A few weeks ago, I went to visit my 86-year-old mother in the old neighborhood. I went there to visit but also to pick up some old photographs of the family and the neighborhood where I grew up, Washington Heights, Manhattan, where she still lives. In fact, she still lives in the apartment I grew up in. She’s been in that apartment for 60 years. Not many people can make that claim these days.
It’s funny how going through old photos affect me. On the one hand, it’s sweet. I remember moments I hadn’t thought about for years and the feelings come flooding back. My sister’s 8th birthday party. A cat that died about 40 years ago (RIP Fatty). On the other hand, it hits me hard, thinking about people I have lost touch with, images of my father who left us when I was 8 years old, and what could have been.
After I selected the photos I wanted, my mother brought out a small, needlepointed canvas, about 7” x 4”.
It was done with cotton thread, and the back was a big mess, but the front is nicely done, and she asked me if I could send it to my finisher to make into a cushion insert. She said my sister made it when she was a child and it would mean a lot to her to have it on the couch to look at and enjoy, especially now that her last cat passed away (RIP Junior).I did as she asked and it is with the finisher now. Later that week, my husband and I were watching that famous episode of Mad Med (Season 1 Finale “The Wheel”) where the agency, Sterling Cooper, has to come up with a sales pitch for Eastman Kodak to sell their slide projector. Don Draper nails it by equating this mechanical piece of plastic and metal with our emotions. He explains that nostalgia is a painful longing of the past and he is so successful in his pitch that one of his colleagues leaves in tears. (I won’t get into the sad irony of Draper’s pitch in relation to his actual life and longings, that’s a post for others to write about.)
In a way, that is the gist of crafting. I have things I made 30 years ago. How many times have I gone through my crafted stuff to cull items, only to cling to it because it pains me to let it go even though it also pains me to keep it. With every stitch we leave a teeny tiny bit of ourselves in the thread, infusing it with affection and meaning.
I expect the cushion to arrive in a week or so from my finisher. Never mind that my mother is mistaken. I made that needlepoint canvas when I was a child, not my sister. My sister passed away in 2008. I have no desire to correct my mother. I want her to have the piece as she sees it. It’s ok with me.