There are huge segments of my life I simply do not remember. When my children bring up times that I should remember I feel like the worst mother on the planet, because I simply cannot recall those precious moments. I love to hear them tell me about them, they usually sound like profound and beautiful moments. Yet for me they are vacant spaces in the timeline in my head.
That was years ago when in my ignorance I allowed doctors to over medicate me as a result of Lyme disease and fibromyalgia. When I was naive enough to think there was a magic pharmaceutical fix for the challenges that both of those things brought to my life. Oddly, when I stopped being afraid of the pain, disorientation, the fog, the memory lapses, etc. I learned that I didn't need those medications to make them better. I also found my memory became so much more clear, I had the ability to control the other symptoms and my life became my own.
Yet this isn't about that... it's about time.
I've been spending the past few weeks reacquainted with my longarm quilting machine, truth be told. I have forgotten far more than I had originally learned. I have really struggled with it. Breaking needles, snapping thread, tearing out literally 100's of yards of thread because the tension is off and I can't seem to hit the sweet spot.
I have cursed, cried and thrown my hands up in frustration. I have immediately started tearing the stitches out, looking for information on what I could be doing wrong and started again. I have made the decision a dozen times to just leave it as it was, flawed, not able to sustain itself past the first use. A bakers' dozen times I have decided to honor the work of this simple quilt and continue to tear it out and correct it.
I have wasted literally hours tearing out stitches. Probably twice as long as I have spent putting them in. I can't give up. Once I finally finish the last two rows of quilting, I will go back and correct the spots that I had moved past earlier. I'm starting to think I could have hand-quilted this simple quilt.
So why?
Time.
This quilt top is from another time, a different life, a moment when I tried to be someone else, join a guild, work with a group of talented women. We were from every imaginable dynamic on our small base. It was our answer to dealing with the stress left by Sept. 11, 2001. When you live on a small military base in the shadow of a major international airport. There is stress. We had everything from Generals, military attorneys, teachers, housewives, single women, mom's, childless. All stitched together. Bound by a craft that has brought many women and men together for 100's of years.
This particular quilt is one of many very much like it. Each row was made with care by each of us. They are identical on all of our quilts. Simple blocks, springtime was our theme. We all assembled them in a different order. Yet each quilt held one of each row. On every row we created we wrote our name, the date we completed the row and where we were originally from. That little base in Germany was not our place of origin. It was our temporary home.
Time has moved on. That sweet simple quilt top has been waiting for my attention. I had brazenly decided it wasn't a precious heirloom, it would be a perfect quilt for me to start sharpening my skill. It had been folded up for over 19 years. Waiting.
But then time and memories stepped in.
Somewhere along the way my gaze fell on a beautiful block created by Caryn. It was a simple pink print, yet over the top she had lain the softest lace. My memory can't recall where she said it was from a wedding or christening gown. Her beautiful signature nearby. And time stopped for a moment. Caryn has left this world, which is why I am okay writing her name. She was such a beautiful, loving soul. Ironically, of everyone on that quilt, she is the only one I ever saw after leaving Germany. She is the only one that ever met my sweet Hubs. She was talented beyond belief. And her heart made her perfect to run the base Red Cross. We'd shopped the streets of Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Mainz in search of fabrics and supplies. How could I not honor that with my best?
So many of the names stirred memories.
I know a few have retired. I'm sure a few more are still traveling with their careers or spouses. And me?
I am living a very different life. I am no longer the woman whose name is written on my row. In name or life. My world detoured in the most incredible way shortly after that quilt top was made. I survived many things that changed me to my core. I became me. I found my dear Hubs, we created a life of love and beauty.
Time is strange that way.
I had been thinking of the past year and it's experiences as earth shattering, life changing, something that many might not survive. As I have quilted those vines (at least that is what I thought I was creating - in keeping with the spring theme), the ones that everyone else seems to think are strings of hearts, I have paused, I have focused on trying to remember each of those women and their role and meaning in my life. To wonder where they are, what changes and journey's their lives have followed.
I have spent endless hours pondering my own life. The shift, the reality change, the beauty of it all. The pain that led to this life that I love and cherish. My old life wasn't bad. It just wasn't right. I have wonderful memories and times to cherish. The greatest of which is when it all changed.
At the time (there is that word again) it was devastating, nothing was going to be right again, it was the beginning of an end that I could sense but not believe in. It was a painful moment in time.
Time being what it is, it's not different than giving birth, horrid pain leads to an almost immediate case of amnesia. As the beauty of what has occurred sinks in.
I don't often remember that person. The one that I was. I am not someone that dwells in the past or lives much in the future. I am a here and now person. But the memories have been bittersweet and beautiful.
Another moment in time.
Awesome read! 381+
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