Long Thoughtful Weekends
It’s the beginning of a lovely three-day weekend here in the US. Monday is Memorial Day, of course, and my flag will be flying proudly, just as it does everyday.
For me, Memorial Day is not just a time to remember the dead, or to honor the sacrifices of our military. It is also a day which holds more personal meaning. I’ll take some time out of the day specifically to reflect on my small place in life and in the world, and I’ll most likely do so while stitching. I find focusing on one small x in a sea of stitches helps me stay mindful of my contemplative purpose on Memorial Day. I may be just one person, tiny in the scheme of things, but the whole would not be the same without me. I do have a purpose, even if I am not quite sure what it is or how well I am doing with it.
Memorial Day falls at a time which reminds me of endings … and their corresponding beginnings — the transition of spring or the end of a school year leading into a relaxing but rejuvenating summer, or perhaps a graduation and a commencement. There is a cycle, and I am part of it and somewhere within it. Eventually, I will cease taking up physical space here — just like everyone else. What will I leave behind? What do I have yet to do? These are the kinds of thoughts that run through my mind on Memorial Day.
Some of these thoughts are rather morose by nature. However, as stitchers, we have a heritage showing that people — or at least women — have been occupied by such thoughts for more years than we can count. We have been left messages in thread, written with care by women who may well have had to struggle along with only one or two needles over a period of several years, about what life was like for them, about what they dreamed of and hoped for, about what made them cry — about who and what mattered to them.
In general, what stitchers of yesteryear cared about are the same things I think most of us would say really matter to us today — the people and animals we love, the comfort of home, and so on. We still use our stitching to deal with mortality, including our own, though I think our tendency to do so with more humor than in the past is a freedom granted by the improved technology, better health, and more comfortable living conditions of our modern age.
Yet, I wonder … Are the messages we are writing in thread saying what we would wish to say to future stitchers who will someday look back at the stitches we have made with such care and enjoyment? Are we really leaving messages in the same way anymore? Has needlework evolved from a skill of necessity in which a stitcher would sometimes express her thoughts most precious into something much different?
It is so easy — and relatively inexpensive — to write down certain thoughts, print those to paper, and even have them bound into a book, that the types of messages recorded in thread by today’s stitcher can look very different from what would have been created by a stitcher in the past … Certainly it is much easier for a woman today to express herself publicly than it was for most of the “Patty Polk-alikes” who came before us (women have come a long way, baby, and I’m glad — but not yet content!).
But is the message really all that different?
I think it is. The difference I see in most needlework done today is about joy. We stitch today not because we have to, but because we want to … Needlework is our luxury. Perhaps because of that, we are able to create a picture that looks brighter overall.
Do you think that message will fade and fray along with thread and fabric during the passage of time?
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