No. 56

The one upon whom all relies. 

[No. 56]

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF YOU COULD?

A guest post by multidisciplinary craft artist CARO.

When the night lies awake in wool-gathering and there is nothing to hem you in, do you think of me robed in white, as a child, in the dress my mother sewed with pearls?

Look for her finely attuned hands and the needle poised between her finger and thumb. Taste her saliva on the thread she wicks and feel the love entire in her garment, resplendent even with wings. 

She made me an angel that year, for my birthday, for Halloween, the year I was six. And I glowed, not through raiment alone but through her devotion, her care, her touch. The touch of my mama is of the atmosphere, her reach that vast.

CARO as a child in a white dress with her doll

In the Fall, she is the loaf of bread rising on the kitchen counter, the yeast alight with life. She is the yellow-throated daffodil in Spring. In Summer, a well worn pair of shoes, a bike helmet, bird-watching binoculars. And in a Michigan Winter, during a long frost, 25 years after constructing an angel costume, she curls up on the couch with a pair of knitting needles and a skein of wool to work me a pair of socks. 

“What color would you like?” She asks.
“Blue.” I say. 
Like her eyes. 
Like my eyes.

She tells me that heels are difficult to navigate. That they might take some time because of the smallness of the stitch. I smile knowingly. I have not only received her genetic gifts but her practical ones; it was she who walked by a bead shop on her way home from work and bought me a pair of pliers that have never left my side. As an artist working in Metals, Embroidery, and Lace, I am no stranger to work that takes time. 

On the phone, we speak of what we are making; she explains the technique of thrumming, and I wax on about the fragility of soie ovale (a thread of untwisted silk filament) and how I have of course filled my most recent piece with it. She is cooking up potatoes dug and green beans and herbs picked from her garden. I am smashing arugula in a mortar and pestle for pesto, my veg lovingly offered by a neighbor’s plenty.

For dinner in the Midwest and in the West of the United States, we are likewise receiving the pleasures of the Earth (met with tending). She is our common Mother, our supreme teacher, the one who asks us for restraint and self- discipline. The one upon whom all relies.

Listen. Do you hear her when the night lies awake wool-gathering? Do you feel her fingers spin you a cloth? You are wearing your white dress now, woven with the sheep you shear before lambing. 
It is trimmed with flaxen pappi. 
It is sewn by your mother.
It is she. 
It is she who hems you in.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF YOU COULD?