Written piece
Threading Memories
Priyamvada KE
India
About this piece
My submission, a poem, recalls the childhood memory of begin taught to sew by my maternal grandmother, a wise woman. Her message of repair and reuse, resonates with present-day environmental thinking and the life skill of sewing, working with one’s hands, to create and preserve.
Threading Memories
As I thread a needle
and begin to stitch the loose edge of my favourite maroon kurta,
so I can wear it to work next week,
and sew, carefully, one stitch at a time,
I can hear the voice of my grandmother,
as I, aged about 8, sat beside her,
while on a summer vacation, in my ancestral home in Kerala.
‘A stitch in time saves nine’, she said smiling, as she threaded her needle,
and began to sew the edge of a pillow cover.
‘What does that mean?’, I ask her.
Smiling, she replied, ‘It means, don’t delay mending something when you can.’
Adding, ‘If you fix it now, it’s ready for you to use.’
Dear Ammamma, you spent your life stitching together the fabric of each of our lives, so that we could use them well.
The threads you taught me to use, keep your memory alive, one careful stitch at a time…
K. E. Priyamvada