Once upon a time there was a young girl, growing up in a small town. She rode her bike until the street lights came on at dusk. She read in her attic room from the small library she’d tagged with her own version of the Dewey decimal system. She learned to cook alongside her mother, making jelly from roadside berries and brining pickles in the kitchen. She learned to follow recipes and sewing patterns. She was precise, or at least she tried to be, but things don’t always work out as hoped. She sewed the collar on backwards and added two cups (and not two tablespoons) of milk to the cookie recipe. And she learned from each mistake.
She grew up and got married and had babies and made tiny little quilts when each was born, a physical memento of the love she had for each. She stayed home with them: stacking blocks as high as possible before her toddler pushed them over, stringing dyed macaroni for necklaces and coloring as neatly as she could between the lines. She sewed them summer shorts and dresses for herself. She baked homemade bread every Sunday.
But people grow up and grow apart. Life got busy with just mom and two kids and university classes and volunteering abroad and working at her kids’ school and suddenly, the young girl was no longer young and now had permanent crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her stacks of fabric had gone untouched for months. Her cookbooks had grown dusty. Her craving to craft barely diminished
Nothing stays the same for long, though. The job at the school went away. One child had nearly left the nest. There was, again, more time than money and plenty to explore and do that she’d been aching to do for so long, but never had enough time.
Now is the time to follow forgotten dreams.
