Hobson's Choice
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Quilts
I was thinking about my quilts this morning as I made up the guest bed, folding the extra quilts which had kept my mother-in-law warm in our glacial house. Almost all the quilts I have are tattered and stained. I fold one so that its underside shows; the patchwork on the top has become so worn that there's virtually no top left. And it's not like the quilting on the back is so amazing as to stop your breath. These are not quilts that are ever going to be on the Antiques Roadshow with the valuer exclaiming, "This is truly a find!"
But my quilts have been lived under, snuggled under, picnicked on, old dogs wrapped in, set on the floor for babies to play on. My grandmothers spent hours and hours of their lives making them, making them for a purpose, for use, for wear, and now for wearing out.
Last night, when my in-laws were tucking into some soup after a day of traveling, we were talking about those odd little moments of ESP that arise in couple who have lived together for a long time when you know exactly what the other is thinking. My mother-in-law said that, after all, everything in the universe is made of the same elements, the same atoms and molecules. When you think on the atomic level, there is no separateness in the world. Perhaps it's not so crazy that our thoughts begin to creep into each others heads as our atoms and molecules have spent so many years mingling.
And perhaps when I fold the pieces of my quilts and when I sleep under them, I am with my grandmothers. Their hands held the thread and needle for so long stitching these quilts, I'm sure they're in there
2:06 p.m. - 2006-01-21
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