Day Fifty-two

Feest Isolation Days – 5 May

Baba’s rugs. Wherever my grandmother lived, she always had a Singer sewing machine and a bundle of clean “rags”. Collecting old clothes and cloth items from anyone willing to donate them to her was the first step in her rug making process.  She would then turn old skirts, dresses, shirts, curtains, bedspreads and any other outdated materials into long strips of cloth that she sewed together on her Singer.  With that first step finished, she would then plait the colourful pieces together and finally, she would hand sew them with a big needle and white thread going round and round and round until she had the desired effect and size she wanted. Some of the rugs were small and others could fill a huge room.  She never sold any of them, but instead gave them all away.  Never learning how to drive, even after my grandfather died, she would often take long bus journeys to visit family or friends and by the time she arrived at her destination, as often as not, she had the address of the person that had been sitting next to her for the four or more hours drive. They would soon be receiving a package wrapped in brown paper and bound in string in the post. She didn’t go many days without sitting at her Singer and creating her rugs.  She had no idea where they would end up, or who would walk on them, only that she knew she had to make them.  She made thousands in her lifetime!

Sometimes I wonder why it is that my drive has always been to write away, and my grandmothers was making rugs?  These musings are to me what my Baba’s rugs were to her. Who knows where our hobbies and passions come from?  One thing is for certain, all those things you haven’t bothered with while at home during this enforced lockdown are things that at some fundamental level are just not that important to you.  I wonder what you have spent a big dollop of your time doing over the past few stay at home weeks and months? If you are lucky enough not to have been working, or home schooling your kids, what else did you get up to besides the cooking, cleaning and ordering of food?  It’s worth checking in with yourself on that from time to time.  Whatever it is probably means it’s your passion. And having more than one passion is not a bad thing either!

One of our friends has found online dance classes and does at least one class most days, another is singing in one choir or another every day, still another is cooking for people who can’t do it for themselves, while another friend is baking cakes; another plays her violin with friends.  Whatever “it” belongs to you, enjoy it and keep going!  These projects and passions enrich our lives in ways we may take a long time to realise.

There were many “last goodbyes” to my Baba which involved trips across the Atlantic.  Inevitably, the real last goodbye was at her funeral.  Coming from a Catholic family means a wake and prayers in front of the open coffin for at least a day before the actual funeral mass and cemetery proceedings.  My Uncle who knew my grandmother well, draped one of her rugs across the bottom of her coffin. I still have one of them at my feet in my study.  Baba’s rugs. My inspiration in life when nothing else works. What’s yours?

With love

Kathy x