widow's web

i was leaving a comment for Boo and when i write, it just falls out. i don't have anything set in my head to say. i don't have any idea of how to comfort someone. i say what i say to myself, what i tell myself to try and give myself grief counseling since i cannot find it or afford it.

if you heard me talk, you'd have this little epiphany, "hey, she writes like she talks." so i was writing to Boo and mentioned that we were weaving widow's webs. and my eyes fell onto a quilt i had made from scraps that i needed to get rid of. too many tiny pieces to really do anything with but i hate tossing things like bits of floss and fabric.

i remember vividly making this quilt. i had finished it just two months before my Dragon died. he would watch me sew. he loved watching. he'd say, "we'll be warm because of your magic needle." i'd laugh because only he carried the magic. he was the one who made my "magic tea" that always appeared because he watched over me and knew when it was gone. i'd be in what he called the "artist state of mind" and put the pitcher back empty or murmur, "i need to make more." but he would smile and do it. "i just like doing little things for you. i can't give you a castle but i can make your tea."

he had all the magic. he could entice a woman in the shadows out into sunlight with just his smile. he had found all the broken pieces of me and was putting them back together, like one of those structurally difficult 3D puzzles. i told him that once. i told him putting me back together was like putting the one of Notre Dame Cathedral together. he told me he liked my "flying buttresses."

see there. i went off on a tangent. i do that all the time and my Dragon would just sit and listen. when his smile got really big, i knew i had gotten off on a tangent. he'd say, "it's okay. somehow you always come back to point. keep going. this is fascinating." so back to sewing. i always sewed. when my friends were being drafted and going off to Vietnam, i wrote to them and included bits of sewing. i'd make cutoffs from my jeans and would cut up the legs into pieces and embroider flowers, peace signs, hearts, and words like "home," "you are loved," and silly teenage girl stuff like that.

and now i sew quilts. not just the Memory Quilts. i sew baby quilts, crazy quilts, embroider clothes, make denim skirts out of blue jeans. you want it. i can probably make it. it's what i do. i certainly have the time. my Dragon isn't here to entice me away.

i'm all alone now. they took him from me. no, that's negative thinking and i can't afford to break myself apart. i have a bowl with the remaining pieces of me that my Dragon hadn't had time to put together and i staunchly refuse to break what he repaired. but i do have a huge hole in my heart and nothing can fix it. only him. only the sight of his face. only the smell of his skin. only the touch of his hands. only his kisses.

so i sew. "a needle pulling thread. la. a note to follow sew." that's me. i'm the "la" that follows "sew." i'm sewing a widow's web over the top of that bowl with the rest of me in it. i'm taking it with me when i die so i can sit with him and he can finish putting me back together. and i'm also weaving a widow's web over that hole in my heart. i don't want all his love to leak out when i'm asleep, or have someone come and try to take it from me with harsh words that i'm too exhausted to fight against.

i love him and he loves(ed) me. to reference an Air Supply song, he "made love out of nothing at all." and that takes more magic than anything i possess or will ever be able to make.