“We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” –Benjamin Franklin, upon the signing of the Declaration of Independence

Greetings Dear Ones,

The other night, just as I closed the door to my shop, I heard whispers, soft whispers, such as the sound cloth makes when it rubs together. I peeked back at the orderly rows of clothes hanging in the softening evening light---one bar waiting to be done, another bar of completed items ready to be picked up. On the waiting-to-be-done bar: A pair of grubby, jam-stained fairy wings await new elastics in their shoulder straps so that the four-year-old Tinker-Bell-in-training can resume her magnificent leaps from the coffee table to the couch. With new elastics, she might just be able to soar up above the lamps, through the open windows, and out into the blue beyond her busy suburban neighborhood. Then she could dance from cloud to cloud, bouncing on pile after pile of sheep fleece sprinkled with star dust. Next to the wings hangs a pair of uniform trousers that belong to a police officer; next is a nine-hundred-dollar suit that was handmade in Italy; followed by some Carhartt work pants that are bombed out at the crotch (a common breaking point), and a summer calico “maxi” dress that looks like it should be worn with a straw bonnet in the dry high tide of a summer wheat field. There are bags of mending on the table whose contents are neatly folded and labeled, with painter’s tape at each moth hole, so that I can find them better. The work of an artist who loves purple occupies several hangers at the back, next to some circus pants and an anorak that needs a new zipper before August or the snow flies, whichever comes first.

This familiar scene at the end of the day—assessing today’s progress and tomorrow’s priorities—never fails to warm my heart. I gaze at a completed bridal gown with complicated beading with the proprietary fondness of James Herriot beholding a suckling calf after a difficult delivery. I sigh and make sure the iron is not just off but also unplugged. All the machines are off, the scissors collected and put away. “Everyone, Behave!” I admonish gently, as I softly close the door for the night.

This night, I can hear snickering. I crack the door a tiny bit and breathe so silently, all I can feel is my ribcage softly rising. As suspected, the clothes are beginning to wiggle. Have I left the window open? No. What the…?

“I thought she would NEVER leave,” say the wings, brightly. “I have been dying to flap around that fourteen foot ceiling all day!”

“You know you can’t really fly, right?” says the maxi dress in a voice that sounds vaguely irritated.

“Of COURSE I can,” reply the wings, hotly.

“It must be nice to relax and have fun like that,” say the uniform pants bluntly. “No one ever looks at me and smiles, the way they look at you. They see you and go all silly.”

“Somehow I help them remember that they once could fly, a long time ago, before they were told to forget,” say the wings primly, almost self-righteously.

“Well, I seem to bring out the worst in people,” says the pants sagging. “I feel so sorry for the young guy who wears me. He has a terrible time. With all the bad publicity in the media these days, this guy gets people giving him the finger and cussing at him when he wears me. People hate to see me coming. Apparently, I escalate the tension. This guy decided to be a cop around the time he was little enough to wear wings and think he would grow up and help keep people safe. He’s trying to be one of the Good Guys but people can’t tell that from looking at him.”

“People LOVE to see me coming,” bray the circus pants. “I’m ALL about FUN!”

“Yes,” says the maxi dress huffily, “but absolutely no one takes you seriously. You are ridiculous.”

“Keeping my guy’s butt covered when he’s swinging from a trapeze is completely serious. I can’t think of anything more so…”

“Well, I did my best to do that for years,” sigh the Carhartts. “But it’s tough. They just break you in the end. My person bends at weird angles all day long with a tool belt dragging me too low on his hips. Then he crouches down to look under a cabinet and pop! Bang! I’m done for. He works so hard. I don’t know how many jobs this guy has and in his time off, everyone wants him to fix something—his wife, his sister, his dad… It never ends. I don’t think this guy ever got to wear wings as a little boy. But I know he’ll get a pair in the next life. This guy ain’t nothin’ but weary. The day this crotch ripped was the first day he got to go home early in a long while. He just couldn’t keep working with his dingus about to fall out the back side.”

“Oh, Pul-eese…” says the Maxi dress. “Don’t talk to me about tired. We all are.”

The Italian suit says nothing. I’m not sure if this is because he is shy, or snobby, or both. Perhaps there is a language barrier. Not all Europeans speak English, though it often seems that way.

The clothes continue to natter and chatter.

“It’s fun to hang out together, isn’t it?” They all agree.

“When would we ever come across each other in real life?” they wonder. “What would our people have to say to each other if they could?”

“I think they’d all want us to be nicer to each other,” say the Wings.

“What a childlike thought,” says the Maxi dress.

“But I like it. I like it a lot,” say the work pants gratefully.

“Me too,” says the uniform.

From the crack in the door, I smile at them all fondly—these outer husks of embodied spirits currently walking the planet elsewhere—and think, not for the first time, how much of a “Sewcialist” I am. I sew for Everyone. In my shop, at any given time, you can find formal wear for celebrations and traditions in every faith, every creed, every religion and even slightly dubious made-up rituals involving compost. You can find the coverings of those who have been maimed either literally or spiritually, as well as those at the fiercely magnificent margins of what should never have been called “standard.” It’s all here. Every part of the curves finds this Bell. And they are Loved, loved, loved each the same.

I embrace the invitation to get inside these clothes, right up next to where raw skin goes. I love having permission to mend or heal the tiny defects in my tiny world, where I find them. I’m grateful to be able to work as I wish in this “land of the Free” (where I am probably more free than most…)

A shaman who visited recently instructed me to perform a protection charm from the “energies” that these clothings contain. They hold stories and “vibes” that are palpable to those who are energy-sensitive. But I love the stories. I don’t want to protect myself from the sadness, the rawness of being Human. (Though I do draw the line at crotch dander! But in such cases, masking tape does the trick as well as any spell would.) I know my customers, Dear Ones, are hurting and some don’t feel at all united, even on a day like today, when we celebrate the founding of our country and what it means to be American. A friend posted on Facebook, “On Saint Patrick’s Day, we all act Irish…. why can’t we all act like Americans today?” (Firstly, I must retort that NO, we do NOT act like the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. We act like bloomin’ idiots.) Another friend commented dryly “and just how DO American’s behave?” I look at what is hanging together in my shop, and ponder…

THIS, this is the Fabric (literally) of our community, our society, our country, hanging here in tatters yet together. We are a people of hopes, of work, of beauty, of thrills, and most importantly, of Laws. We need to nourish, delight, and protect each other through these difficult times.

So many of our people do not feel hopeful. They have soured on magic of any kind, even fairy wings. It’s so hard to feel hopeful when we feel exhausted, unheard, overwhelmed, or shut down. I know. The weights we carry make us move heavily, rip our pants, and feel more exposed and powerless with each step. We neglect to remind ourselves of the value of Hardships—that they hone us, they hollow us, they toughen and prepare us for deeper union with our inner calling and our Gifts, gifts we are meant to share with one another.

To those who say these messages of Work and Love are silly, weak, insipid I say this: We don’t need more hate right now. Blessed are we who seek, who strive, who keep on Mending the wings of those who will soar tomorrow. Blessed are our truth tellers. Blessed are our workers, our doers, our Dreamers. Blessed are those who go on rampages of Kindness and spontaneous generosity. The real Tough Ones are not the ones who threaten violence, but we who Consistently Persist. Those who want Change don’t just turn the other cheek, especially if it is hanging out of a ripped pair of Carhartts—we Mend that fabric of society one bloody stitch at a time.

Anything helps. Make a difference to someone. Nothing is too small. Like it or not, we’re all Hanging Together—it’s the only way democracy can work. It turns out that Democracy is a nasty, ugly business. It’s the worst thing in the world, except for…well, anything else.

I love you Sew much,

Yours aye,

Nancy