RE-do Nightmare

As I started to work on the backside of the top for the Cat quilt, clipping threads, checking seams, I discovered that there were consistent mistakes on more than half the blocks, both the batik and the black. 

It took hours and hours to rip those seams apart that joined several points forming what is the back of each Cat silhouette. Hours. At first I thought there were only a few. Not so. At that point, it seemed wise to me to open all of them up that need re-doing as the first step in the process.

And then, shaking my head here, when I think of healing any relationship, it is also that before we can go on to something or someone else, we DO need to go back, not looking at what shows on the outside, but really looking at the construction of what went right and what didn't. Before we can go on, we MUST take those steps to fix or heal ourselves. And also, before we can go on, we had better recognize all our negative choices and figure out what will work better or we will find ourselves saying and doing it all over again.

This quilting nightmare (I can call it that because it is like my worst nightmare!) pointed out how little we actually see the damage to self, and others, that can happen just as we go along doing our thing in life. We might say or do things we think do not matter and even repeat them many times before becoming accountable for our actions.

I want this quilt to be loved and welcome. I am not beating myself up about the mis-adventures on it. Not really. I know I was doing my best. And my best was done with what I knew how to do. The small set of instructions seemed easy enough and while I often felt over my head, it seemed doable.

So it is in our interactions. And maybe that's what therapy and soul retrieval, confession and all those rules and regulations are for. Somehow as humans, we know we won't get things right all the time, every time, and rarely for the first time. Most of my "Mother watch" conversations are pretty short and uncomplicated. Every once in awhile, I slip out of my role as Daughter and into one as Priestess. There in that role, I am able to tell her she did a good job as a Parent; perhaps doing the best she knew how for the times and with what resources she had. It is left to me alone to pick out the threads that connected us and find a way to heal. In those moments, I know that every Mother's child longs for more no matter how much they had, no matter how it looked to others or felt inside.

I guess what I see in this quilt top is that my best wasn't good enough for me, and that ripping seams and re-doing them is a bit of a nightmare. However, its got to be fixed before it gets basted. I can do this. I can make it better.