The Skills I Do, and Do Not Have: A Post About Quilting

Quilting is a discipline that takes lots of exact measuring, mathematical skills and planning ahead, right down to the minutest detail. It’s safe to say that at these three things, I’m pretty much inept. However, I’ve thankfully been endowed with an excessive amount of stubbornness and that is what I used the last few weeks to make my very own memory (my mother’s term) quilt.

Now, this dream, like most dreams, has been a long time in the realizing. I’m quite certain that I was 19 years old when I first started stuffing my old Jansport backpack with squares of t-shirts and old skirts that I wanted to someday make into a quilt. This should come as no surprise to you, but I’m actually a terribly nostalgic person (*cough* generation...). I’ve been nostalgic since before I ever had anything to be nostalgic about. When I first started thinking about making a quilt, I was at the time planning on going to a university in Virginia (thank God I didn’t do that or none of you would be reading this blog) and I knew that I couldn’t take everything and everyone with me, so the idea for a quilt kind of just sprang up in my mind.  I suppose I thought that it would make me feel better about being hundreds of miles away from the people I love. As a side-note, I’ve always been a little bit weird about the blankets I sleep under, meaning, I’ve always slept under the same kitten-covered white blanket (with a down comforter for added warmth) that I’ve had since I was very, very small. The blanket originally belonged to the ex-wife of one of my older brothers. I have no idea how it came to be in my possession, but the kittens were all given names when I was quite young, and once you name a kitten, it becomes hard to part with it, even if it is just a pattern on a blanket. Buying a patterned or nice comforter from the store has always seemed a bit weird to me, it would be like sleeping under a stranger. Not literally. But, you know.

Anyways, the idea for a quilt was born. And, once an idea is born inside of me, I generally have a very hard time shaking it off. So, the Jansport backpack has traveled with me from house to house, bedroom to bedroom, a dream literally in patches locked away in a dark closet, waiting for me to get around to feeling like I finally had time to deal with it. The thing is, I’ve always had better things to do. Books to read, Japanese to study, long ago, it was Bible studies to lead and this and that. So, the quilt waited until I finally had my JET interview a few weeks ago and realized, I have absolutely nothing left to do but wait until I get the results (which, by the way, won’t be until the end of March at the earliest. So please, stop asking).

So, recently, I brought out all the patches to my quilt, and I got out my mom’s sewing machine and set it up in the dinning room, and I started working on my quilt. The first thing I realized was that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, so I did what I do best, and I used Google. However, the quilting websites I found all used Quiltenese, which I found to be more inscrutable than Japanese and more insular than Christianese. I quickly deduced how long it would take before I understood the quilting websites, closed that tab, and went back to surfing facebook for another twenty minutes before I could face the dinning room again and the 156, 6x6” square patches that awaited me there, strewn about the floor.

Now, I’m going to spare you the details of my quilting methods for two reasons. 1.) if you actually do want to learn how to quilt, you probably don’t want to learn from me, and 2.) when I explained my method to my mother, she literally laughed so hard she turned purple. It was like we’d been watching American’s Funniest Home videos, except, we hadn’t. It was just me, me and my imperfect quilt.

Needless to say, I got it done. And I’m pleased. Halfway through the process, I knew that it was never going to be perfect and to be honest, the thought was really depressing to me. But then I remembered that the whole purpose of a quilt is to keep one warm, and if that’s that, than that could be accomplished even if I was just laying under a pile of scrap fabric. And then I thought of baby Jesus who was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and I shrugged off all my fear and just got to sewing. I know, you think I’m kidding, but quilting is hard work and I was using whatever desperate thoughts I could think of to keep myself going. If Jesus was fine with being wrapped in swaddling clothes, then I’d be fine if I ended up with a tangled mess of a pile of mismatched fabric patches.

Here’s the finished product:  

Since this is a quilt that's made from my own clothes, and since most of the clothes are somewhat important to me, I figured I'd include a colour key.

Colour key:

Peach/Pink Squares with Navy Lettering: These are from an Angkor Wat shirt that I bought at a market in Phnom Penh. I went to Cambodia in February 2006 on a mission trip with my church. I left for Cambodia less than a month after my sister had passed away, so a lot of my memoires of Cambodia are sort of a blur, but I do remember the markets. I didn't actually get to go to Angkor Wat while I was in Cambodia, which is one of the main reasons why I'd like to go back.

Bright Red Squares: These are from this ridiculous shirt I used to wear that had a seal on it and it said in white letters, Sleepy in Seattle. The entire thing is rather embarrassing but I did preach my second sermon while wearing this t-shirt in front of about 500 University of Washington students. I think I would have better fashion sense now, but what can I say? I was 20, people do stupid things when they're 20.... 

Light Green Squares: When I went to the Ukraine in 2005, we were told to pack a lot of skirts because it's a rather conservative culture. We were also told to pack light. I went to Ukraine, Poland and Hungary with one backpack filled with skirts and shirts and other lightweight clothes. This was super helpful, since I then had two hands free to help other people on the trip who had not managed to pack so lightly. Anyways, the light green squares are from a skirt that I wore a lot while I was in Ukraine.

Bright Yellow Batman squares: I have a picture of me somewhere holding a puppy that's licking my face, in the picture, I'm wearing this bright yellow batman shirt which I love, love, loved at the time. Somewhere around 2005. 

Green Squares: I worked for Starbucks for almost 5 years and I worked an average of about 30 hours a week for most of that time while I was an intern, while I went to Bellevue College, and for my first year at Northwest University. People can say what they want, and I know Starbucks isn't considered the best coffee in Seattle, but it was an excellent company to work for and I spent a good portion of my life during those years wearing that green apron.

Purple Squares: Just another t-shirt that I wore often for a period of time. Wore that one a lot in Ukraine.

Virginia is for Lovers: I used to wear this shirt often. It was sort of a reminder to myself that I was supposed to go to Virginia for school. What can I say? People make mistakes. Maybe I'll go to grad school in Virginia... 

Word Search Squares: I really did have a t-shirt that was one big word search with all sorts of animals hidden in it. It had the phrase "sex panther" on it numerous times, and I have a distinct memory of my friends at the time constantly searching for that phrase in particular.

I'm Endangered! Light Yellow Squares: This was, I think, my first ever graphic shirt. It had an owl flying away and said "I'm Endangered!" and I loved, loved this shirt.

Orange Squares: From an old orange sweatshirt which I really thought twice about before cutting up to make it into patches for the quilt. However, I needed it for the colour scheme and really, I've only been sleeping in that sweatshirt for years now, so it seemed like it was time for it to go.

Purple Shirt, Orphanage in Ukraine, 2005

Batman Shirt, and a puppy, 2005

Scooby-Doo Shirt, Cambodia, 2006 (that's a tiny bird in my hand)

Angkor Wat shirt, yes, that's a fried tarantula, no, I did not eat it. Cambodia, 2006

I'm Endangered! Shirt, Cambodia, 2006

Word Search shirt, with old roomie, Robyn. December 2010

What I Talk About When I Talk About Reading

          

        About a month ago, I bought a Kindle Paperwhite from Amazon. In a display of goodwill, and to prove that my love of real books was still very much alive and well, I also bought a paperback memoir on the same order. Alright, to be honest, I bought the memoir in paper-form because it isn’t available on Kindle. And, also, because it was only 99 cents. The book in question is Hokkaido Highway Blues. A few chapters into Hokkaido Highway Blues, I knew two things: I knew that I wanted to write about it, even if it was just a quick review, and I knew I wanted all my friends to read it. Well, at least the ones presently living overseas.

 I’d like to set the scene for you. I presently live in Seattle (okay, the Seattle-area). I’m not currently an expat, although I have all the dreams and hopes and aspirations of a future expat, I am not presently that myself. To be honest, I feel a little like someone who’s been sitting in the plastic chairs at the DMV for twenty-minutes too long. You know the feeling? Things have delayed my departure. My number hasn’t been called. Shifty things have been going on behind the Plexiglas  walls that separate me from the government workers, I can hear them whispering and I see them casting furtive glances my way. Paperwork and discrepancies and this and that. Others have had their names called, they’ve come and gone, and in the meantime, I’ve been rifling through the waiting room literature. The waiting room literature, by the way, for one setting out on so specific a journey as teaching English in Japan, well, it’s sort of limited. There’s one pamphlet stuck into many different plastic shelves and on most coffee tables and side tables, the same thing over and over again, that pamphlet is Hokkaido Highway Blues.

Most of my Japan-minded friends say that they have seen this book, but none of them have read it. This is really frustrating to me because a.) this book is the best thing I’ve ever read about the experience of living as a foreigner in Japan and b.) I generally always discuss what I’m presently reading with my friends, and if I can, I get them to read what I’m reading so that we can discuss it even further. The more my mind interacts with another person’s mind on the same subject, the better I understand it. This is why I love my English major friends, because my relationships with them open up my mind to see so much more of what I’m already experiencing. When I asked my friends why they have not read this famous expat memoir, some of them simply shrugged and cited things like not having enough time, and some have flat-out baulked at the idea. The basic consensus among them has been, “I live in Japan (Asia). My life is this book. Why would I want to read something that simply states what I could already say?” It wasn’t until Jessie posted about my constant prodding her about the book that I understood why she’s been baulking. You see, it all comes down to why we read what we read and I’m just now realizing how rare it is that we talk about this.

I read to answer my own questions. To figure things out. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that that’s the primary purpose of the majority of the books on my shelf. I read to answer my questions about God, prayer, friends, grief , and writing (and writing, and writing, and writing).  I sometimes I read for entertainment, and to experience new things, but that’s not really the main reason why I read. I believe that the best way to understand life and things and people and ideas and heartache, is through stories. So, I read.

 I love Ferguson’s memoir because he’s so fair in regard to Japanese culture and people.  Sadly, I sometimes find that’s rare for expats in Asia. Ferguson has lived for five years in Japan when he sets out on his epic hitchhiking adventure, and he’s still trying to understand things and get a firm grasp on the Eastern mindset. And despite how much talking and blog reading and thinking I’ve done about Japan, and I’ve done it for a while (I lived in a Japanese house for 8 months in college, and spent two months in Tokyo in 2010, although I’ve never been an official “expat” the isolation and frustrations of being a Westerner surrounded by Japanese ideas is not foreign to me), despite my experiences and previous knowledge, I still found that Ferguson had new things to say to me, and new wisdom to impart, and dammit, he did his homework on Japanese culture and that, well, I think that’s admirable.

       Ferguson also actually knows how to write, and how to write well. For a travel writer, and even for a memoirist, that’s sometimes a really rare find. Creative Nonfiction is a relatively new genre (you could argue this, oh, I know you’re tempted to argue this), but it’s one of the fastest growing genres out there. The problem with that, of course, is that now everyone who feels like they’ve experienced anything feels that they have the God-given obligation to write a book about it. I’m going to let you in on a little secret: you’re not obligated. With a market so glutted with poorly written memoirs, I celebrate the few instances when I find a memoir that’s well written, thoughtful, and unique, and I feel like Ferguson’s memoir is all three. 
      So, why did I read it? Why did I find Ferguson's memoir so worthwhile? Surely there are other books to read, and surely Ferguson is only going to say what I'm constantly hearing from my friends. But here's the thing, what if it's not the same. What if, God forbid, he has something (even slightly) new to say? Isaac Newton is quoted as having once said, If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. 
       I guess I read because I'd rather not make the same mistakes that were made by the ones who went before me. I read because life is hard enough on it's own, why go at it alone and unprepared when maybe there's someone who went before me, someone who I can learn from. And isn't it by stories that we learn? And isn't there even just a slight bit of hubris in saying that nobody could possibly experience a situation differently or more profoundly than you? 

         By the way, I have the unfortunate habit of nearly-always never reading the forward or prologue of a book. Because of this, I’ve actually just this morning discovered that the version of Hokkaido Highway Blues that I read is actually the abridged edition. The original edition was published in 1998, and it’s 90 pages longer than the edition that I read.