Where do you start when you make a patchwork quilt? How do you try to patch up a failing heart? And why should you want to do either?
We’re not talking about buying lots of expensive fabric in wonderful colours to make an art quilt, though there is nothing wrong with doing that. We’re talking about a traditional quilt, collecting old clothes and rags, cutting up every piece you can lay your hands on, and piecing them together. Let’s call that a heart quilt.
You can add bits and pieces from friends and lovers, strangers and enemies, pieces found in a cupboard or in a gutter, fabrics kept greedily for years or blown in casually by the wind.
You will shake them out and turn them, lay them out and relay them, putting them just so!.. just there! Every scrap will have a history, signs of wear and tear, and each may be cherished and chosen for its memories or for its colour or even for some random, unfathomable reason. Then you will sew them all together. The secret of that kind of quilt is that it is made of whatever is available and the result is always beautiful.
Our own hearts are full of thrown together fabric; bits and pieces of ideas, thoughts, memories and dreams. Whenever life tears into your heart and opens it, you quickly patch it up again to prevent all those memories pushing their way through and blowing away.
Just occasionally in life, things happen that are so bad your heart feels as if it has been cut to pieces. All you can do then is try to patch it up with memories of kindness, of better times, of love – and that’s exactly how you make your patchwork quilt.
Why do we do this? Why do we make patchwork quilts? Why do we patch up the heart when we’ve been hurt? Because life is infinitely precious and we want to live.
Real living, being properly alive, is to be aware that we exist contained and containing love. Being alive is to be safely made up of memories just like a quilt – even, paradoxically, when memory has gone, temporarily or permanently.
I know this because in May 2009, my physical heart was found to be failing. I was admitted to hospital as an emergency. My chest was opened with the amazing skills of a whole team of people and my heart and aorta were patched up with a mixture of organic porcine tissue – pig to you and me – Teflon mesh, finest silk threads and catgut, plus several pints of blood, donated by unknown benefactors.
Everything was sewn up again and returned to me, in order that my life could continue for a while longer. All this having been freely given to me, thanks to the kindness of so many strangers who loved life too.
That was a lovely read. A good reflection during a busy day. Gave me a space to breath and remember the important things in life. I am looking forward to reading more!
How lovely that you are the first person to comment on my memoir blog, considering how we first met and our common interests. Thank you so much, dear friend.
What lovely words Elinor. Looking forward to the next chapter xxx
This was a lovely shared thought about patchwork and relating it to our emotional and of course physical lives.x
This is lovely. A Patchwork Heart is a wonderful title. I am looking forward to reading more.
I really enjoyed reading your writing. I am so glad you were able to be helped when your heart and aorta needed fixed. I am a patchwork and quilter and love piecing things together. I look forward to reading more chapters of of A Patchwork Heart. I think it’s a great name as when you patchwork and piece you give part of yourself in your stitching. Also any hand craft that is pursued. Thank you.
I’m having to reply in comment, Lynne, because my computer doesn’t seem to want me to ‘reply’!!
It’s so encouraging when people – like yourself – ‘get’ what I’m trying to convey. Thank you very much.
I am so pleased by this, Rowena – an old friend and a new friend on the first moment of my memoir blog!
Found it Nfg and it’s wonderful. And you’re right. Leave people wanting more – the way of the storyteller. xx
Thank you for this, dear Elinor. I love the concept of the patchwork quilt — a tapestry, a web of colour. It reminds me of so many of the simple and beautiful things that people can forget in the rush of modern life: the tapestry of myth, the web of folk song. Everything with meaning , I have found, is connected, is alive with colour. And you wove your own story into it so beautiful. Eve
Beautiful Elinor. Loved reading it . X
I like your writing style, Elinor – spare but perfectly on point, with such kindness and warmth.
I’m a psychotherapist and avid stitcher.
Dear Elinor, I have been thinking of you at this difficult time as it would have been the Beyond the Border Festival and we would have been there together. However, reading your Chapter is great and so symbolic. You write well. Looking forward to the next chapter and keeping up. Warmly, Gwdi.
Dear Elinor ,I have just read the first chapter . Your words have true
meaning , they have it home with me , I’ve always been a seamstress
Then I fell in love with patchwork . Though this last year or two I
don’t seem to have had the will to get on with anything . No classes or
Shows . Your first chapter has given me thought and I hope it spurs me on .