Sometimes I think of life like a vast sheet of fabric. It stretches out before and behind us in it's many shades and textures. Some places are creased and crumpled and full of ravines. The ups and downs that encapsulate us in our day to day, week to week life. The steep inclines we face in our emotional challenges, the beautiful views from the hilltops of our accomplishments and the expanses of crisp smoothness in between those patches.
Sometimes there are areas that become damaged either through wear and tear, rough handling or not being cleansed or mended correctly. Stains that never quite wash out.
This is the sleeve of one of my favourite jerseys. It was gifted to me through a long erased friendship of a woman I once held so dear. Her name was Robin and she was as bright as a ray of sunshine at the zenith of it's crest across the sky.
I think of her when I wear it and remember her fondly. Her crinkled nose when she greeted LL and her strange aversion to caterpillars and frogs.
This jersey was second hand when I received it but I absolutely adored it from that very moment. It had a hole in the bottom that I sewed a lazy daisy around to camouflage it and the right hand sleeve had a nick in the edging that slowly through the years developed runs.
Every time I looked at my sleeve I would think "I really need to mend those" and yet, I didn't make the time.
Today I felt like I had unravelled. I felt worn thin and bare as if one more stretch would rip me all the way apart and leave me in pieces.
I took out my tiniest crochet hook and I sat outside in the fresh air, legs outstretched, closed my eyes, took a deep breath. Pinpointed my focus... and then I began.
Stitch by stitch I pulled each loop through the next being careful not to graze any of the threads close by. I took it one stitch at a time and adjusted the tension of the weave as I went. I sat there in silence for a long, long time. Mending and adjusting, I didn't focus on any stitch but the one I had on my hook.
I poured love into my stitches as my hook danced through the fabric and I looked back at the progress only once I was done. It was a great feeling when I could barely tell which rows I had even pulled through the next.
The only thing that disappointed me was that I didn't have grey cotton to complete the edging so I settled for white. Sewing each little loop onto the cuff and binding it tightly I sewed them all together one at a time creating a steadfast chain to hopefully hold for many months to come. When I next visit the habby, I'll colour match the cotton and I'll do a full fledged cuff edging.
Perhaps that is what life is all about. Healing the rips and sewing up the runs and becoming a little more whole again. Sure there are sometimes scars at the end where the pain can still be seen and reminders of what occurred, but once you're at the other end of the mend, you emerge a little more resilient and more unlikely to unravel.
