a black hole of anger.  Maybe writing our story was a bad idea.

I also listened to people during this time of closure.  People loved my mom.  They mourned her.  Those who knew her well felt sorrow at her mental state.  Yes, my story of anger is a true story, but their story is true as well.  The little girl in me wanted to find the love I lost for her, to remember happy times with her.  Sure, the snarky teen and angry adult wanted to hold on to the injustice of her actions, I still do on some days.  The combination of the young and old wants to burn the guilt I harbor.  The older, mature adult in me ultimately wants to find peace and finish the damn quilt.

Besides, sitting at the sewing machine, emotions bubble up.  Some stories play in my head.  I need to get my thoughts out on the page.  I am a writer.  That is what we do.  Whether I do either my mom or me justice or the topic, time will tell.  All I know is the story needs told.  The quilt needs to be done, so I can use it without wanting to take it apart with the seam ripper.

While I write my story, I will be finishing her projects.  Below is the majority of the work I have in front of me.  I have finished a couple of things.  I have more projects in my writing room as well.  In the end, I should have a count of everything that I have accomplished.  I am sure the project of sewing will take me longer then a year.  The writing?  I will see what happens.  I declare the year of the quilt starting today.