More comfortable lives means letting go

Short, cold days inspire me to make things.

 

Of the 24 hours assigned to the winter solstice on Dec. 21, fewer than nine feature daylight. The sun will rise at 7:45 and set at 4:38.

 

Even nowadays with our daylight on demand homes, our heated vehicles and an array of alluring possible destinations, there are days when it seems as if the only sensible course is to hunker down at home.

 

On such days, making something is often the most appealing choice. As for me, I have a wide array of options. I know how to make “bead balls,” spherical crafts that are brought into shape by feeding string (usually fine fishline) through the beads. I’ve been making them for 30 or so years now. They’re striking finished products, and the fun for me, at this stage, is seeing how various types and colors of beads come together in a pattern. 

 

I’m sure every crafter knows exactly what I mean when I say it’s unsafe for me to walk through the bead section of a craft store–suddenly I’m loading up my basket with beads, just because I want to see what they’ll look like together in a project.

 

But my intent here is to speculate about the past.

 

I believe I’ve mentioned before that earlier this fall I volunteered at Farmamerica and was given the task of sharing information about the 1850s farmstead there. Homesteaders of that era often started in a “dugout,” literally a man-made cave frequently built in a hurry because winter was coming and they didn’t have enough time to build anything better.

 

Stop by and see it sometime when you’re at Farmamerica. It must have been a terribly claustrophobic experience, with whole families clustered inside making the best of things until spring came. No electricity, no running water, no roads.

 

From the dugout, the next step was commonly a “hovel,” with log walls but a sod roof. Though it doesn’t sound like much, it was a vast improvement over the dugout. A person could stand upright and there were separate spaces for cooking, eating and sleeping. From there, maybe 5 or more years later, there were resources and time to build a log home.

 

I think of the ladies of that time in the cold and dark of winter. Once the sun had set, there was only lantern or candlelight. People doubtless huddled near the wood-burning stove for warmth and around the lantern for light, remembering winter days at our latitude average less than 10 hours of daylight each.

 

My thoughts turn specifically to my great-grandmother Ida Suemnick, who was born in the late 1800s and lived to be more than 100 years old. She had many accomplishments; among them was a vast number of beautifully embroidered tablecloths, dish towels, and pillow cases.

 

I picture her and ladies like her on those long winter nights wanting to do something productive and–understandably–wanting to bring a bit more beauty into the world. They mastered intricate, time-consuming tasks because that was the point–to “consume time.”

 

They took the fabric flour sacks which were the standard of their time and made them into whatever was needed–including dish towels embroidered with charming little pictures and the names of each weekday. I’m sure every family has stories of the different things grandmothers and great-grandmothers used to make, and each set of stories is slightly different depending on what resources these ladies had available. Those with sheep made yarn, and from the yarn made cloth.

 

Thinking about it, our easy transportation, electricity and electronic media have certainly given us more comfortable lives, but every now and then I think about what they’ve caused us to let go of. How many people, anymore, take the time to embroider anything? How many know how to crochet or tat lace from fine string?

 

Now, when we want something pretty, our first thought is to buy it: essentially anything we could want can be purchased.

 

But when you’ve made something, it’s part of you. You remember why you made it, who you made it for. You look at it with a critical eye, noting any imperfections and thinking how you could have avoided them–or will avoid them in the future. Wordlessly, you compliment yourself on what you’re capable of, and perhaps you think of a person you might enjoy working with on a future project, or teaching about the craft.

 

So I am looking forward to the upcoming short, dark days. For most of them, I hope to be hunkered down somewhere warm, making something.