I grew up in the kitchen and with sewing needles in my hands. My mom was one of those that knew how to do a bit of everything. She made soup from scratch, and it's one of the proudest skills I picked up from her. I can mess up mac n' cheese, but I can feed an army with a batch of scratch soup that will leave you drooling on a cold winter day (despite common belief we do actually get a couple of those here in AZ). We canned fruit every Christmas time. She sat patiently with me when I was just barely big enough to be behind a sewing machine, while I learned to sew, jerking my hands back in fear of the fast moving parts, pressing to hard, too soft, not quite right on the pedal. It was a green Singer. The kind that folds out of a table. She held my hand in hers while I learned how to mix ingredients without flinging them out of the bowl, and crack eggs without having to eat shell. She drilled into me that crosstitch wasn't done right, unless the back of your work looks just like the front.
What I didn't realize then, is that in every lesson, big hand over little, corrected mistake there were voices of generations of women. I get remarks often about the skills I have in my home. I'm always very thankful for the compliments, but I really want to tell them "It was all my mom." I hope that the day comes when my children will feel the same way. I hope they remember pancake batter spilled on counter tops, watching muffins rise, cutting vegetables for soup, feeling yarn slip through their fingers as they watch me crochet, my hands over theirs as the needle flies up and down on my sewing machine, lessons on how to embroider, the smell of soil in our garden, and boxes coming out of the closet, full of quilt squares made by generations of women.
When I was 16, my mother suffered a stroke, 4 days before Christmas. It took her a long time to recover. She had taught my sisters and I well, and we were able to finish cookie trays and gift baskets, navigate the crazy mall traffic and finish shopping, while staying in budget, and keep Christmas as normal as possible. She came home the day before Christmas Eve, and still has no memory of anything until about the following February. I remember in the earliest days after it happened, being terrified of so much, but what kept playing over and over in my head was "who's going to help me when I don't know how to do something." Many years down the line, I can say I don't need her help anymore. Not that I don't still enjoy her company in the kitchen, or sitting and crocheting together, but the thought occurred to me while I sat making a blanket for my first baby, that she had taught me everything. Which is the way it should be. I make as much of holiday meals as she does now. I can pack my family for a trip without forgetting too much. I can feed a large family without breaking the bank. I think that more than anything, she taught me a love for learning new things. When I learned to knit a couple of years ago (the one and only fiber craft she had never mastered), everything felt like it had come full circle. I had something new I could show her. It's just some yarn and knitting needles, but it represents generations of women passing something down from one child to the next. I hear my mom, and my grandmother every time I try to talk to one of my children as they hold my needles in their hands and watch the yarn move. Brief and rare as these encounters are now while they are all so little, they are the beginning of my own traditions with my children. We eat pancakes that may have egg shell in them, I miss a stitch here or there because a tiny voice wants to ask about what I'm doing, a sewing project takes longer because somebody is in my lap.
I feel like something magic happens when mothers take tiny hands in theirs, and teach them something. There's this tiny seed that gets planted when you hold a story book together, sounding out words, hands join each other in a dish tub, you go over a packing list together for a family trip,you talk about shopping sensibly,little fingers hold knots for bows tied on cookie packages, or the smell of sewing machine oil fills the air as a peddle goes too fast on an old green Singer.
