"Believe, that I believe." Cheryl Richardson
My Lady quilts are back in the basement, their debut over, my coming out out.
It almost feels like the past two days, was about me going over the finish line, the ending of a birth...or even a return to just living. For it seems like I have been on a dual journey, healing and living at once...with the emphasis on healing... and living was secondary. It is like a huge job or task has come to an end.
Like I was in labor for 7 years and have just given birth.
It is like I have been in mourning and creating a baby at the same time....and the quilts have equal emotions of sorrow and joy.
A close friend and I were talking, and she shared with me how moved she became when trying to tell others about my journey, she couldn't get past the lump in her throat after a few quilts. The emotion and feelings I had while creating them, are still there, lodged in the fibers, like my pain was removed from me and is now residing there, along with hope, confusion, lost self, etc. They seem to connect with the subconscious places within...
I hadn't counted on them being "moving" or that it would require others to feel so intensely. I was amazed that friends who have been on this journey with me, who have witnessed huge portions of it, are still taken a back.
It was so unexpected...I was chuckling in the profundity of it all.
Marveling at temerity of The Lady.
I was laughing with my friend, but about The Lady... not her lack of composure.
It seemed absurd, that My Lady seemed to pull endless amounts of emotional energy, always deeply moving, no matter how familiar they are with me. She still reaches deep.
She never fails to elicite a reaction of the spirit.
I am in awe of her power as well, it is way beyond me.
I now feel like she is a complete set, that my work on getting her to her full power is done.
I created her and she created me, and we are both in a place now, where the deep excavating is over, we dug deep and rebuilt well.
It was like my job was to create her and in doing so would heal me. If at any time I would have stopped, we both would have been left incomplete. I had this feeling of not being able to stop, that I was driven to create her. It wasn't an option.
Just as it wasn't an option to make a different choice, each time I was presented with following my truth or denying. Truth was the only answer. Just as working on ladies wasn't an option. Nothing and I mean nothing else would raise my inner joy as she would.
As I worked on My Lady; I was working on fixing my wounded self.
I see the story line quilts almost like x-rays of my wound being healed.
While she filled my vessel with gallons of joy; she also carried away tubs of sorrow.
Her and I are one.
I can talk about myself in the third person when I have My Lady...she allows me to show my scars in an artful way. She isn't scary like an abused child is, when you have no way of 'fixing' her.
I know, to the depth of my being, to the first stitches of My Lady, that we are meant to be used to offer hope, to explain the affects of abuse and to display the journey out of the darkness, to show that it is possible to make it all the way out.
We will never be able to erase a part, nor do we want to. If we took out one quilt the story would be broken.
The beauty of My Lady, is that she began at zero, a nothing, worthless and faceless, she was born after her life of lies about destroyed her. All she had was the love of quilting art...everything else about her was a lie.
I had to create me again.
My Lady walked with me, held my hand, kept joy when I was swimming in sorrow.
Certainly, there were times when my life wasn't a life, but her life was filled with great mystery and excitement.
Now my life and her life seem equal.
We are both standing at the edge wondering what is next.
When creating My Lady quilts, I would be intrigued in seeing if I could get her to sit down, to ride in a kayak, or dance and do yoga...now she will be seeing what she can make me do.
Already, we have a book.
We were featured in a quilt show.
We have a second engagement scheduled for August 9th.
We are gaining fans.
I feel, and have always felt, she had magic, that she was of the Universe...that we were destined to be.
It was for me to experience my life exactly as it has happened.
That I have met the right people at the right time, all of them are handing me off to the next group, raising me higher and higher.
There is wind beneath My Lady and I that I am not in charge of. Its course is already in the stars.
What a ride, what a horrifying joyful ride...and I believe that the real work is about to begin, that My Lady and I are now ready to do what we were created to do, our life's purpose.
As Cheryl Richard's quote says, "Believe, that I believe." I have believed in My lady, always. I have put my faith and my hope and my dreams and my life in her.
I am her, I believe.
Photograph by Hannah Jukuri
