Another one passes

[mmcnealy]

Birth, 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. :)

Comments

[moira-ramsay.livejournal.com]

Knowing that her treasures will be cared for and used with love and immense talent is the best gift you can give her. Her treasures are in safe hands and I am glad that you are the guardian taking the art one step further.

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

I wish my thrift store carried things like that.

[aeddie.livejournal.com]

If you think of her when you use the things is she really gone, even if you didn't know her name?

[k1yok2tog.livejournal.com]

That was really beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

[kampfrau.livejournal.com]

How very touching.... thank you for your gift of sharing.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

I think you are 100% right about this. I still get misty when I remember finding my grandfather's WWI journal in the 'throw out' pile that my siblings hastily accumulated when asked to help my folks move my grandmother to a rest home. If I hadn't insisted on going back through that box, pictures of the old homestead in Oklahoma and the only record of my grandfathers experiences in Europe would have been lost.

I don't blame folks who rush through these sorts of difficult and emotionally wearing chores, but I wonder how often they look back and wish they had thought about their choices a little bit more.

[etienetteblue.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes! How perfect that her things should go to someone who will value and eventually use them. I have acquaintances (they'll never truely be friends 'cause a meeting of minds isn't really there) who send unwanted piles of things to the landfill instead of the thrift stores. They just can't be bothered nd these are otherwise 'green' people. I'll never understand that sort of thinking.

[peacockdress.livejournal.com]

That's a wonderful story. Well done to you for coming across those precious things!

sewing things

[fireslove.livejournal.com]

I live in An-tir and Vesta pointed out your livejournal..I just had to say..I love and respect having old sewing boxes, fabric, and etc. You are touching and using something that another women used with love. It is a connection to the past, that frequently revels many things about that other womens life. Old sewing boxes full of sewing things are my favorite. Because we all keep so much of ourselves in our sewing boxes...they are a safe and private place where most other people don't go. They provide a connection, a tangible one, to another women. From antique notions to jewlery to notes and measurements scribbled on bits of paper..a snipit of someone life. I treasure and respect the ones I find...and yes, I hope that the previous owner would like them in my loving home.