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The Fabric of My Life

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I knit, I crochet and I sew. These things are my life and they make my life. The fabric of my life. Sometimes I am creating the fabric and sometimes I am unraveling or cutting it into smaller pieces to be made into something else. In both actions there are lessons learned, fears faced, expectations exceeded and maybe tears shed. Just like in life.

unraveling

The fabric of my life is ugly right now. I don’t like the color. I don’t like how it feels against my skin. It keeps me up at night. It’s like wearing burlap. Brown, rough, unpleasant. It smells bad. It is course and pulls apart easily leaving a pile of dusty debris on the floor.

The metaphor of needle crafts in my life and the fabric of life itself is poignant yet hopeful. In my sewing, knitting, crocheting, I am creating my reality. Sometimes there are factors beyond my control that may cause a specific project to be unsuccessful and need to be unraveled or ripped out.

These words are used in today’s conversation regarding life circumstances. We talk about people unraveling at the seams when under too much stress. Or marriages and families being ripped apart by various forces of nature and man.

After these stories are told, the people suffering the fate of life in shreds pick up their fabric and slowly but surely start rebuilding their lives. They rebuild houses, create new bonds that become family, find new careers, etc. None of it is the same as before. Once ripped and unraveled it can never go back to what was.

The beauty of the fabric of life is the resilience, the elasticity, the possibilities. If ripped and unraveled, it is often better than before. Having come through the pain of forced changes, the fabric is softer. It gets a luster. History breathes through it.

I realized while knitting today, that the answers to the questions I have about my life lay in the creating of the fabric itself. In the quiet of the moments when the needles brush softly against one-another, a realization dawns. Ideas spring forth with solutions to problems that previously had vexed me to bed!

Most of these aren’t huge esoteric mind-benders. It’s the little things we miss such as, “haste makes waste”. Yep, while knitting hastily, I made a mistake, 10 rows back. RIP. (Yes, Rest In Peace, to the 10 rows of knitting and the time wasted, and the other things I could have been doing). “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, is another good one. When making your own fabric, ie your life, it’s your’s. Who cares if anybody else likes it? You have to like it. Another favorite is, “A stitch in time, saves nine”. This one is such a great lesson for our throw-away society. Fix it, before the tear is a big hole! Maybe this applies to routine maintenance on your car, attention paid to nagging health issues or squabbles at the office. “Nip it in the bud”! I could go on…

Some of these inklings, these flashes, solve the biggest dilemmas with the simplest of answers. I believe that while sitting, listening to that swish of the needles, we become more ready to see the solution that had been there all along. It is merely that the time wasn’t right for fabric to support that detail yet. A misplaced decrease stands out like a sore thumb, but placed perfectly, at the right time, allows the fabric to fit and drape and flow.

Time is also referred to as a fabric. A life is time spent in this body, on this planet. It takes time to create fabric. Every stitch joining to the next one in counted seconds. Racing to…what? A finish line? You know what’s at the finish line? The end, and a pile of fabric. It is the stitches that are important. If I purl instead of knit, I get a bump in the otherwise smooth surface. Maybe I want some bumps. Maybe they happened by accident but I became inspired to change the smoothness. Maybe I crossed stitches and made a cable. These take more time. But oh how beautiful!

The great thinkers and religious leaders of all time have taught to live in the moment. Each breath is all there is. Each stitch is all there is. The fabric is all there is. You are the fabric. Whoa!

I am choosing to make beautiful fabric. Glowing colors, softest silks, cashmere, wooly wools and more. My life is burlap at this moment but I am the crafter. I choose to recreate the burlap into an ever-changing wall hanging dripping with luxurious fibers. One that reflects the life of my dreams. One that reflects ME. When I do get to the finish line, I will be wrapped in glowing robes of color…with a few holes and patches and some chunks of burlap mixed in. This is the fabric of my life.

 


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