Stuff

She loved fabric.

Cloth. And all things textile.

My mother, that is.

As I remember her. Cutting out fabric and pinning it to a pattern. On the floor of her sewing room. It was off the dining room and just before the TV room, which had the fireplace and the Dutch oven in it-Am I getting too specific? Or too detailed? Sorry.

It was our old, 18’th century farmhouse in Preston, Connecticut. And it had lots of rooms, fireplaces, and memories. Too many for my feeble brain to recollect.

Mom used to buy patterns and carefully attach them to the fabric. To make a dress. Or shirt. Or something. I just remember the pins and how they stuck into the pattern and the fabric, in anticipation of the knitting and the sewing machine that would soon have their way with them.

Machines do that, you know. That’s how they work. Don’t blame me for the metaphor.

I remember my mother bringing me to clothing stores. With lots of fabric. And patterns. And thread on spools that stretched on for on and on and whatnot. And not at all what I liked or wanted.

I hated the fabric stores. Not again, Mom! Please? Ach!

My father, now. He would bring me to the hardware parts of the stores we would go to, as my mother went off in her own direction to look at thread and fabric and her own stuff, incomprehensible as that was.

Girl stuff. Yeesh!

Give me something that makes noise. And smoke. And best if it was both at the same time, will you?

But we were in the world of guy stuff.

Little boy things that drilled holes in other little things. Stuff that went Boom! and made noise. Stuff that made stuff happen to other stuff and created new stuff as a result. Stuff that was the maker and all stuff that was made in a world made out of stuff.

You know. Stuff.

And I loved it all.

The stuff that made other stuff to do other stuff to go do even more stuff to other stuff. And that stuff was sufficient to create even more stuff again. To do stuff. Just for the sake of stuff. And the doing of stuff. And the making of it. Stuff. And the celebration of stuff.

You know.

To build things.

And to make.

Stuff.

That’s what guys do. We make stuff. And then we stuff the stuff we make into other stuff and make it do other stuff-like things. Other stuff things.

Other. Stuff.

In the male universe, stuff happens. That’s what we do.

Stuff.

I was happy to watch my mother make things out of cloth and scissors and needles and pins. And sewing machines and ironing boards and patterns stretched over cloth on the floor with little needles pricking them together.

To become something. Something with meaning. And watch them become things that mattered and that made our lives matter. And better. And that gave us meaning. Well, to give us the shirts on our backs.

It was stuff. Stuff that I could appreciate. Stuff that I could emulate. Stuff that I could love. And admire.

I came from a long line of people making stuff.

Stuff happens.