Ironically, the skills I rejected as a child are the skills I most appreciate now. My mother, having worked in a factory from the age of fifteen, and having no education (she left school at third grade), was glad to be a stay at home wife and mother. She sewed our clothes, including hats and coats, upholstered furniture, knitted us sweaters, made the curtains. I didn't appreciate any of it. I longed for store bought clothes. I can still see my parents, my brother and I shopping in a department store (must have been for shoes) and both parents looking inside garments at the seams, disgusted by the shabby quality. My mother taught me to knit, crochet, embroider, sew a zipper in a skirt.
I wanted to be like my Dad, who had the power, got to travel, gave speeches, and felt comfortable pontificating on all subjects. And I carry within me the ability to speak publicly, a gift for storytelling and a powerful judging voice (which I'm working on eradicating).
But what sustains me in my elder years is remembering the way, every day, my mother's invisible skills made each day more beautiful. Work made beauty, and she wasn't afraid to tackle anything in the arts arena. She painted in oils, did crewel work pictures, worked elaborate smocking into a robe for me. She made amazing dresses out of sari material, and arranged every room so that it was balanced and tranquil and beautiful. She created our home, which was filled with hand crafted quilts, painted bookshelves, and bedspreads with fringe.
Long before she died I had unconsciously taken up her traditions. Making Christmas ornaments, embroidering jeans jackets for my kids, making play clothes out of Mickey Mouse fabric, sewing pillows, curtains, quilting baby blankets. Did I thank her? No. She died when I was forty, and I hadn't quite grown up enough yet to appreciate her. I still didn't value what she did. I felt trivial when I spent my time on painting or collaging. I felt I should be reading or tackling work from my job.
But now I make a beeline for the textiles in a museum, have copied quilt designs from the Gee's Bend exhibit, will stand alone admiring painted teacups. Women's work, it seems to me now, is the heart work that keeps loving others from dying out, and her lack of employment is revealed for what it is: the constant, steady, sometimes back breaking work of women creating when and where they can out of what materials are available. If you look closely enough, a wealth of story is in those objects. For the rest of my life I intend to bear witness to these ordinary, extraordinary creators of functional beauty. Beauty that greets us in the morning, keeps us warm at night.
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