Sewing Static
My mom’s passion was sewing. I remember this vividly from childhood. We would sit out in the family room, an expansive sunroom add-on, and watch Little House on the Prairie or Magnum P.I. on our 20-inch television, while my mom was covered in blue-and-white gingham in the tiny addition next to us, whirring away at her sewing machine. She would be making a dress for herself or sometimes a matching one for me, or she would be sewing some odd creation intended for a bazaar or craft fair. Whatever she was stitching, she was in her own little world. You could scarcely interrupt her with a question. She would be vigorously at her work, never pausing to surface, unless you pestered her long and hard enough, and then she might stop and ever so slowly peel her eyes away from her affair just long enough to hear your piece, and then she would dip back into it again and be lost to all human fellowship.
And whenever her foot would hit the sewing-machine pedal, a line of static would appear at the lower half of the TV screen, much like the static from Grandpa's old VHS recordings. She never knew it, either. I guess we never thought to mention it, or we just melded to it, becoming one with the annoyance. We knew when she was driving that machine and when she wasn’t. It was obvious by that wavy line at the bottom half of the screen. The soft whirring of the sewing machine and the line of static made one parallel existence; there never was one without the other, so long as you had the TV on. It never irked us, either. It was just what was. She sewed; we watched the static, or tried to watch beyond it.
Every so often, she would make a mistake and sew up a section of the pattern that was meant to be left open. Then she’d pop out of her room, sit down on the couch next to us, seam ripper in hand, and watch TV along with us, patiently plucking out the misplaced section of thread. These were dotted moments of static reprieve. But again, I don’t think it much mattered. We were so used to the static, it mattered not, one way or the other.
In all of her passion for sewing, it somehow missed a generation. I took home economics in high school. The only sewing project I had to complete was a very simple mint-green pencil skirt. It didn’t come out half bad, really. I think I actually wore it, once. But it left absolutely no compulsion to sit back down and pursue other sewing projects. Craftiness somehow isn’t in my blood whatsoever. Maybe the memory of static lingers, a foreboding naysayer to the world of bobbins.
And whenever her foot would hit the sewing-machine pedal, a line of static would appear at the lower half of the TV screen, much like the static from Grandpa's old VHS recordings. She never knew it, either. I guess we never thought to mention it, or we just melded to it, becoming one with the annoyance. We knew when she was driving that machine and when she wasn’t. It was obvious by that wavy line at the bottom half of the screen. The soft whirring of the sewing machine and the line of static made one parallel existence; there never was one without the other, so long as you had the TV on. It never irked us, either. It was just what was. She sewed; we watched the static, or tried to watch beyond it.
Every so often, she would make a mistake and sew up a section of the pattern that was meant to be left open. Then she’d pop out of her room, sit down on the couch next to us, seam ripper in hand, and watch TV along with us, patiently plucking out the misplaced section of thread. These were dotted moments of static reprieve. But again, I don’t think it much mattered. We were so used to the static, it mattered not, one way or the other.
In all of her passion for sewing, it somehow missed a generation. I took home economics in high school. The only sewing project I had to complete was a very simple mint-green pencil skirt. It didn’t come out half bad, really. I think I actually wore it, once. But it left absolutely no compulsion to sit back down and pursue other sewing projects. Craftiness somehow isn’t in my blood whatsoever. Maybe the memory of static lingers, a foreboding naysayer to the world of bobbins.
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