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Aging brings startling new discoveries about myself and my place in the world, the way I act (and have acted). The doings of life arise now to be looked at through a different prism.
Last week I was ironing. My clothes I shake out and pretend they've been pressed. But table linens? For a dinner party? They have to be ironed.
I had ironed two tablecloths and a dozen coloured napkins. All that remained were a dozen large white linen napkins, and with the first swipe of the iron my mother, Eileen, came to my mind. The white linen napkins—huge ones—were hers. Not just "hers" in that she had had them when I was growing up, but "hers" in that she had made them. I knew this; it was not new information. But it's as if I am continually being given the opportunity to see things differently.
By now I have boxed Eileen up pretty well, or so I thought. I've analyzed her, put her into the appropriate compartments (she was this way, she was that way, she did this to me, to us—and so forth).
But as I ironed the hemmed edge of that first napkin I sensed Eileen in her true self. She loved to sew. She loved beautiful things, beautiful fabrics. Since she could never have afforded to buy beautiful white damask napkins, she would make them. And I had a vivid picture of her folding over the raw edges of the linen, taking tiny running stitches to make the hem—never a machine-stitched hem for a linen napkin! She was in her element, her six children forgotten. She was alone and at home in her sewing.
The large napkins were well worn by the time they came to me. She used them often at her frequent dinner parties, and she probably bleached them regularly to keep them brilliant white. Bleaching eats away at the fabric, of course, so a couple of the napkins, though white, sport large or small holes; these I set aside for the rag bag. The napkins that grace my own next dinner party must not disgrace either Eileen or me.
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