Greetings Dear Ones!

A friend of mine who stops by my shop occasionally for a spot of tea and chit-chat, discovers me hunched over my machine doing what he describes as “vexated growling” but could also be a form of forlorn moo-ing. It all depends on whether one sees me as predator or prey.

I attempt simultaneously to apologize and to blame the ski pants jammed in the machine under yet another broken needle. As he pulls out the chair from the dressing room and settles himself comfortably, he looks at me curiously and asks, “Nancy, what is it you like to do? I’ve heard you grumble about curtains, zippers, pleats and cuffs, denim overalls and dog clothes. You seem to hate modern synthetics, old-fashioned moth holes, and anything to do with glitter. I’ve heard you complain about custom work as well as mending. Do you even like your work? Or are you just doing this for the cash? Would you still do all this if you won a million dollars in the lottery?”

Instantly, I think of a contrite four-year-old girl who once said to her exhausted grandmother, “Please don’t tell Mummy I was growling!” Having been caught “growling” I too think that I am in trouble.

Defiantly, I fix him with a cheeky grin over my cheap plastic “cheater” glasses and say as “gangsta” as I can manage, “Honey, I be doing this for the pure glamour and sex appeal. Seamstresses like me, we make it Big! We ride around in limos, in white fur coats, with lots of gold chains and bling and minions quaffing Chivas Regal and we be like… Yo! Wwwwhut Up dude…”

We both laugh uproariously. He knows me well enough to know if I ever “make it big” I will travel by ox cart and my wool-and-calico-clad minions will drink Kombucha. (Who am I kidding? I’ll never have minions! Onions and bunions maybe…) He doesn’t stay nearly as long as his questions, which haunt me the rest of the day.

I LOVE all the things I do. I also… occasionally… hate them. I adore my customers and I am filled with joy at being able to help them. So why am intermittently resentful? Does Workaholic me like only the hard work that makes us look impressive? Does Slacker me like only the easy stuff? Which is it? Do I simply need what people in my youth called “an attitude adjustment?”

Shortly after, another customer arrives and is breathless to tell me that there is a sewing machine for sale in a second-hand shop nearby. She wants me to pounce on it—close up shop early if I have to—to be sure to get it. I look around my shop. It is filled with sewing machines and various tools. I don’t need another one. She seems crestfallen. She doesn’t even know what kind it is. She just keeps insisting it is “old” as if that should be all I need to know. “I don’t need more tools,” I joke gently, “I just need at least three more of me to use the ones I have!” She leaves with an air that tells me she does not like to be disobeyed.

I get back to the ski pants and the questions and now a layer of thoughts about tools and which ones are the most valuable to me. The truth is that I could do ninety percent of all my work with just a simple needle and thread. Perhaps a pair of good scissors… or just some sharper teeth. This is not super high-tech stuff. It’s old-fashioned hand-eye neurology and years of patient repetition you cannot buy, even from a second-hand store. (It’s First Hand experience!)

These damn ski pants are NOT behaving. I am growl-mooing again.

Suddenly, I remember what my BEST TOOL EVER is….

Ready?

I’ll let you in on a tiny secret I’ve discovered this year. Of all the tools in my little shop—the sergers, the seam rippers, the thimbles and thread--the tool that makes the work turn out the best is Gratitude. I’m not kidding. I know that sounds like a Pollyanna-ish thing to say designed to make Prudence feel a little warmth in her knickers but it’s the absolute truth. Gratitude for work makes me do a way better job. I don’t know how but it makes the machines run better; it makes the work go faster; it takes this “job” and makes it a Vocation. It reminds me of how much I love my customers—even those who bring me dirty horse blankets to mend, or leave fresh mystery stains in their pants.

Gratitude is a secret weapon I need when I am up against the putting in of a new zipper in an ankle-length down parka or a well-meaning dance mom who doesn’t want me to permanently alter a vintage costume that needs to fit two vastly different-sized girls for the same performance the same weekend.

Gratitude puts me in touch with the Privilege it is to serve. Gratitude isn’t a feeling, like happiness or being thankful, though it certainly contains both. I see Gratitude as the action that results from those feelings. It is love made manifest.

Whoever said “the Ordinary is the hiding place for the Holy” was clearly talking about hemming ten pairs of jeans for a young man who has already been wearing the excess length as footwear. (The Ordinary is also the hiding place of the holey!) The Holy beckons me from inside a bombed out jacket, from the back side of a pair of jeans, from a gooey garment that I have been ironing for ten minutes without realizing its owner left a chocolate bar in the side pocket.

When I lose sight of the sacred nature of this work, my inner being receives nothing but static. It’s like a radio between channels. I swiftly disregulate. Nothing goes well. I break needles and promises. It’s time to retune the dial. Sometimes I have to lie down on the floor of my shop and think of things to be grateful for in order to climb back up to the cutting table and face what it takes to chop five yards of imported silk into pieces for blouse. Sometimes I have to lie there for quite a while.

Gratitude is what gets me through the Resisting and over to the Doing. It makes me happy with the simplest things—like bobbins that make it to the end of the seam, customers who pick up their stuff promptly, those who say “Thank you for your good work,” and the little shop dog who reminds me to take a walk in the middle of the day, whether I need it or not.

Gratitude. That’s my best tool ever. I sometimes forget to use it. Some of my dearest friends who visit the shop often don’t even know I have it. I feel sad about this and vow to be more publicly grateful more often, which is convenient, because tomorrow is a whole day supposedly devoted to the practice. (That and figuring out who has to tell Aunt Martha she’s not allowed to sit at the kid’s table…)

Living from a grateful heart means I feel compelled to write this blog. When I do not feel grateful, I find it hard to write. I find it hard to appreciate the petty joys and simple charms of all the things that, when I am in love with them, I cannot wait to share with you. Life is a feast of delicious absurdities and I love YOU so much I want you to share them with me. These things, these precious details of the warp and weft of our days, deserve to be seen, shared, cherished—slubs, sneds, and all. Gratitude is what turns wretchedness into Love.

Gratitude also helps me accept that I cannot hold my little cosmos together with sheer effort. Believe me, I try. I have about as much success as when I try to manhandle (er… woman-handle) 700 pounds of runaway beef in a wooden yoke. I have literally stepped in front of those two, thinking I could grab their yoke and just stop them, the way the one might stop a runaway VW beetle that has slipped gear and started downhill. It’s a poor use of one’s energy and hip bones.

Some of us are in fragile places now. I get letters from The Weary. I hear you, like myself, moo-growling over your chores in the looming dark. Winter brings ancient fears of sickness, cold, and isolation with it—especially as pandemic numbers spike and social groups and families fracture along lines of politics and religion. I invite you to join me on the floor. For best effect, I recommend wearing wool socks on your feet and small dogs on your chest but these are strictly optional. I will close my eyes and think of you, out there, likewise hanging by a thread. Gratitude is the weaving of all those threads together--the path of Grace that says we are not the only Makers, Menders, or Sustainers. We are not alone. Gratitude is recognition that you are here too, Dear Ones, doing your part. You are not alone either.

Tomorrow is the day, here in America, when we pause and express our patriotic gratitude for all we have then realize we will need to set our alarms for 4:am if we are going to beat the rest of our fellow citizens to More. Casual consumption is now too disappointing for me. I would rather gaze at the wonder of a Maple tree in its Fall Glory than anything that is sold in a mall. Instead, I shall feed the dear sheep and calves and witness the glory of the dawn and Really See It. Someday, I’ll wrap it in words and give it to us to share.

Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you may be! May our hearts be as full as our tummies. May we share our blessings, from the trivial to the super-sized, and may we always continue the Mending. I am so grateful to you for reading, for commenting, for sharing—and for all the Good Mending you do for this aching world of mysteries and miracles. I love you sew much!

Gratefully,

Nancy