μοίρα
a girl remembers
My vision is limited for I have willingly put on a blindfold over my eyes. To know is to experience, to experience is to know. I am. But what happens when I am not? Emotions run high, then plunge and scatter on the floor.
I fear, I fear, I fear.
Still my hands keep on moving.
Tight threads, lift, a flick of the wrist, thunk, release, switch, repeat.
The fear is unbearable. My heart a gory bloody mess in its tight grip. The anxiety surges upwards. A sore throat, a painful jaw, a piercing of the ear drum.
But what if... NO. I’m scared. I can’t see. This all feels too real.
I pause the motions of my hands, and run fingers over the textile I’ve made in this short life. Bumps, perhaps the wrong colors — I can’t see. What strings am I even using? I have to redo this. I have time. Or better said, time does not fucking matter. Time is my enemy. It’s like I have this constant beef with the stickiest tar-like sand. It’s been getting everywhere.
I keep on weaving because I feel I must. Or I can’t stop.
The hands were made to move, and move they will.
Stop. Stop. The body is in a state of alarm, sending a continuous SOS. It hurts.
My hands rise in a posture of surrender. Ok. I breathe. In, out, in, out. My hands reach for the blindfold, they can’t help but move, act. They are shaking. I can hardly swallow. Did I fuck things up beyond repair? Am I lost? If there’s one thing I’ve lost it is perspective, that’s for sure.
What if... It can be remade? I can start again. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t like it. Right?
Clammy tips touch white silk. Oh I am scared. Wait, why am I scared? I am sweating though the body is cold. I pull the fabric down.
Oh. Suspended breath. Dark indigo infinite space.
My eyes run down certain areas clocking the patterns that please me, the snags that don’t. The textile is a mess, but there are some parts I do like. Call them experimental, if you will. Not a complete loss. Maybe not a loss at all.
I pull threads, snip here and there. Like Odysseus’ Penelope I undo it all until it’s just me, a tangle of many strings, and the loom. I reach for a yarn of lovely red, and rub the string between my fingers. So warm. So lovely I could make it all this color. I think that would please me immensely. But then a blue catches my eyes. Blueberry, the Arctic Sea. It reminds me of him. I pull it gently, persistently, out of the mess, and weave it in.
Tight threads, lift, a flick of the wrist, thunk, release, switch, repeat.
Beautiful.
And what about that yellow, almost gold? It looks like tinsel. Gorgeous. And some white? Yes.
The body pangs in remembrance of the years I roamed the earth sick with existential amnesia. Perhaps, we’ll skip the grey.
But this green?
I gulp down the last of my fears.
I look up and around me again. On walls hang many of my past tapestries. Each unique: some feature one color predominantly, others are a kaleidoscopic fever dream. A few are very short. One is black and tattered, eaten by moths. Some are made from diaphanous strings, others from the thickest yarn I could possibly make. Delicate. Robust. Chunky. Neat. Pathetic. Triumphant. There isn’t a reality I haven’t explored.
I look down at my current project. Hmm, I think this one... I will make extra special.
I chuckle because I say that every time.
Tight threads, lift, a flick of the wrist, thunk, release, switch, repeat.