What We Sew

In the current version of my life with its inefficiencies and endless unfinished book projects, home improvements on hiatus, music in my head, itineraries and symphonic lapses... it occurred to me to attend to the small of pile of 'things for mending' I keep on a bench in the bedroom.  I am surprisingly able to thread a tiny-eyed needle and one by one I attempted to manage missing buttons, small legging holes, cloth strap repairs, unravelling sweater edges, etc.  There was something not just satisfying but 'connecting' about it.  I thought, of course, of my mother, who sewed and knit with great mastery and excellence.  She taught me-- patiently and humbly, with that sense of one woman handing down generational secrets of the sex.

My mother's sewing box-- like a kind of doctor's bag filled with threads, needles, patches, ribbons and bands... pin cushions, and most memorable of all-- the darning egg on a stick which resembled a rattle or Caribbean percussion instrument.  With this she deftly repaired holes in socks; my father had several pairs hand-knitted by mothers and in-laws during the war-- argyles and striped... woolen for warmth and insulation inside his cold paratrooper boots as he marched or jumped into surf and swamp. Why, I would ask her, do new and few and pew not rhyme with 'sew'? I am not smart, she would tell me.  You will be smarter. 

Who repairs socks these days?  My son often disposes of them after sports; I used to buy them in huge packs of a dozen.  I don't have a 'darner'.  My mother was given an old Singer machine-- one of the ones with a kind of foot treadle.  She never got the hang of it, but preferred to hem, baste and hand-backstitch in what I can only recall as something approaching perfection.  Those nights by her side-- with my girls' painted wicker basket and the colored spools-- well, they felt so 19th century, in a good way.  And it is not coincidence that my recent sewing evening was close to Mother's Day. I felt her presence more strongly than usual, as though she was approving of my feminine task, and the metaphorical resonance of a needle and thread, like a kind of penance.

Recently the discontinuation of the penny was announced; like many things these days, more trouble than worth.  We had our little banks as children; mine was a kind of ceramic doll-head-- very 19th century, with the porcelain hair done up in a bun, the coin slot in the back, and the topknot itself a pin cushion.  So my bank had a duel use.  Sometime in the 70's I went to my mother's house and retrieved and dumped the bank; they were all wheat pennies... quite old... I have them still, in a box here... waiting to be devalued, I suppose.

Our lives in those days were filled with things-- things had the properties of people, in a way... we looked at them , we took them to bed, we spoke to them, we passed them around.  To make a telephone connection, one had to pick up a heavy handle, rotary dial a bunch of numbers, extend a curly cord a foot or two and sit, close to the wall jack, speaking in one end and listening with the other. 

In the 1960's and 70's, women in the city often had an answering service.  When you left your apartment, you dialed in and somehow magically the operators would receive your calls.  When you returned you'd phone in and they'd read out the messages.  You had a little relationship with your operator; mine was Grace-- a different woman at night, but Grace knew everything.  The cost of this service was small; you''d send a monthly check and they'd clip the hand-written message sheets together in your bill.  Besides her perfect cursive, I had no idea how tall Grace was-- old or young, black or white. 

One could easily go a day now without actually speaking to anyone... our lives are so enmeshed by social media and all of these time-consuming communication platforms.  I have only a few friends who make telephone calls; we still have landlines although these get little use. I work at a gallery Saturdays; it specializes in vintage mid-century French design.  People are most fascinated when the furniture is staged with period objects.. old radios and televisions... it seems that much of our nostalgia revolves around objects.  Our former lives were filled with things-- notebooks, pencils, rulers, book bags, stuffed animals-- scrapbooks and photographs, postcards and stamp collections-- souvenirs, dolls, shells, rocks.  

I worry about losing my memory; my mother lost hers, could not identify many of the photographs she loved to pour over in her album.  My sister cruelly destroyed mine, effectively wiping parts of my own memory by removing associated images.  I wonder when I will forget my grade school teachers, the seating order, the classroom numbers... my childhood dogs who haunt my dreams.  It will happen, one day.. or I will not recognize my own neighbors and friends.. I will forget song lyrics and confuse Beethoven and Mozart sonatas... 

As addled as she was in later life, my mother did not forget how to sew. I wish I had more of the skirts and dresses she hemmed with such skill, the knitted sweaters and the vests, for warmth.  She sat at the piano, at the end, surprised by the sound of the notes, and for seconds her fingers formed chords, but then it all disintegrated.

We had these handmade rag dolls-- one side was a sleeping face, and the other awake.  We'd change their bonnet in the morning, as kind of wake-up ritual, and put them to bed at night. I wonder how many children will save their obsolete pennies in a porcelain bank, will learn to sew with needle and thread and will be able to identify a darning egg.  For a couple of hours the other night, I created a 'mended' pile and felt accomplished in a way-- my stack of repaired patched leggings and tights felt like a kind of badge.  My mother might have nodded her approval.

So many things have been lost along the way-- left in other countries, missing or stolen.  I know as we age we do not log the things we forget; they simply disappear without ceremony or conscience. This terrifies me... who will remind me of what I no longer recall? My mother wore a thimble; I never mastered the art of using one.. kind of like playing the bass with a pick... I still have a thumbpick Johnny Winter gave me once... another of these tangibles that seem more meaningful as life goes on.  One watches celebrity possessions being auctioned for vast sums these days... even clothing.  It seems when human company becomes less available, things provide comfort... connection. And some of them, like the poor penny, while non-functional, do not die. 

I have no daughter to whom I can hand-down my dwindling skills.  My son will not pick up a needle and thread and remember moments. We do have some hand-made souvenirs and old photos-- paper ones. My old rag doll still sits on the bed in which he has not slept for decades. She has a clearly sewn heart beneath her old clothing; it serves. 

Carnival

Besides of course the unprocessable Charlotte murders, the now-weekly incidents of terrorism, the daily cruelties and injustices which stick in my throat like indigestible stale bread of communion, the story that has haunted my dreams for weeks is the flooded zoo in Georgia.  The image of these bewildered animals roaming the muddy roads-- hiding, hunting--  the bloody white tiger which was shot by Georgian authorities because it killed a man… the utter incongruity of lions and bears, walking the streets of a city unaccompanied… looking for a context.

I remember once visiting a zoo in Italy when I was young….the animals weren't protected and respected the way they were here in the Bronx.  People threw food and objects at the bears and laughed at them.  One bear seemed to be genuinely 'simple' or mentally deficient-- obviously these things must happen, among animals-- and like a pathetic clown was making fun of itself, for the audience.  It was intolerable for me, an animal lover…

There is something really sad about a zoo….I mean, these animals are raised in captivity, kept relatively safe-- but like our dogs they are flabby and lazy, and lose their instincts and skills.  They are not quick enough to hunt in the wild, to run, to mate with true passion, to be fierce.  Like our pet turtles and fish in tanks… we buy man-made symbols of their habitat, but their artificial world is a bizarre little replica of nature, and their leashless existence without predators is abnormal.

So facing a sort of natural disaster, with no one to protect them, they were suddenly dumped into a world which is not their world, but a civilized city, also turned chaotic by the flooding-- bewildered, relying on keepers and caretakers for their needs they were helpless and terrified.  Some of them, using the only defense available, were hunted down as protection.  Killed through no fault of their own--- looking for some reminder of their environment-- trees, a place to nest, a rooftop--the hippo swimming in a city square, a baby bear clinging to an air conditioning unit, a hyena on a man's balcony…  And some of them still wandering, starving, wondering… the inventory at a zoo of this nature is difficult… unknown deaths and escapes in this kind of situation when human coffins are floating freely in the streets, from the waters rising.  Who protects us, in a natural disaster?   Noah's ark of course comes to mind, but what of the non-chosen animals, bellowing helplessly as the waters rose?

The other bit of information from this relatively minor crisis was the local assessment of the citywide damage-- which looked extensive and devastating--- at $18 million.  In Manhattan, this does not even cover an average luxury penthouse renovation.  Maybe a very minor Picasso painting.  Context.

It's been a strange year-- train accidents, earthquakes… that same night I learned about the Georgian zoo animals, I listened to one of the Everest climbers who escaped death from the quake-triggered avalanche.  Random occurrences…  people who seem rather calm.  And then there is the pedestrian-- just crossing a street… who gets smashed by an out-of-control SUV, who left her house in the morning with a list, and maybe unmatched underwear and dishes in the sink… and never went back… who was judged not by her accomplishments but by what she left undone.  This terrifies me… all the loose endings, all the unfinished stories.

On Mondays when I come across town after my gig, there is one bus driver only on the route.  I get to know these guys-- their habits, their loneliness-- this is a strange time-- hours of back and forth with a handful of passengers and often an empty bus.  The current one has this sort of OCD thing-- he floors it through the park so he just makes the light on Fifth Ave.  It's a little dangerous, and I can feel his adrenaline pump, his heart rate soar-- it's a little bit of a thrill.  I don't know what he'd do if a cab was pushing the downtown light on Fifth and he had to brake suddenly or crash.  I guess this gets him through the night.  One day he'll be replaced.  One day I might get replaced, or be gored by a lost zoo animal.  WIll he wonder about me?  Doubtful.

We all notice how animals elicit world sympathy the way people often do not.  The Save The Whales and Tigers movements seemed to have been celebrity-embraced for many, many years before the Hunger Project.  Youtube hits for cute animals or hippos helping wounded zebras, empathetic elephants-- are viral.  How many of these viewers and 'likers' actually bring a meal to an older person right in their building who may be hungry or unable to eat from loneliness?

I am someone who misses things and people.  I was born with the kind of hole in my heart that can't be fixed.  Things get stuck in there.  Playing music relieves it occasionally-- and ironically, love does not.  It's kind of a reminder-- like a place where I can feel the sand falling through, the tide going out… some one else's pain waxing and waning.  It may be my tragic flaw.  It infuses everything I do and maybe it is a bit of a guarantee of failure.  I have noticed the more successful of my friends don't feel so much anymore.  My neighbor's new book was touted as brilliant and edgy… it was tough and skillful… but quite honestly it left me cold--- like house music.  It lacked humanity.  It was affectedly eccentric and plodding-- like still frames of a wave coming in… no fluidity or life.  I didn't care.  He didn't care.  It was like a book-show.  But it drew rave reviews.

Even my stepmother who suicided last summer-- she was tough.  She was an artist.  Still, I think in the end she feared her own heart.  It was flooded, like mine often is--- when I see two people tearfully parting at a train station, or my friend kissing her husband goodbye in his coffin last month-- these things wreck me and displace me and some nights I can't find my way home.  I miss everyone I ever loved and every bus driver and every wave I witnessed or did not witness on every shore of every country.  I miss my old dogs who have passed on and I find it unbearable that the ones on the street now won't be here in a few years.  I turn to my music and I think about BB, and Johnny, and John Lee-- not one of them seemed less than tough, but they were all singing about letting go and what was gone, long before they got old.

Everyone passes through here--- like an infantry of pathetic soldiers who have no control over their destiny, except they will not return, they will not.  Gravestones, monuments, old scrapbooks… they remind... but the proverbial buck stops there.

I asked my son to reserve a bench in the park for me.. .so when I am gone, someone will maybe bring a book and read next to my name.  Of course he won't do this, because he was born with a strong heart and knows that any bench-sitters will have an iPhone, or a can of beer and some fast food, or they will need a place to lie down and pass the night covered in trash bags and old newspaper.  Raccoons will bring their garbage and pigeons will shit on it.  For him the escaped animals in Georgia (he seemed to think it was the American south) were like a Carnival.  Carnivals feel sad to me-- the people, the animals-- like the depression version of theatre and drama-- a sense of old cigarette smoke and sweaty T-shirts.  Cheap food and paper money.  The scent of failure hanging in the air with the popcorn and cotton candy.

My son is good at throwing things away-- at moving apartments, at not venturing too deeply into dangerous flood waters.  At winning. He can knock over things with a baseball and win an armful of stuffed animals and then leave them on a bench.  Maybe my bench.