broken and holding

 

from broken and holding, chapter 22 from

bird dreams, riding hope

- sometimes a fable, weaving

our connections to birds,

meandering rivers and dragons,

fermenting miso and consciousness,

wetlands, our extended kin and ancestors,

our mentors, and Wisdom.

Inspired by actual events

and a sense of place and belonging

by a woman who addresses the reader

on behalf of the earth

(coming to a kindle near you)

 

I’m sitting at my desk squeezing the coils of my brain for any memories of dragons before one came into my skull. Nothing’s coming. I keep whatever is currently a part of my writing life and focus on the bookshelf that hangs over my desk. I have an old wooden box with a hook and eye that separates two groups of books and files on the shelf. I can’t remember where I acquired this. It has faint white block letters on it that I can’t make out. Inside, I keep the broken pieces of my mother’s favorite Johnson Bros. rose chintz (made in England). This china arrived at our home when I was a kid. It made such an impression on me because my mother fussed over it so much. There wasn’t much that we had by way of fine and I never knew her to care about such things. The Johnson Bros. rose pattern changed all that. Every piece of it has become a memory hologram bringing my mom back to me. There’s an artform in Japan about joining broken pieces of pottery with lacquer embedded with gold dust so that the joints appear to be gold when they are connected. This is gold joinery. Part of this art is about embracing flaws.

I sit with pieces of my mother’s china. My mother, who brought schmatas down a notch through her redesign of the sleeves to sleeveless with her terrible sewing job made worse by her really bad eyesight. Schmatas, literally rags in Yiddish, were the house dresses she wore all the time. It was her signature look. She would tear off the sleeve or even partial sleeve the schmata came with and sew a very large baste stitch around the arm holes.  She had to cut out the little bit of sleeve because they made her too hot. She toiled in the kitchen a lot. She schvitzed if the schmata had arms. Cut the arms and sew the sleeve like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, why don’t ya, Lena? That was my mom, transforming house dresses back to the rags they once were. Frankenstein’s sew job. Not rose chintz. But then there is the evidence that she too loved fine things. I have tried to find ways to join my memories and keep those I miss in my life. These memories are some of the fine things I have now. I love the Johnson china. Like everyone I suppose, I reengage with memories when something wakes them up. They change as I change. It might be true that memory is a river. It should achieve personhood as well. Time is the gold that ties memories together. Sometimes they fit and the bowl or the cup look like they can hold water again. Sometimes, seeing the break and where I glued them, although I have not put gold in the glue, reminds me even more so of my mother. It’s her schmatas that I understand more than her china. But both belong to her.