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Another one passes
Sep. 26th, 2008 09:02 pmBirth, marriage and death, these things we have no control over. A guru from my favorite Bollywood film, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun...!
Once a week I go to my favorite thrift store down the road. It reliably has a selection of sewing fabrics and other good things. Sometimes I walk out with nothing, but other times I make a haul.
The fabric rack is the thing I love the most about this store. I navigate the fabric rack by touch rather than sight. My fingers trained from young childhood to feel the content of the fabric. I hunt for silk, wool, linen, ignoring the slick nylons and stiff cottons. I stick my hand into the hanging folds and rub them through my fingers like money... Some have good feelings that come with them. Treasured pieces of fabric that never got made into anything. Others are just blank nothings, others I pull my hand back from the negativity that can never be washed out.
Cotton, nylon, fleece, polyester... Then the back of my hand scrapes against the next hanging fold.. Hair Canvas!? My hand jumps to the next hanger and I pull it out. Two yards of hair canvas for a dollar fifty? It flies into the cart, and then I spy the old cardboard cutting mat, and it hits me, its the remnants of a woman's sewing room.
Someone, probably in a little brick ranch house or a split rambler, within a few miles of where I live, had been cleaning out their mother's sewing room because she's either passed on or is in a home... I imagine her children the same age as my parents, middle 50's, with the grandkids, going through her stuff, putting it in boxes. "Does anyone want this?" they ask hopefully... "Mom, nobody in the family sews, just put it in the box for the thrift store" says the kids, exasperated at the pile of mementos that their elders can't get rid of... so off it goes for a taxable donation.
I find nothing else interesting on the fabric rack, so I look in the thread and notions bins. There's a bag of wooden thread bobbins, and old buttons and two wooden sock darners. And I then know, she's gone. Either to a grave or to the mental prison of dementia.
So the hair canvas, the old cutting board and the bag of old notions came home with me. I wondered if the Kenmore sewing machine in the machine section was her's too... or the little music box that played the hauntingly happy melody. No, I don't think the music box was her's, too depressing.. I think she liked sunshine, happiness and productivity.
I'll be back at the thrift store on Monday, my regular day. I have a feeling that there's more goodies from her sewing room yet to be put out, and I think she'd want them to go to a loving home like mine. :)
Once a week I go to my favorite thrift store down the road. It reliably has a selection of sewing fabrics and other good things. Sometimes I walk out with nothing, but other times I make a haul.
The fabric rack is the thing I love the most about this store. I navigate the fabric rack by touch rather than sight. My fingers trained from young childhood to feel the content of the fabric. I hunt for silk, wool, linen, ignoring the slick nylons and stiff cottons. I stick my hand into the hanging folds and rub them through my fingers like money... Some have good feelings that come with them. Treasured pieces of fabric that never got made into anything. Others are just blank nothings, others I pull my hand back from the negativity that can never be washed out.
Cotton, nylon, fleece, polyester... Then the back of my hand scrapes against the next hanging fold.. Hair Canvas!? My hand jumps to the next hanger and I pull it out. Two yards of hair canvas for a dollar fifty? It flies into the cart, and then I spy the old cardboard cutting mat, and it hits me, its the remnants of a woman's sewing room.
Someone, probably in a little brick ranch house or a split rambler, within a few miles of where I live, had been cleaning out their mother's sewing room because she's either passed on or is in a home... I imagine her children the same age as my parents, middle 50's, with the grandkids, going through her stuff, putting it in boxes. "Does anyone want this?" they ask hopefully... "Mom, nobody in the family sews, just put it in the box for the thrift store" says the kids, exasperated at the pile of mementos that their elders can't get rid of... so off it goes for a taxable donation.
I find nothing else interesting on the fabric rack, so I look in the thread and notions bins. There's a bag of wooden thread bobbins, and old buttons and two wooden sock darners. And I then know, she's gone. Either to a grave or to the mental prison of dementia.
So the hair canvas, the old cutting board and the bag of old notions came home with me. I wondered if the Kenmore sewing machine in the machine section was her's too... or the little music box that played the hauntingly happy melody. No, I don't think the music box was her's, too depressing.. I think she liked sunshine, happiness and productivity.
I'll be back at the thrift store on Monday, my regular day. I have a feeling that there's more goodies from her sewing room yet to be put out, and I think she'd want them to go to a loving home like mine. :)
