jillaine

I first learned how to sew from my mother. On her early Singer (no, I don't know what type, I'll find out next time I visit her), she made many of our clothes when we were children. She made clothes for our dolls (I still have some). And it was sewing for my Barbies that first brought me to her sewing machine.

While I continued to sew off and on through high school, I went off to college and had many more important things to attend to than sewing. As many young people do, I drifted from my parents through my 20s.

Somewhere in my early 30s, as I settled into being a single professional woman with a (rental) home of my own, I wanted to sew again, but had no sewing machine. My dear mother was absolutely thrilled to hear this. You know, by the time a child reaches a certain age, it's not so easy to find the perfect Christmas or birthday gift, resulting so frequently in the emotionless (however useful) check. But here was something mom could do for her daughter: buy her her first Singer. Twenty years later, it still sits before me, and is my only machine.

About ten years ago, when I visited her, I noticed that she had the same pin cushion she'd had for years; we spoke of the memories that evoked. A week after I returned home, the mail arrived and in it was a package from mom-- her beat-up, old, made-in-Japan pin cushion with a note describing how, as she prepared it for sending, she worked out all the hidden needles that had buried themselves deep in its flesh over the decades. She spent hours in front of the TV gently seeking and removing needle after needle after needle. How many years were expressed in each of those buried needles, I wondered? How many blouses and skirts and nightgowns and doll outfits?

This morning, having used every pin in that cushion for my current project, I faced the "naked" cushion. I picked it up and slowly massaged it, seeking (with care) those sharp points that revealed yet another pin. Some tried to escape me, seeking to remain hidden, and just when I was about to put the cushion down and go on to the day's next task, the tip of my finger would prick another needle point, and back at it I would attend... along with memories of mom...