Creating a quilt begins with chopping up fabric. There is such a thing as a whole cloth quilt but most women regard it as cheating. A real quilt, a true Best of Show is remarkable because of its hundreds or even thousands of pieces. Hence before you even plop down at the machine you arm yourself with a rotary cutter and slice up perfectly intact yardage into squares and triangles. Don't try too hard to understand it.
I have wondered how the threads themselves feel about this. They have endured their pilgrimage from the cotton fields to the mill, to be dyed, woven and trucked. With great effort they have held hands with neighboring threads in order to avoid holes or tears. Ripped pieces are considered shameful, and are tossed in the bargain bin. But when the fabric arrives on the cutting table all of that is over. Threads are slashed mercilessly into precise shapes never to touch again. Sometimes I think I can hear them whimper softly.
When my firstborn was seven he made a baby quilt for a friend. He cut up white fabric and sewed it back together. As in no other fabric added to the collage. I tried to coax him to incorporate colors, but his mind was made up. White fabric cut up and sewn back together. The same, only smaller.
As I progress more deeply into the second half of my time on earth I notice that the first part involved a lot of chopping. My self image was hacked by mistakes, disappointments, and struggle. Sometimes when I watch mothers of young children I am exhausted by just witnessing the effort. Amnesia has fogged my own years with toddlers. All I can recollect is the moments that were adorable enough to take pictures of. When they were sick or screaming I wanted no pictures.
But the sleepless nights and grimy shoulders did something else. They severed my sense of self into pieces. I could no longer hold on to the notion that I had it together. Clearly, I did not. The struggles rendered me in pieces, like a bolt of cloth slashed into shapes on the cutting table. My pride is no longer attached to results. Peacefulness is no more connected to achievements. Motivation lost its tether to rewards.
But it is that process that allows me to be sewn back together into something more beautiful than cheater cloth. At times I can almost feel the stitching, piercing my expectations and reconfiguring them to new colors. A Quilter more skilled than me is piecing my brokenness.
