Stirring up Lost Memories
I’m the family member always taking pictures. Even when others roll their eyes in protest, I carry on, knowing how they enjoy reminiscing on these memories I have secured. I don’t just focus on posed shots, but also do my best to capture moments when no one knows I’m watching. Moments that show sheer joy and laughter. I not only take the pictures but also create actual photo books, so we can recall life’s precious time stamps together. I do share the pictures virtually with family, but the truth is that it’s a very personal need.
I take endless amounts of pictures because I am fearful I will forget. Even while I know my memory is just fine for someone my age, I worry. I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to lose anyone I love and feel that I don’t have enough memories in print to remember them and my time with them…forever. Beyond not only my lifetime, but in the lives of my family members too.
I seem to have an urgency to hold on and remember.
Since losing my mom 8 years ago, this need has become more urgent and when the pictures aren’t enough to bring me back to a place in time, I replay the saved voice messages on my phone. The sweet sound of her loving voice, acting as a Time Machine of sorts. The triangular shaped play button quietly questioning me with, are you sure? You know, like are you sure you are ready to go back in time? Because let’s face it, while it is dreamy, it also has the ability to recklessly undue the scars, almost perfectly formed.
That fear never stops me though, I always know that I want more. Time. As soon as I click play, I am back in time. I remember where I was the first time I listened to that voicemail. I can remember what I was thinking, what I was worrying about. I remember. And for the minute, I can feel her everywhere. The memory is so vivid, that just for that moment, I believe she is still here. And it’s just what I need in that minute. But also, it has some staying power, because her last few words make me believe, just for a bit longer, that maybe she is still here.
Ok honey, she says, you don’t have to call me back, just wanted to tell you I love you.
Message received.
It’s interesting how comforted I am just knowing these memories are stored in safe places, ones that I can access anytime. I know you may be thinking that this is my way of holding some controls, and you probably aren’t that far off. I mean, there aren’t many things we can control. Right?
I am constantly looking for ways to squelch my anxiety. Anxiety that many don’t know I have, but that is often beyond my control. I am fortunate that those moments filled with anxiety don’t last long, but I continue using the tools I have. Simple things like walking my dog, getting to the gym, showering, lighting a candle, and journaling whenever I can. At night, as a way to prevent it, I listen to a guided meditation. Every night. Even on the nights when I feel just fine and it helps tremendously!
Yet I like to stay open minded to other tools that would also help. So when a friend mentioned that she doesn’t meditate, but she does feel in a meditative state when she knits, I was intrigued. I have never picked up a knitting needle, but remembered once being taught to crochet, and it made me wonder. And so, I scoured through the many gifts I had given my daughter over the years, project ideas that I thought she would like and within just a few minutes, I was holding a crochet needle and ball of pretty blue yarn. It was in its original package and even came with a little fully detailed book of instructions. Pictures and all!
On becoming a maker.
After several hours, I was hooked. No pun intended, well maybe. My mind was suddenly engrossed in this simple act of weaving the smooth metal hook in and out of the blue yarn. So engrossed that an hour seemed to pass in just a few seconds. While I would not have described this act like meditation, I was acutely aware that the demons that usually surrounded my thoughts, had vanished. I wasn’t worrying about my daughters' finals, my son’s new job, my father’s health…no. I wasn’t worrying about a thing. It was like my mind had been cleared. Which I realized later, that wasn’t the case. I mean, this wasn’t a lobotomy, just a simple act of clearing. It seemed that this simple act, and it did feel pretty simple to me even as a beginner, kept all my thoughts completely present. It was amazing. Not only that, but even afterwards, my thoughts seemed to stay clear for hours. So maybe it didn’t feel like the meditation I do at night, but it did have the same after effect. Calm, clear and present.
But this crafting attempt did not just end there. I found myself wanting more and more, waking each morning wondering what else I could make. I became unrecognizable to myself. Not to my sister though, who has been a ‘maker’ since the beginning of time. As a matter of fact, this was not foreign to anyone in my family. We were born and bread in a family of ‘makers.’
So many artists in my family. My great grandmother was a seamstress, my grandmother was a seamstress and painter, my mom made beautiful matching outfits for my sister and I when we were kids, and then later moved onto stained glass and mosaics that filled giant walls with color and light. My dad, an attorney by day, also became an amazing artist beginning as a painter, then also moving into glasswork, mosaics and anything and everything he could think of. My sister who has also always been an amazing artist, moved away from drawing and painting and onto creating jewelry. My son followed in these footsteps as a software engineer by day and an artist by night, as well.
I never really saw myself in any of these categories, though I did love to draw as a teenager. Yet when this crocheting hobby began to soothe my soul, I was pretty quickly head over heels. Beginning with large blankets, then moving onto to handbags. It had to have meaning. I couldn’t just be a maker with no purpose. No, I wanted it to be something that could connect me to my mom. And oh how she loved her bags. And so it began.
Within an instant (it seemed), I had labels that read: made by Ellie’s Girl. That’s me! And a name: Heartfelt Handbags, since each bag would come fully equipped with a keychain that held words of wisdom to help people get through their day and life. Thoughts from me. Right from my heart. Not only gifting people with my bags but holding onto my memories about mom too.
But what about these lost memories? I’m getting there.
Now, if you are a maker, then you know how this story goes. First you are just crocheting, then suddenly you have labels, then you realize the bag could use a liner inside. Something pretty. Something that makes you smile. Something that…needs to be sewn. Suddenly you need more than a crochet needle. You need a sewing machine.
I got a little one that could fit easily on the edge of my desk and prayed I could figure out how to sew these liners closed. The first time I sat down next to this pretty little white sewing machine, my heart raced. I was very nervous, which was the opposite of what I wanted to feel with my new maker hobby. I knew it was my worries of, what if I can’t do this? So I worked through it. Said something nice to my new little machine, lowered my shoulders and then inhaled deeply, channeling all the seamstress ladies in my life.
Of course you can do this. Just lightly step on the pedal and gently guide the little lining through. How hard can this be?
For a hard minute, I pretended to be my sister who sat at a machine with confidence. It was the only time I remembered seeing any of my people actually at a sewing machine!
The first bit of pressure on the pedal actually startled me! But by the time I got to the end of the material, something else took me by complete surprise. What was I feeling? I couldn’t pinpoint it. So I kept going.
I picked up the little metal foot, moved the material again, and plopped it back in place, getting ready to sew the next side. This time, prepared for the vibration under my foot, the thumping of the pedal seemed to take me away from my kitchen table altogether. I don’t know where it I felt I was, but I felt my momma in the room. And instead of me at my sewing machine, it was her. I could not recall ever seeing her at a sewing machine, yet in that instant, I clearly remembered the pedal lightly thumping away as she sewed. I began to feel light-headed and sat back in my chair, trying to be in the place of this memory.
When I called my sister for some clarification on this memory I didn’t know I had, she explained that my mom's sewing machine was actually in her bedroom, right next to her bed. I have no recollection of that at all. But it made me think about how young I was at the time, and how possible it was that she did her sewing once I went to bed. And that perhaps what I was recalling, was the sound I would hear just before falling asleep through the bedroom wall.
And in an instant, a memory that I did not know I had…was right here in front of me. Giving my little maker handbags more meaning than I could have anticipated. It also created a space of calm that I could not have imagined.
It made me wonder…Maybe I didn’t have to create so much pressure to store all these memories right in front of me. Maybe instead, I could have confidence that even the things I can’t access easily, are still right there, waiting for just the right moment to appear. And that, sure does steady the sound of my heartbeat.