Greetings Dear Ones!

Well, it’s finally happened. I always suspected it might. It was bound to happen; the risk is ever present in my line of work. Who’s to say it hasn’t already happened subtly, serruptitiously, multiple times in the past? Perhaps… but never in such a convincing, undeniable, way. This time was so bad; we actually had to pretend it never happened at all. Perhaps it didn’t…. We’ll never know.

A dear little lady came into the shop to have her dress hemmed for her grandson’s wedding. It was a beautiful light woolen thing smelling vaguely of lavender and mothballs, like herself. “I’ve shrunk a bit since I last wore this,” she said, gazing at it in the fitting room mirror. “I’d like you to take it up a notch. I don’t like where it is landing on my leg.” Her voice sounded faintly British, as though she spoke with a mouthful of pearls. Her clear eyes were the color of the sea and her long, aqualine nose had the pinkish hues of a renaissance portrait. Her hair was coiled in a smooth bun held together with old fashioned hair pins. The dress was fairly non-descript but was well-made and fit her superbly. It was just a little too long. It was a very proper dress on a very proper lady. Prudence was charmed.

“I think it should come up about three or four inches,” she said. “It’s always been a bit longer than I wanted.” I nodded. A dress of that length was probably really fashionable in the late 1980’s. I got out my skirt marker and started to leave a line of pins around the skirt at the length she indicated. I reminded her to keep her chin up, so that the length would remain consistent, and asked her to rotate slowly in front of me as I worked. We had already marked half of the skirt and I was kneeling directly behind her, my face level with her buttocks, when she took her next dainty step. That step was simultaneously accompanied by the muffled yet unmistakable quack of a small, happy mallard and the sudden aroma of composting prunes.

She flinched visibly then froze, afraid to move again, staring aghast into the mirror. Time stopped. An eternity went by. (An eternity that my inner fifth-grader spent rolling on the floor of my skull, laughing uncontrollably.) We did not make eye contact. With the height of professional aplomb, we both chose to utterly ignore the situation and get on with our previously scheduled lives as soon as possible without saying a word. We finished the pinning without further incident.

“She could have said ‘sorry’ or ‘pardon me’ after shooting at you from point blank range,” said Prudence, reliving the insult later.

“She didn’t do anything Wrong,” said the better Angel of my nature. “Why should she apologize? I’m not sure the poor thing had a choice in the matter. Flatulence is a very healthy and natural thing.”

“Well, at least you behaved like a lady,” sniffed Prudence, “which is not something you often do. A lady would never call attention to another lady’s accidental indiscrections. So at least one of you got it right. I practically had to sit on that silly fifth-grader and dig my fingernails into her elbows to get her to simmer down.”

The fifth-grader still thinks the whole event is Marvelous. Every time she thinks about it, she beams with light, causing Prudence to shoot dark shadows at her.

I spend the rest of the afternoon thinking about human communication. What are the things that need to be said? What makes me the person who should say them? What are the reasons NOT to say something? How can we use both talk and Silence to build bridges and bring light? Not everything that happens deserves a comment. Did I just participate in something cowardly or graceful? Or both?

“Whatever you do, DON’T make this the feature of one of your blogs,” insists Prudence, “no one needs to know about this.”

“But we NEED to tell the truth about everything,” says the chatty inner fifth-grader who tends to break out in pimples if she can’t blurt out every single thought she has at all times.

The angel smiles fondly at them both. “I’m not sure this truth needs to be told. When you come across a situation that requires a truth to be told, you need to ask yourself a few questions. Firstly, who will be helped by learning this truth? Does hearing this story actually HELP anyone?”

“It might make them very happy,” pleads the fifth-grader who equates passing gas with passing joy.

“Certainly NOT!” insists Prudence. “Though, it might be helpful for those contemplating a visit to your fitting room to continue wearing masks for the foreseeable future, lifted Covid restrictions or no.”

The angel continued.

“Secondly, when you are telling the truth, are you taking responsibility for your own feelings? Or are you trying to manipulate others into feeling a certain way? There is a big difference between gossiping about another person’s actions and talking about how those actions may have affected you personally. Saying things like ‘I felt…’ ‘I’m concerned about…’ ‘I need help understanding…’ are helpful ways to frame your discussion and make it about you, not them.”

“Well, I am concerned about Nothing. I feel Fantastic! This is the FUNNIEST thing to happen around here for a long time,” pipes the fifth-grader. “We definitely need to share this.”

“Right. But you definitely do not need to go about hurting or shaming people. So take the nugget of the story that delights you and change all the unnecessary details so that no one recognizes that person. N-Bell-ish it until everyone can see themselves and not a single individual. When another person is in your presence, whether in print or in person, they are welcome to a version of your own personal ‘hospitality,” says the angel. “You should make people welcome, not afraid.”

And so it is. Funny things happen in a tailoring shop. Sweet things, sad things, things that make my heart burst with deep love and joy for the privilege of being a human in this time and space. These are all things I love to share with you, Dear Ones.

There’s something to be said for commonly admitting that a thing has occurred. It feels strangely disorienting to witness something in the presence of another and not acknowledge it. It severs one from a sense of reality. Did that just happen? Did I make it up? Am I going mad? Am I an actual seamstress or am I just pretending the emperor has clothes? “Behaving Normally” in the face of cognitive dissonance (or the back of someone breaking wind) can make life take on the quality of the surreal.

The world is a magical place full of all we need to see, if we just practice looking, loving, sharing. Sharing makes everything more worthwhile. I think it makes me a better human being to keep writing—though the writing itself is a struggle. Sometimes the inner fifth-grader gets her way too much. Sometimes poor time management and chaos win the day. If it were up to Prudence, I should never write at all.

Today, on the fourth anniversary of starting my writing journey, I look back on cringe-worthy paragraphs that I regret but must have needed to write as part of my learning process. If this blog were a restaurant, critics might say we serve too many baloney sandwiches when the fire is out in the cooker. But I also celebrate the triumph of “Doing Something” that I set out to do and that in searching for something to feed others, I feed my own soul too.

Today, I rededicate myself to celebrating little things that happen in an otherwise ordinary and anonymous life—a life I cherish with all my breath and being. And I rededicate myself to YOU, dear readers. I am so grateful for your interest, your letters of support or laughter, your comments, your time. My goal is to keep this blog for about seven years—we are over the half way mark! Seven years is a decent apprenticeship in which to “learn by doing” (the BEST way to learn!). Let’s keep sharing the light, love, and laughs as we find them.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all the quiet little work, muffled quacks and all, YOU are doing in your corner of the world to bring grace and peace to this world and to help us all MEND.

I love you sew much!

Yours aye,

Nancy