On 2 August 2021 I uploaded to my Insta twice in one day, to make up for the lack of posting in previous weeks. Here is what I wrote later that day:
An evening stitching on the terrace in the sunshine is definitely what I needed today. Each day I feel as though I’m sucking more oxygen of life back into my lungs again. I look up and see the world continues to turn as it always does.
Meanwhile, on the phone this evening Mum tells me something that’s annoyed her about her brother, Simon. He’s pretending to have been an engineer evidently. And then he comes and sits there on the edge of her bed after he got all that money from the co-op.
Mum has no brothers. I suspect Simon is another resident in the home, but possibly not. Possibly someone from years ago. Possibly an amalgam of real people and things she’s heard on the radio, or overheard in a conversation. Possibly all imagined. It matters not. Mum knows she can tell him to leave if she doesn’t want him in her room.
The leaves and the bud haven’t turned out how I wanted them to, or how I imagined them. I could rip them out and keep re-doing them till I got them ‘right’. But why? This project was never going to be about getting it right was it? We’re all just learning as we go, aren’t we?
Mum says much less these days.
Last time I visited her I was wrapped up in a big hand-knitted shawl, and was knitting another scarf, so I was all wrapped up as I sat with her. I told her that James and I are going to Ireland for a weekend soon, to see her big sister, Jennifer. Mum looked up at me, and slowly, so slowly, formed a response to this news. She said, “So many layers”.
Maybe she was commenting on my various shawls, maybe she was reflecting on family life.
So many layers.
***
Before you go, you should know that there are a number of tasty recipes on this blog too… this evening I’m intending on making the tasty Spicy Turmeric Chicken, which is oh so easy and will be a lovely worknight supper. But have a browse at the recipes, see if there’s anything you fancy making.
This series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; meanwhile her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.
Shewolfinthevalley 
One Response to “So many layers”