Blending the Old and the New

Shirley, my oldest friend, and I went to a Quilt Festival this week. It’s not that she is older than any of my other friends, I tease her. We remember when we used to climb the apple tree outside my grandmother’s farmhouse. The tree seemed very large to us then, but the branches were low to the ground and easy to reach with our 5-year-old arms. It was more like sitting on a swing than climbing a tree, but the peanut butter, honey and graham cracker snacks we ate there always tasted better than they did in the kitchen.

At the Quilt Festival we saw an exhibit, “Blending the Old with the New.” The quilts displayed were designed by Paul D. Pilgrim. He had used heirloom quilt blocks, abandoned by the person who created them perhaps because of death or old age. The artist then created something different from what was originally intended. The finished design honored the past while also moving in a new direction.

Shirley told me about the energy she senses from an antique quilt top that she recently purchased at an Indian Trading Post outside of Oklahoma City. She describes it as having “amazing colors and the vintage fabrics give you a glimpse into the past” She is eager to add her own energy as she works with it.

Images of quilts blending the old with the new reminded me of the power I sense from the spirits of my ancestors. It brought to mind stories from my family and my experience and the wisdom I draw from them. Lately, I am noticing that when another person describes a place or a time we shared, it usually is quite different from what I remember. What we saw, felt, thought, heard and tasted are altered by our senses and our interpretations. I marvel that what we each observe and notice can be similar yet changed.

When I read my cousin B’s descriptions of our shared grandmother’s home in Nova Scotia, the contrast from how I would tell the tale is striking to me. There is only one year of difference in our ages and we grew up in homes less than 100 miles apart. Yet, because of differences between our mothers, we met for the first time as adults.

We now live more than 1,500 miles apart and in the past year we have become closer through our stories than we were ever before. By reading B’s stories, I connect in a way that is beyond kinship. I honor her journey and the way she has traveled it. Her stories sometimes bring tears to my eyes and her cryptic email messages often make me laugh. Still we see the world very differently. When I told her I was going to a Quilt Festival, she shot back, “So how’s life in the fast lane?”

As a quilt may be stitched together by many hands around a circle or completed generations later, my belief is that we can all transcend the differences that divide us in space and time with our stories.