Sewing With Mom

My mother is peering into her sewing machine with a quizzical look on her face. She whispers to me, “Do you know how to thread the needle?”

I had to chuckle. Here was the woman who not only single-handedly sewed three prom gowns for me as a teenager—creations equivalent to the most detailed of wedding gowns, but also sewed everything in my childhood home from upholstery for the furniture, curtains for the windows as well as the most beautiful quilted Gunne Sax outfit I had ever set eyes on—a favorite in my wardrobe for years. I don't think I'm being biased when I write that when it comes to sewing, my mother is not only good at what she does, she is a true artist.

Thankfully, at that moment, my mother wasn’t asking for my advice because of forgetfulness or any lack of clarity. After 25 years of using the same old Necchi machine (an Italian brand, made to last for years--and it did!), she had taken a step up in the world and so had I (thanks to an incredibly generous Mother’s Day gift from my husband when I was pregnant) and we were taking a sewing class together to learn how to use our new-fangled machines.

A feminist in her own right, my mother never begrudged her role as full-time, stay-at-home Mom when I was growing up, but embraced it with a sense of true love. “Homemaker,” she called herself back then with a sense of pride. She didn’t just stay home with her kids, she was a true professional. And like most things she tried, she did it really, really well. She took her role seriously and created for us an amazing home.

It’s funny that I think of my mom in this way since she is now the full-time Executive Director for an innercity mobile meals program in our area, a program she has run for more than 20 years. Again, a master of her trade. Again, working round the clock to get the job done. Again, not asking for special recognition for her efforts or complaining—a role model to me in so many ways. To say nothing of the fact that during those 20 years she has still kept her career as homemaker humming along without a hitch.

I remember the vacuum running in the morning before going to school. My mother used that time to clean the house, before leaving it to go to her "other" job (at Mobile Meals), which would have been enough work for one day for less-energetic people like me and my husband. Then it would be home at night to serve a delicious, customized, healthy meal for a family of six--by customized I mean two vegetarian meals for myself and my younger brother (by our choice), often meat and potatoes for the other four and if the meat du jour was chicken, then something different for my father who was allergic to it at the time. (As I write this, my husband and I have just returned from a night eating out with our son since we were both too tired to cook.)

As I try to juggle my own passions of being present for my son, playing and teaching and enjoying his growth; writing and nurturing the dreams of others; keeping my marriage fun and supportive; as well as my desire for a clean, grounded, happy home in which to do all of this, I frequently find myself marveling at how my mom did it all.

I have a memory of myself in our kitchen when I was about 10. My friend and I are on our haunches, peering into a kitchen cabinet in which bowls are stacked neatly, organized as is my mother’s way. My mom’s favorite mixing bowl, a green one, is teetering as we are shimmying it out to use it for making cookies. Suddenly it slips and crashes to the floor, breaking in two. A sense of deep shame comes over my entire body. My family never had much money and I knew that this particular bowl was valuable in more ways than one.

Just then my mother comes down into the kitchen. Mortified, I explain what happened in a string of blurted excuses. I can feel my friend melting into the linoleum as if she just wants to disappear.

My mother simply says with a smile, “That’s okay. These things happen.” Then she whisks the parts of the bowl away into the trash, directing us to her other favorite one--a yellow one--before she disappears again upstairs.

I still marvel at her calmness. “Didn’t she want to try to glue it?” I wonder, but then realize that my mother, always looking out for our well-being, probably realized that getting shards of china in batter, to say nothing of glue, was probably not a risk worth taking.

“Didn’t she want to holler and yell, and tell us to be more careful?” But then I realize that, always sensitive, she probably didn’t want to embarrass me in front of my friend. Perhaps my mother, ever the teacher, also thought that the two of us taking initiative in the kitchen was more important than any minor mishaps that occurred as we were learning to be independent. Who knows? Maybe it was simply a good day and the truth was that “These things truly do happen.”

All I know is it's a memory I don't forget, most likely because it was one of those rare moments in life when we get complete clarity about something--in this case, my mother's true nature.

And so, it should go without saying that when my mother asked, I was more than honored to be able to show her how to thread the needle on her new-fangled machine.

The Art of Never Finishing

I was sitting beside my son on the couch, watching a Fisher Price DVD of the "Little People." Our friends had lent us this particular one so we could expand our collection during a recent vacation. As it turned out, my son was more satisfied with watching the Little People DVD he had been given by his grandparents for Christmas (and the only one he owns) over and over again rather than branching out.

I, however, was curious. As he and I sat side by side snuggling on the couch before his afternoon nap, eyes glued to the television, I found myself feeling a tad disappointed. This "new" DVD for our family was actually an "old" one. The Little People looked different! They weren't the soft, loveable characters we had come to know and love. They looked stiff, almost like actual replicas of the hard, plastic toys the DVDs were marketing rather than the animated characters in the one WE owned. Even Devin was restless, quickly becoming more interested in his "Big, Big Trucks!" than the usually-addictive flickers of the TV.

Something struck me as I struggled to sit through this older version with my son. Even those in the "bigtime" are constantly reinventing themselves, trying new things. The creative process is about sharing, revising, getting feedback, trying things out. For a long time, I was under the misconception that anything I put "out there" (like this blog, for instance) had to be "perfect"--never to be changed again.

A friend of mine recently told me Caroline Myss (a favorite non-fiction author of mine--and a bestselling one!) was relaunching one of her books under a new title. Again, a change. Again, someone in the "bigtime" taking a leap and saying, "I can do better! I've changed my mind! I like it this way instead!"

I find this all very inspiring. The more creative work I do and the more courageous I become about putting it out there, the more I realize that rather than being a place of completion, the real world is actually the greatest experiental lab there is! Nothing is permanent, everything changes. Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do for ourselves is to get in on the fun.

By the way, this month's theme on www.dreamcatching.net is "compassion!" We'd love to have you stop by and check it out.

A WOW Moment

"Wow!" he exclaimed at the top of his lungs so everyone else in the restaurant could hear. Not just once, but each time the waiter arrived. He was very excited by whatever he was being offered--whether it was a glass of water, a basket of bread or his very own kiddie menu.

My son has seemed to emanate enthusiasm ever since he was born. He runs up to strangers with an endearing wave and "hi" as if to say, "You are so great! I'm glad you're here!" And, like many children, he applauds with delight at a new discovery, whether he's hit a particularly high note during a rendition of "Happy Birthday" or an 18-wheeler catches his fancy out of the window next to his car seat. At 18-months, he's really into celebrating the world.

One of my friends once told me she was trying to cut down on how many compliments she gave her young daughter. Rather than saying "Good job!" or "Well done!" she went through a period of trying to instead say things like, "That looks like fun!"--the idea being to put the ownership back on her child so she didn't grow up looking to outside sources--as so many of us do--for her value.

I liked that idea. I understand the importance of giving a child an inner sense of self-worth rather than an outer one. My friend, however, after a few weeks of trying the tee-totalling approach of avoiding affirmations fell off the wagon. She decided moderation was a better way--a little of supporting her daughter's self-ownership by putting the onus back on her, a little of telling her daughter what she appreciated in the form of compliments--more in line with the "Children Learn What They Live" approach. As the famous poem goes, "...if a child lives with appreciation, she learns to appreciate."

A Chinese proverb is "If you wish your merit to be known, acknowledge that of other people." Or, as my son would put it, his sparkly eyes lighting up--"Wow!" I am continually learning about the ways of the world from this wee one, more so than any proverb can teach me.

During that meal in the restaurant, the lesson came in the form of the smile that beamed across the waiter's face every time he approached our table and he and Devin exchanged effusions of appreciation. As I silently witnessed their encounters, I realized that Devin wasn't just appreciating the waiter because of how generous and great he was at offering us all that stuff out of the goodness of his heart and the description of his job. Devin was appreciating the waiter because it felt good to do so. What a win-win moment the one in which a compliment is uttered can be.