June's Sewing Machines

 I have been here before, when things you did previously and were important to you become painful.  How is this possible?  It is related to loss, and now those things, which at one time seemed important in your life, no longer resonate.  There is a clinical term.  Anhedonia.  "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most."  Two things are hanging me up.  One is spring, because the entire last decade of my life as a care giver I embraced spring as planting season.  My mother's influence on me was substantial, and I transformed our yard into one continuous garden.  No longer can I look at the photographs.  They are so beautiful they hurt.  When beauty disappears is it all the more painful?  How about ugliness?  How about art?  It is a glaring reminder that you no longer are engaged in those same things.  Are they important to you now?  It is important for me to understand this.  My cousin Phyllis Ann Greene White passed away on April 4th.  While I was ill with what probably was Covid, my sister and brother-in-law drove to Shelby to attend her celebration of life.  With them they took my mother's surger and sewing machine to give to the daughter of one of my first cousins.  They sew in this family among other notable things.  It was the appropriate gesture passing these important machines on to a younger generation.  They sat in our sewing room like anchors mooring the house down.  While I cleaned this room after my mother's passing on Nov. 11, these machines continued to sit uncontested.  They belonged there, and it was the purpose of this room.  My parents had custom cabinets and shelving made for this room which included a folding down sewing table and a counter for the machines.  Now that they are gone I am adrift.  There are plenty of sewing accoutrements still in the room, but the two machines now are gone.  I miss them.  Over time as children we relish the belongings of our parents.  Not?  I can say with certainty that was not the case for many things in our home.  When my father had to move to assisted living the brown couch in our den made its exit quickly.  I took his Ampeg flip top bass amp straight to the dump, because it no longer worked.  I had hauled that heavy box to many a gig of his, and I was done with it.  Not everything lasts forever.  We also had an empty Hammond speaker enclosure which sat in our foyer as a piece of furniture.  It went to the dump as well, because I lacked the sentimentality needed to appreciate it.  Our master bedroom closet is full of my mother's hand made, often wool clothing.  Those machines were tools, and fervently I believe investing in tools which allow you to create things is wisest.  That was the case of my Yamaha DX-7llD synthesizer purchased in 1987.  As a professional musician I used that tool to create and produce a great amount of original music.  When another one appeared on eBay recently in very good condition, I opted to buy it.  Will I ever use it again?  Who's to say if I'll ever play another gig?  I did decide without a rig your chances are less.  I underestimated the impact of passing my mother's sewing machines on to a younger generation.  I feel the same way about our white Toyota Sienna van.  When parents die things must change, and I didn't need three cars.  But I liked that van, and I enjoyed driving it.  It took a lot of work to keep it running, and I put in those hours.  I don't need it back, but the time I spent driving it are etched in my brain.  The hours my mother spent sewing also are etched in my soul.  Spring is here, and my mother is not.  I have to figure out if this yard will get the same treatment.  There is one point of contention.  Working in the yard when Covid hit began to make me sick.  Having your hands in black cow manure, rotting leaves, and fungus is not the healthiest practice.  Always I felt this was good for your body to build up its immune system.  Covid changed that.  I developed some annoying allergies, and my fingers often were broken open from these.  I also caught foot fungus from the shower in cruise ships, and never fully did it go away.  I tilled the yard, breathed dirt, and relentlessly built a beautiful green space in which my mother reveled.  I did also.  The reality that gardening or working in your yard could now make you sick was disturbing.  The severity of your illness will have a life long effect on you.  This particular Spring though I am about to traverse the Covid barrier.  I purchased an N99 respirator which filters out 99% of airborne particles.  Now I wear this when I blow leaves as well as protective goggles.  The mask works.  My mother observed as I used to curse at the low flying aircraft.  Anytime I would venture outside of the house, a plane would meet me.  They were menacing, annoying, and unwanted.  It became routine that I would get sick just from being outside.  Over the last year I had to curtail my gardening experiences, thus I have not prepared the soil for a garden this year.  It is not too late.  With the occurrence of hurricanes different insects have made their way to North Carolina.  One of them is fire ants, teeny little ants often you never will see that live in the ground.  I was stung numerous times by these elusive creatures waiting to pounce.  Covid brought its own kind of plague and pestilence to our lives.  I never would imagine how much the absence of my mother's sewing machines would effect me until I figured it out.  My things are all around me, but most of them now bring me pain, the pain of loss.  I have been here before, and it meant changing yourself.  I only can change so much.  I thought I had a new vision for myself musically, and that was singing.  Quickly I found out our neighborhood would rather not hear you sing anything.  We are a mute community.  It is stark when you realize the sheer amount of melodies you have in your head, but you can't use them.  The average person is threatened by the Great American Songbook, and if my neighbors present the correct example I was instructed to listen to J. Cole as the pinnacle of local musical success.  Always I have been able to feel and play the blues, but 20 something white Americans don't connect with the African American slavery experience.  The greatest suffering was Jesus, the Son of God, hanging on the cross dying.  He sacrificed Himself for our sins.  If we think we are important in the scheme of life, think again.  Lack of empathy is the single most overt characteristic of fascism.