My
Journey Quilt
By Kaya McLaren,
Author of Church of the Dog
Quilters understand something that many people
don't-- something about second chances, which are a little
different than new beginnings or fresh starts. Quilters like me see the
parts of things broken, torn, or stained worth salvaging, especially if
we used to love those things. It's not that I don't grieve
for my favorite pair of pajama pants or the dress I wore on a special
occasion. I do. And it does hurt to cut the worthwhile parts away from
the whole as I used to it, knowing I'll never wear those pajama
pants or that dress again -- that particular comfort is over or that
particular era is over. But I press on, and I cut. I look at my broken
pieces all over the floor, and reach into my trunks for other pieces of
things I ruined along the way, but deemed worth salvaging. I reach in
for pieces shared with me from friends and relatives, some of whom have
passed on. I lay them out all over the floor and study them. Sometimes
I still can't imagine how that mess will ever be something whole
and beautiful again. But piece by piece, I stitch. I stop thinking
about completion and slip into a moving meditation. I put love into
each stitch, and just keep thinking about love, stitching, and moving
forward. There are mistakes in every quilt, especially mine. They are
full of irregularities and inconsistencies one would never find in a
brand new comforter. It shouldn't look good, but
miraculously, I begin to see the beauty in imperfection -- in the
imperfection of my quilt and the imperfection of my life, the artifacts
of skateboard wipe-outs and of one too many glasses of wine, of the
fact I still haven't learned to do laundry properly, of
sacrifices to the barbed-wire gods made when I blaze my own travels
sometimes in places I don't belong, of times I had to crawl under
my greasy car on the side of the highway and you know, thank God I was
capable enough to do it. The residual pieces of my misfortune, held
together with other pieces from loved ones do make something whole and
something beautiful. I pull the dark fabrics out of my trunk, the ones
I don't particularly like to look at. I use them to frame the
colorful pieces of my life experiences, and the contrast helps me see
the brilliance and richness of my imperfect journey, of the parts I
loved enough to salvage, of the new parts given to me by ones I love.
As I get closer to finishing my crazy quilt, I find I no longer judge
fabrics for not being the pajama bottoms or dress or curtains they used
to be. Now, they are simply my quilt. And I don't judge the chaos
or disorder of random pieces put together. It is what it is, and
it's something only I could have created. That's my
journey -- imperfect and whole, flawed and beautiful. It's my
journey and it's me too.
©2008 Kaya McLaren
Author Bio
Kaya McLaren lives and teaches on the east slope of Snoqualmie Pass in
Washington State. When she's not working, she likes to telemark ski,
sit in hot springs, moonlight hike, and play in lakes with her dog, Big
Cedar. Her book,
Church of the Dog,
is currently available from Penguin Books.
