As I mentioned a few posts ago, I am slowly having most of my remaining boxes of belongings sent to me from out east. I'm probably not in a permanent home, but at least it is permanent enough for me to finally deal with these things, many of which have been packed up for decades. People in the emergency room have to do "triage" -- and triage is the story of a life like mine! You are constantly going through boxes from a new perspective, and as you go up the spiral, you can "feel" what no longer resonates or remains useful. Symbolic things start to mean a lot -- it just is no longer acceptable for me to have half my boxes with me, and half halfway across the country. They may only add up to a small closet's worth, but they are all I own, and those I choose to keep need to be re-knitted into the fabric of my life.
Rediscovering my mother's sewing box was surprisingly poignant (and symbolic, given what I just said!!!) Here's a box that probably dates to the mid-50's, around the time I was born. It's about 10 in. x 12 in., and 6 in. high. The cover is a quilted flower fabric, and the top had been covered with clear plastic. But as I took it out of the box, this "ancient" plastic completely disintegrated in my hands! So the bottom fabric is dingy and tan, the hinged top clean and new looking. I am hard on plastic (at this moment, rightfully so, I think) but in this situation it had certainly served its protective purpose.
Opening the box up, it is just like I last used it, at least a dozen years ago, and for that matter, the last time my mom must have used it, maybe 25 years ago. There's a top "shelf" specifically for spools of thread, which has been broken ever since I can remember, so it doesn't hang properly from the side. No matter. Most of the spools are wooden, of the pre-70's era, and some I suspect made their way from my grandmother's early-20th century collection. Some of them are priced at 15 cents! Coats & Clark's, Belding Corticelli, Talon...names both familiar and not familiar.
Underneath, chaos. My grandmother's ancient pinking shears. Several measuring tapes. A small pink plastic box of size 17 "brass silk pins" at 39 cents. Two darning eggs. A small, early 20th century sewing scissor. A round box of extra buttons. A roll of tapes with my name on, which my mother sewed into my clothes for several years. Lots of little papers wound with extra wool, for mending sweaters and socks. A thimble. Some plaid fabric that my mother paid someone to make napkins from. And yes, several packets of sewing needles. Inside the top of the box is a pocket containing yet more wool for darning. I think almost every wool sweater came with these packets of extra wool, back in the day.
So, the amusing thing about this is that, with the exception of perhaps two or three occasions when mom sewed a button back on, I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of her using the contents of this box. She did not own a sewing machine. Her mother had been a seamstress, so she went out of her way not to be one. It is a box into which a lot has been tossed, but very little ever used. In fact, I suspect that in the early 2000's, after mom passed away, I used its enclosed needles and thread far more than she ever had. I'm not much of a seamstress either, but I've had to mend things to prolong their usefulness.
A friend somewhat cheekily asked me, if your mom didn't sew, why on earth did she own a sewing box? Well, it is what a newly-married woman in the early 1950's was expected to own. Perhaps it was a gift from her mother or one of her female friends. I'm proud of the many ways in which she quietly bucked the expectations of the era, but also extremely glad to have this connection to my female lineage back in my own hands, at least for now.
