Monday, September 26, 2011

Be gone from me

Not everyone has been good to me.

Homely little book

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about how important my friends are to me and how grateful I am to have them in my life. And I talk about the joy I get from making things for people I love.  But the other side of that is, of course, the friends and former loved ones who have hurt me. Badly.

Not talking about the way we can unintentionally hurt those we love. I'm talking about the people who hurt those who care about them with intent. With selfishness.

Coptic stitching in the folio center

For some reason I couldn't sleep last night. The pain of being used, lied to, ignored, judged and rejected by people I've loved hovered over my bed, pressing down on me when I tried to rest. Making it hard to breathe. I have no idea why. But I was reliving the hurt and shock of several events in my past.

So I got up and finished stitching up the coptic binding of the little book I made in the workshop earlier in the day. And as I was working on the homely little thing, fighting off the bleakness of my thoughts, I came upon the idea of binding these people and events up in the book and putting them far away from me, where they can't touch me. And that brought me a weird solace.

Sewn, coptic binding

The book itself is just a draft, an exercize in how to make a book. My first one. And now it has another purpose. Good bye to those who chose to be selfish and intentionally hurt me.

Stitching at 3 am

Be gone.
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6 comments:

  1. ronbaileySeptember 26, 2011 at 6:04 AM

    Be strong, butterfly :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. durham_knitsSeptember 26, 2011 at 1:31 PM

    This is a truly amazing idea. I hope it brings some solace to you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. beadgirlSeptember 27, 2011 at 4:15 PM

    And good riddance! I hope you never have to fill up another one of these books.

    ReplyDelete
  4. LawrenceSeptember 27, 2011 at 5:23 PM

    I like the idea of binding them in a book, and keeping them at bay. Reminds me of something a friend once said to me, as we looked into a big fire, in the fire pit out back. He said, "write down anything you want on a piece of paper... and toss it into the flames"... Helped me a lot. I hope your idea works just as well.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousSeptember 28, 2011 at 1:16 PM

    I think this is the best thing I've seen in a long time. What a brilliant idea... especially love the way the simple act of stitching communicated the hurt. Stitch binding for the book too... yeah, it's brilliant.
    -Rebecca

    ReplyDelete
  6. alex.kSeptember 30, 2011 at 8:07 PM

    Do I need to beat someone (someones?) up? 'Cause I will, you know.

    ReplyDelete

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