The Thread

Ever see a person sewing by hand?  Someone really experienced?  I remember watching my mom do what she called a “running” stitch (if I remember correctly).  She would run the needle through the fabric a number of times before she pulled the thread taut to secure those stitches into the fabric.   It almost feels like that is what is happening in my life lately.  Several topics, first hope, then our interconnectedness, keep coming up in completely unrelated ways: books I’ve been reading, books being recommended to me, movies I’m watching, events I’ve attended, conversations with people, etc.  Now, you just know I’m totally trying to figure out what it means, don’t you?  

I’ll give you a “for example”.  Today at church, during the time we were to be greeting each other, my friend Lynnette, who was sitting with me told Jena, sitting across the aisle, to give me the book she had just returned.  So over the aisle comes the book, Cane River by Lalita Tademy.   The book evidently relates the stories of 4 women from 4 different generations and their stories, beginning in our shameful era of slavery.  The author says the book is fiction, but it is also rooted in research, historical fact, and details handed down through the family. 

Because I don’t sing in the choir, I always get to the car before Allan does.  And today he was even a little longer in coming, just busy talking to people.  So I open the book, of course.  Can’t wait.  Had to look through it.  I find pictures of actual people as well as copies of documents, such as a plantation bill of sale on page 121 (paperback version).    The bill of sale includes the name of each slave to be sold, his/her age, whether or not s/he was guaranteed, to whom each was sold and the price paid.   I get somewhat nauseous.  But I study it anyway.  Want to or not, I have to face up to the ugliness I see there:

ü     Slave, (Name), Negro man age 60, not guaranteed…$105

ü     Slave, (Name), Negro man age 50, fully guaranteed…$510

ü     Slave, (Name), mulatto age 43, fully guaranteed…$1,005

ü     Slave, (Name), Negro age 40, not guaranteed…$1,025

ü     Slave, (Name), Negro age 25, fully guaranteed…$1,565

ü     Slave, (Name), Negress age 55, not guaranteed…$605

ü     Slave, (Name), Negress age 25, fully guaranteed…$1,190

ü     Slave, (Name), Negress age 27 and son (Name), age 10…$1,615

ü     Slave, (Name), Negress age 26 & child (Name), mulatto age 9…$1,400

ü     Slave, (Name), age 11, fully guaranteed…$900

ü     Slave, (Name), Negress, deaf and dumb, age 30, not guaranteed…$950

I don’t yet know what the guarantee is exactly, but I can certainly make some assumptions.  I’ll find out when I finish reading the other 3 books I have going and get to this one. 

So, anyway, I have this book I’ve now glanced through ever so briefly and yet was able to quickly find evil, meticulously documented.  Later this afternoon we planned to watch the next movie from our Netflix queue that arrived several days ago.  I rarely look at our list of choices, preferring instead to tell Allan what I might enjoy and letting him place it wherever he might want on that list.  Today’s feature?  To Kill A Mockingbird with Gregory Peck.  I had never seen the movie that I could recall.  Before long I was on the edge of the couch, trying to breathe deeply, and doing what I could to get my heart to stop pounding.  I knew Tom Robinson’s fate, of course.  But knowing it didn’t translate into being able to see it “in person” without significant stress.  And I do mean significant. 

Thus, here I am, wanting the writing process to not only calm my spirit but also maybe give me some insight.  There are a good number of recent experiences about which I’ve wanted to write but time has not allowed.  I’ll need to go back and complete that writing.  Perhaps viewing them together will help me see if, in fact, they represent “running stitches”; stitches being sewn on this portion of life’s fabric.  If so, I want to know how to pull the stitches together in such a way as to make that fabric not only stronger but so as to also make it more usable to others and maybe even add to its overall beauty.