White Crochet
I don't know why I was looking for them. It was probably one of those inexplicable sentimental compulsions: to have a certain object, right now. To hold it or look at it, reconnect with whatever it represents. So I had a pretty good hunch about where I may have stored them, and after a brief rummaging through the chest of drawers in the bedroom, I found them. There was no identifiable pretext for trying to find them, and I wasn't sure what they would represent anyway. But something about the old woman walking slowly with a cane ahead of me, something about Steve the grocer's absent-minded look through the shop window as he was standing next to the cash waiting for customers, with hands stuck into his jacket pockets, something in the shape of a nondescript late winter day made me remember them.
The fourth drawer from the top is the one I don't open often. This is where I keep some of my mother's clothes that fit me and that I couldn't throw or give away but that I don't actually wear; there are also countless pieces of handiwork made by my grandmother - tablecloths, doilies, napkins, dish towels, pillow cases, bed covers. They are in long pieces of plastic, carefully wrapped and stored. Women of my grandmother's time (born in the 1920s) still operated on the principles of that era, according to which a female child needs to gradually accumulate a certain amount of "goods" -- mostly objects to be used in her future household. In other words, she needs a dowry (ideally to be kept in a big wooden trunk). Hence, both my cousin Martina and I -- her two granddaughters -- were lavished over the years with all kinds of crocheted, knitted, or embroidered handmade household essentials. Even my mother was still receiving a good number of them as long as Grandmother could brandish her needles around, even though she presumably didn't need a dowry any more. In the house of my childhood, we paraded these proudly, mostly in the form of tablecloths of all shapes, colours, and stitch patterns in the dining room and the salon. They would be changed at regular intervals, and there were a few special ones which were used only on extraordinary occasions.
What I was looking for was in the same drawer, but in a small plastic bag, separate from the other fabrics. Inside the bag were the delicate fineries which would easily get lost among the bigger, bulkier pieces. There were 6 small cloth handkerchiefs neatly hemmed or embroidered, and ironed and folded into triangles (the type which dropped out of general use quite a while ago in favour of paper tissues; the only person I know who still uses them is my father, who irons them patiently but folds them into squares); three feather-light crocheted doilies; a long, pale-pink night dress; and two snow-white crocheted lacy collars. When I got these from Grandmother, it was my last summer with her; she died the following December. I remember the day was warm, but the smaller of the two bedrooms (which used to be my mother's room when she was a girl) was always shady and cool. The window was open and the transparent curtains swayed drowsily in the afternoon air currents.
Grandmother stood with her head bent in front of the window where the desk with her old sewing machine was (it was an old Singer machine, the one that worked with the pedal). Ever since my mother died three years before, she was getting smaller and more hunched by the day; even her broad-rimmed glasses, dangling on a piece of green elastic around her neck when she wasn't wearing them, got to be too big for her narrowing face and constantly slipped down her nose. Her glasses mid-way down her nose, she stood propped with one hand against the sewing machine desk, and fumbled through the contents of the built-in drawers with the other hand. "What can this old woman give you..." she said softly, more to herself than to me, standing by the door, watching her. I was leaving the following day. She carefully inspected the handkerchiefs and selected half a dozen which seemed the most presentable; she added a couple of doilies and a few more things here and there. Then her fingers fell upon a rustling plastic bag, which she pulled out and opened. She looked for a few moments at the foam-like crocheted collars. "These I made for your mother when she was a young girl." She passed her thumb over the starched white surface. "We didn't have much money for clothes so I made her a few dresses and different collars that she could change. She looked very pretty in them, with her hair up. Sometimes she went to the Promenade with her friends from school, all good girls." I imagined my mother, slender-waisted and willowy, whispering giggly remarks to her best friends as they bounced lightly down the chestnut-lined Promenade by the river, casting coy side-glances at the young men sitting on top of the railing on the river bank, laughing boisterously, perhaps smoking; looking at the girls passing by.
The old woman in front of me let go of the desk, and made a couple of small steps to the left, opening the door of the tall wooden wardrobe (most probably made by my grandfather, like many other things in the house, and even the house itself). A smell of ironed laundry escaped into the room as she looked up and down the shelves, and then pulled out slowly a long pink night dress, made of soft but sturdy fabric. "Take this too -- it's too big for me," she said and put it in the bag with the other things. She handed me the bag, with no lingering looks at the items that were once part of her fully bloomed womanhood, now on the wane. There was no sentimentality in the gesture, just a most natural and honest goodbye to all that. To all the long hours of needlework by the window in the diminishing light, before and after other chores, before and after visits by friends or children, filled with hopes and dreams of the future, uncertain of how they would turn out. She was done, and I went away with the bag, and with a sense that the decency of a life comes from living it the best you can, and knitting a safety net to hold in place even the most shapeless, most nondescript days.
The fourth drawer from the top is the one I don't open often. This is where I keep some of my mother's clothes that fit me and that I couldn't throw or give away but that I don't actually wear; there are also countless pieces of handiwork made by my grandmother - tablecloths, doilies, napkins, dish towels, pillow cases, bed covers. They are in long pieces of plastic, carefully wrapped and stored. Women of my grandmother's time (born in the 1920s) still operated on the principles of that era, according to which a female child needs to gradually accumulate a certain amount of "goods" -- mostly objects to be used in her future household. In other words, she needs a dowry (ideally to be kept in a big wooden trunk). Hence, both my cousin Martina and I -- her two granddaughters -- were lavished over the years with all kinds of crocheted, knitted, or embroidered handmade household essentials. Even my mother was still receiving a good number of them as long as Grandmother could brandish her needles around, even though she presumably didn't need a dowry any more. In the house of my childhood, we paraded these proudly, mostly in the form of tablecloths of all shapes, colours, and stitch patterns in the dining room and the salon. They would be changed at regular intervals, and there were a few special ones which were used only on extraordinary occasions.
What I was looking for was in the same drawer, but in a small plastic bag, separate from the other fabrics. Inside the bag were the delicate fineries which would easily get lost among the bigger, bulkier pieces. There were 6 small cloth handkerchiefs neatly hemmed or embroidered, and ironed and folded into triangles (the type which dropped out of general use quite a while ago in favour of paper tissues; the only person I know who still uses them is my father, who irons them patiently but folds them into squares); three feather-light crocheted doilies; a long, pale-pink night dress; and two snow-white crocheted lacy collars. When I got these from Grandmother, it was my last summer with her; she died the following December. I remember the day was warm, but the smaller of the two bedrooms (which used to be my mother's room when she was a girl) was always shady and cool. The window was open and the transparent curtains swayed drowsily in the afternoon air currents.
Grandmother stood with her head bent in front of the window where the desk with her old sewing machine was (it was an old Singer machine, the one that worked with the pedal). Ever since my mother died three years before, she was getting smaller and more hunched by the day; even her broad-rimmed glasses, dangling on a piece of green elastic around her neck when she wasn't wearing them, got to be too big for her narrowing face and constantly slipped down her nose. Her glasses mid-way down her nose, she stood propped with one hand against the sewing machine desk, and fumbled through the contents of the built-in drawers with the other hand. "What can this old woman give you..." she said softly, more to herself than to me, standing by the door, watching her. I was leaving the following day. She carefully inspected the handkerchiefs and selected half a dozen which seemed the most presentable; she added a couple of doilies and a few more things here and there. Then her fingers fell upon a rustling plastic bag, which she pulled out and opened. She looked for a few moments at the foam-like crocheted collars. "These I made for your mother when she was a young girl." She passed her thumb over the starched white surface. "We didn't have much money for clothes so I made her a few dresses and different collars that she could change. She looked very pretty in them, with her hair up. Sometimes she went to the Promenade with her friends from school, all good girls." I imagined my mother, slender-waisted and willowy, whispering giggly remarks to her best friends as they bounced lightly down the chestnut-lined Promenade by the river, casting coy side-glances at the young men sitting on top of the railing on the river bank, laughing boisterously, perhaps smoking; looking at the girls passing by.
The old woman in front of me let go of the desk, and made a couple of small steps to the left, opening the door of the tall wooden wardrobe (most probably made by my grandfather, like many other things in the house, and even the house itself). A smell of ironed laundry escaped into the room as she looked up and down the shelves, and then pulled out slowly a long pink night dress, made of soft but sturdy fabric. "Take this too -- it's too big for me," she said and put it in the bag with the other things. She handed me the bag, with no lingering looks at the items that were once part of her fully bloomed womanhood, now on the wane. There was no sentimentality in the gesture, just a most natural and honest goodbye to all that. To all the long hours of needlework by the window in the diminishing light, before and after other chores, before and after visits by friends or children, filled with hopes and dreams of the future, uncertain of how they would turn out. She was done, and I went away with the bag, and with a sense that the decency of a life comes from living it the best you can, and knitting a safety net to hold in place even the most shapeless, most nondescript days.
posted by Tijana | 12:51 PM
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