Mending as metaphor
la bella vita a Bracciano photo by Sandra Butel
I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk.
beautywalk is my passionate embrace of life as it is. It is my effort to bring as much beauty into my one small human life as I can by delving into the depths of my own being and my place and purpose in the world.
La bella vita
My ongoing exploration of the internal and external landscapes that I have access to as a living, breathing human being has led me to some amazing discoveries. The latest natural setting for this excavation is a charming town on the banks of a beautiful lake about 40 minutes outside of Rome in Bracciano, Lazio, Italy. In addition to two dogs Willow and Benny who are at times entertaining and at others challenging, I have the great joy of being accompanied by my dear Scottish/Italian friend Louise. As we settled into a rhythm of intimate and philosophical conversations, dog walks and cooking and shopping for local produce and drinking local wine and beer and enjoying our dips in the cool, clear lake we have also spent time engaging in some hands-on sewing projects.
Post dip walk with Louise Photo by Sandra Butel
Sewing as currency
As part of our barter agreement in exchange for coaching, Louise has agreed to use her abounding creativity and curiosity and desire to learn to design and sew me a bespoke linen jumpsuit. She has taken on the challenge of sewing a piece of clothing 3824 miles away from the body it is being designed to fit. She arrived in Italy with the ¾ finished product and we have spent time with fittings and adjustments and one day, she even urged me to wear it on one of our sweaty walks up the hill to the old town of Bracciano, so that we could see how well it fit and where it needed adjusting.
On quiet afternoons when we were hiding away from the unreasonably high temperatures (ranging from 33 to 37 degrees Celsius each day), she pulled out some examples of her recent foray into Slow Fashion (which is a way of making conscious choices about what we purchase, wear and how we might also add in the practices of reusing and transforming used clothing into something new). There was a green polyester dress she was turning into a jumpsuit, a pair of striped pants she had turned into shorts (and then into pockets for my pantsuit).
Bespoke jumpsuit by Louise Smith
Mending as metaphor
There were also some examples of Louise’s foray into Sashiko; the Japanese art of mending which was traditionally an inexpensive way to extend the life of clothing by adding on patches of dark denim covered in one of several different types of stitches with light coloured, often white, thread. As I got drawn into the peaceful and focused task of using one of the simpler Sashiko stitches to repair the holes that were beginning to form on the inside of my favourite jeans (that we first turned into shorts by cutting off the legs) I was struck by how apt the metaphor of mending was to the work I and my clients were doing in our lives.
A quick google search on the practice and metaphor of mending brought me to Katrina Rodabaugh’s Mending Matters: Stitch, Patch and Repair Your Favourite Denim and More. iHanna’s review of this book captures the beautiful way that “Katrina uses mending as a metaphor for appreciating our own naturally flawed selves, and she examines the ways in which mending teaches us new skills, self-reliance, and confidence, things she mean(s) that we can all gain from making things with our own hands”.
After I had written this piece and picked my blog title of Mending as Metaphor I found a link to a beautiful article written by Ruth Katzenstein Souza entitled Mending as Metaphor: Finding Community Through Slow Stitching in a Fast Paced World. I must admit that her article does a better job than me of playing with mending as metaphor as she asks herself a meaningful question we can all begin to ask ourselves:
“what can I do to add to the repair of the world? I realized that we need to mend what we can in our immediate life; to truly see what needs our attention and to assess what is broken and see beauty in the repair and the story it holds” (Souza, 2016).
Patterns and textures photo Sandra Butel
Stitching time
As I whiled away the hours on the outside porch drawing needle and thread through the faded denim patch I began to stitch together the words and ideas that would come to form this blog. I sat calmly in my body, listening to the cicadas all around me, feeling a gentle wind coming off the fan set to max breeziness and thought about how I have been taking the slightly worn and damaged stories and experiences of my life and stitching them together into new garments. These garments not only fit (and suit) me better than the old ones but they also have the reinforced strength that comes from adding in patches of exploration and learning and then stitching the whole thing together with focused attention and time and a soft touch. This whole process of mending as an art form was exactly what I have been doing with my life these last few years. By making sense of the things that have happened to me and by choosing to turn those things into gifts and lessons and offerings for others, I have been able to take my slightly worse-for-wear heart and mind and body and transform it into something new with more strength and resilience than ever before.
A soft touch by Sandra Butel
My mending action plan (Map)
I am deeply intrigued by Ruth’s and Katrina’s and Louise’s work and am excited to move into my own mending action plan. I have already sourced out 2 sewing and crafting stores in the town of Beccles, UK where my next housesit begins later today. My plan is to pick up a needle and some sturdy cotton thread so that I might carry through on the metaphorical and literal “mending” of myself and the clothing that I have brought with me on my travels. Over the next 6 weeks, while I move from place to place in the UK, I will search out little strips of fabric from the charity shops that abound in each village, so that I might bring a little bit of each place along with me on my travels. I am looking forward to many more peaceful moments of being at ease in my body as I focus my attention on one stitch, then the next and the next.
The beauty of our worn out places
This pausing to focus on the good we can find in flawed things (like ourselves) is one that has brought me great peace and one that I want to continue to add to and reinforce as I stitch in the next experience and the next insight and the next learning that comes to me as gifts on this adventure that is my life. I will continue to add in colour and shape and texture as I draw needle and thread through the fabric of my life until the garment that is my being is the strongest it will ever be. With this reinforced garment I am ever more ready to offer up my deep empathy, openness and presence to others as they move through their own process of mending.
Invitation to contemplation
What role could some quiet stitching together of your worn and torn life experiences play in bringing more sturdiness and strength into your life?
What mending is needed in your life?
What is the first step you can take today towards accepting your own naturally flawed self?
Who can you call on to help you to learn the necessary stitches to build the life that you want?
I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk. What’s yours?
If any of my beautywalk resonates with you and you are ready to begin your own process of mending please do not hesitate to reach out to schedule a free beautywalk session
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