The Parallels of Needle & Thread

The only silence my mind can catch is a brief one, hidden under my bed in a bin too small for all the miscellaneous parts of a bright whole. Nights where my fingers tremble and I struggle to calm uneven breaths sending me off course, I find my steadiness between a pair of scissors, cutting fabric to size, and threading a needle. Just for a night, I pour my soul into some sort of creation that makes me laugh all the while making it, thinking "oh how funny are his ears, tilted so west towards a setting sun!" and find a way to fit the stuffing in a place my fingertips can't quite reach.

With my life ever changing between two parents fighting for custody, one narcissistic and one blind, I turned to security blankets in the form of much more permanent stuffed animals. Even when one tore down the back, losing its stuffing like I lost my solidarity, they never lost their touch. In fact, a torn part of an animal gave me an excuse to watch my grandmother sew, and learn from her how to hand stitch the parts of me unraveling back together.

When I lost my mother to her own blinding greed and selfishness, I was fed up and ridden with flashbacks of neglect and abuse. I picked up a collection of sewing needles my grandmother had given me with a soft smile and a whisper of wise words, and I taught myself to create the stable ground I needed to thrive. My first stuffed animal, a dolphin, was threaded together with scraps of old jeans and pillow cases coated with tears after long nights in SeaWorld. His eyes were buttons fallen from an old shirt of hers I held close when I needed to pretend she loved me still.

When I found a relationship with my sister, it was because I needed a friend more than anything. My own bitterness and emotional exhaustion had led me away from friendships taught with conflicting interests, and into the arms of a girl full of so much love and life. She spotted me working one night to calm myself, and asked for a bear for Christmas. I offered her an explanation as to why not- it wouldn't look good, I do this for comfort, I could buy her a bear a million times softer. She simply said, "But what I would do for one made by you." My sister opened a bear sewn from peace, sweet recollections, and an old blanket on Christmas morning. I haven't seen it stray from her bed since.

When I lost my innocence to a man who stole it from me, who claimed to be my friend, I stumbled upon the lake I lived on and begged for it to carry me on its way out. I remember every moment, from digging my hands in the snow, desperate to feel, to hold onto one memory that was pure and untainted and to feeling the flame of a lighter kiss my fingertips with promises the blemishes wouldn't last long. Instead, I thread a needle with black thread and made an octopus. An arm for everything that made it worth it to live through the worst pain of my life, crafted from the leggings I was violated in and colorful buttons that were as bright as my future.

When I found the love of my life, still tattered and bruised, I leapt from my soft spoken demeanor to feel so alive, so in love. I learned to dance in the rain, to drive slow to songs he put on in memory of us, to feel his kisses against my forehead and cheeks, knowing the kindness behind every peck. After years of making stuffed animals for others based on their requests, I created my favorite animal. I cut fabric from a baby blanket of mine, plucked buttons from an old, tattered stuffed animal who had seen better days, and I sewed my love into a snake with a long purple tongue and bright blue eyes.

When I took the time to perfect my hand sewing, I took a basket of stuffed animals of different kinds- an elephant for a rainy day, a deer for the scents of the forest behind our house- to a place where a child could love them just as much as I have.