LJ Idol Exhibit A Week 1 Am I Crazy?
I remember back in the early 70’s the year after my fourth daughter was born when I was working full time and had three other lively daughters in various stages of day care and school and extracurricular activities. I felt like I never had a moment to call my own. Making ends meet was a constant challenge to raising a big family. My husband and I shared off tasks to take the little ones to the sitter and be sure one of us was home to get the older ones onto the bus in the morning. They would get off the bus at the sitter’s in the afternoon and one of us would pick up all four girls after we finished work. The routine became an impossible task for me to keep up and I succumbed to the stress and had a nervous breakdown.
I was hospitalized for a protracted post-partum depression and medicated with tranquilizers into oblivion, or so it felt to me. I feared I would never be well. Who would raise my children? Who would love my husband? I was unable to lift a finger to help myself so I certainly was no good to anyone else. I entertained thoughts of doing away with myself entirely. It was a very dark time for me.
But I did get better. After three and a half weeks in the general hospital in a darkened private room to rest my body and spirit, I was discharged to home. I could not return to work at that point so I decided that I would discover what it was like to be a stay-at-home mom at least for a while. Since M was our last child and still only a toddler, I spent lots of time playing with her and amusing her and defining a creative outlet to pass the time and begin to feel productive again.
I had always loved to sew and I had always been quite thrifty. I had to scrounge in the storage a bit but gradually I found leftover pieces of fabric from clothes I had made for the kids. I needed a positive creative outlet and decided to embark on making a crazy patch quilt. It was ironic yet gratifying to me to think that out of the unraveling of my own seams, I was now becoming a whole person again by creating new seams. Fortunately my faith and my supportive husband helped me to get back on track and carve out some sense into my life.
I made my own pattern of six pointed stars that really looked more like flowers. I cut them from calico or other cotton print scraps leftover from my daughters’ play clothes and dresses from the 1960’s. I appliqued a different one onto pink, yellow, aqua and lime green blocks. Each star-flower has a piece of history in it. I sewed the blocks together then backed it with a sheet and quilted it by hand. Like me, the quilt is not perfect. In fact, it has many flaws. But I see the beauty in its history and its uniqueness and in its imperfections. There is none other like it in the world! Yes, I still have it. I consider it an heirloom and will pass it on in my family one day. I will keep a copy of this story with it. Hopefully, it will be cherished as a legacy of the human I was and how I accomplished part of my journey: flaws and all.
I was hospitalized for a protracted post-partum depression and medicated with tranquilizers into oblivion, or so it felt to me. I feared I would never be well. Who would raise my children? Who would love my husband? I was unable to lift a finger to help myself so I certainly was no good to anyone else. I entertained thoughts of doing away with myself entirely. It was a very dark time for me.
But I did get better. After three and a half weeks in the general hospital in a darkened private room to rest my body and spirit, I was discharged to home. I could not return to work at that point so I decided that I would discover what it was like to be a stay-at-home mom at least for a while. Since M was our last child and still only a toddler, I spent lots of time playing with her and amusing her and defining a creative outlet to pass the time and begin to feel productive again.
I had always loved to sew and I had always been quite thrifty. I had to scrounge in the storage a bit but gradually I found leftover pieces of fabric from clothes I had made for the kids. I needed a positive creative outlet and decided to embark on making a crazy patch quilt. It was ironic yet gratifying to me to think that out of the unraveling of my own seams, I was now becoming a whole person again by creating new seams. Fortunately my faith and my supportive husband helped me to get back on track and carve out some sense into my life.
I made my own pattern of six pointed stars that really looked more like flowers. I cut them from calico or other cotton print scraps leftover from my daughters’ play clothes and dresses from the 1960’s. I appliqued a different one onto pink, yellow, aqua and lime green blocks. Each star-flower has a piece of history in it. I sewed the blocks together then backed it with a sheet and quilted it by hand. Like me, the quilt is not perfect. In fact, it has many flaws. But I see the beauty in its history and its uniqueness and in its imperfections. There is none other like it in the world! Yes, I still have it. I consider it an heirloom and will pass it on in my family one day. I will keep a copy of this story with it. Hopefully, it will be cherished as a legacy of the human I was and how I accomplished part of my journey: flaws and all.