Stitches
From my bed, the house is quiet, too quiet until I hear the clickedy
clickedy clickedy of my mother’s black Singer sewing machine. A deeper
click—metal arm on metal—as the presser foot is raised; a small clunk when she
lowers it again. A hum rolls the flywheel forward, and then clickedy clickedy
clickedy under the machine’s tiny light, now faster, now slower, my mother’s
hands under the machine’s strong light.
Plink—a pin drops into the pin box. Plink. Plink. Silence and I know she
is re-pinning, re-folding alone at the dining room table, hunched over the
dining room table, hours with that tiny, strong light.
How smart I will look in my new pleated skirt, I think. Her handiwork
gathers yards of plaid into neat folds, over and over all that fabric into neat
folds secured at the waistband with a straight topstitch. The pleat edges meet
perfectly, obscuring the layer beneath. The cloth’s cross patterns always line
up— “matching the plaid” the mark of a careful seamstress.
Tomorrow I will stand on a dining room chair and turn, turn one pin at
a time as she folds the hem just below my skinny knees. It takes so long that a
little restless hot spot burns in my belly. I hate how tiny my turns have to
be. I want to be able to twirl and leap. Eventually, the ironing board will be
brought out, and each pleat ironed so that they march briskly around the skirt,
ready to give and flow with movement. A
pleated skirt is not as good for twirling as a flared one, but the accordion
action of the pleats is excellent for leaping.
Copyright, 2016, Linda S. Buckmaster
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