Beautiful curtains

I read the following quote for the first time on Jewel's blog. It really sums up, in an eloquent way, how I feel about my home.

If you wanted to gather up all tender memories, all lights and shadows of the heart, all banquetings and reunions, all filial, fraternal, paternal, conjugal affections, and had only four letters with which to spell out the height and depth and length, and breadth and magnitude and eternity of meaning, you would write it all out with these four capital letters: H-O-M-E.

Thomas DeWitt Talmage

My home is such a joy to me nowadays that I fret when I'm away from it. When we went to Brisbane on the weekend, looking for, and not finding, our kitchen appliances, I said more than once, "let's go home". And I meant it. I don't like what I find when I go out. Generally, people are more social but less socialised. There is pushing, rudeness and a "me first" attitude.

I am content at home. I know each and every inch; all the trees, smells and breezes. I know the length and breadth of this place and nowhere else is as comfortable to me as my home. And as the quoted paragraph above says, all tender memories and eternity of meaning are bound up here. It's my important place. It's where I've buried my soul and where I will live until I cease to be.

I spent Sunday afternoon relaxing and stitching on the front verandah. Hanno was out, Tricia went to visit our cousin, and I was well content to stay in my place. I'm enjoying making these curtains for the kitchen. It seems to me that stitching something functional, something that will serve for its usefulness rather than it's beauty, is more rewarding than a merely decorative piece. With each stitch I feel I connect with my female antecedents as I am sure they did similar work at many points in their lives. All the sounds I hear while stitching, all the bird song, the children at play, the wind rustling leaves and a rooster crowing in the distance are all sounds my great great grandmothers, and their great great grandmothers, might have heard while they sat stitching. There is a connection there, made only because I sit at home and stitch. I am privileged to feel that connection.

A friend asked me the other day why I bothered stitching because it was so slow. She thought I should buy fabric already patterned or curtains already made. I mumbled something about enjoying the sewing then we talked about something else. I thought about that again later and one of the main reasons I like stitching by hand is that it is slow. That slow, rhythmic repetition is part of the charm of it. How many solitary active things do we do now that slow us down enough to allow concentration and mindfulness. Not many.

Maybe the world is being divided into shoppers and stitchers. If it is, I think the shoppers will win all the battles, but the stitchers will have beautiful curtains. : )