Stitching contentment

I spent this sunny afternoon sewing, and even though I don't much like sewing, as I ran the machine, I was suddenly as warm and happy as a well-loved, and cared for child. I had one of those moments where the bottom of the world dropped away, and there was nothing more that I wanted to do than sew by the open window and listen to the sound of the birch trees sway in wind.

It brought me back to some of the most secure times of my childhood when my mother and sister and I would spend whole days sewing and chatting, and all seemed safe in the world. My mother has been dead for eighteen years, but this afternoon it seemed as though her spirit were with me, even though as I was hemming some pants, I took horrible, sloppy shortcuts that, I'm sure, made her roll over in her grave.

Today I rarely sew. In fact, I only bring out the machine when I've exhausted all the alternatives.

It's hard to remember that when I was in high school, I sewed nearly everything I wore. It was the only way I could have new party dresses etc. That was before I became a hippy, and threw away my bra and started to live in blue jeans, rubbing cigarette ashes and dirt into the denim to make them look fashionably worn and faded. And before I became a dreamy writer who spends more time thinking about doing things, than actually doing anything.

Today I was content to sew, and to be reconnected with my sewing past, and my mother. I am happy also that I didn't run the sewing machine over my finger, as I once did, and that even though it's been so long since I sewed that I couldn't remember all the details of operating the sewing machine, I didn't once have to resort to reading the manual.