Embracing The Snags

Have you ever thought about how much you strive for perfection?

I think we all do it, if not all the time, then at least OFTEN.  At work we want a “perfect review”.  We want (expect??) our love relationships to be “perfect”.  We pluck our eyebrows, cut our hair, all with a goal (probably unspoken and unrealized even subconsciously) of “perfection”.

Perfection is what we continually strive for, yet if we are being honest, we all know it is impossible.

Your house will never be “perfectly clean” (heaven knows mine won’t anyway).  Your clothes will never fit “perfectly” and match from head to toe (that sock inching its way down your ankle will make sure of that).  Your kids, your relationships, NOTHING will ever be PERFECT.

So, why do we all strive for the unachievable?  Is setting ourselves up for inevitable failure only a recipe for frustration, depression, or at the very least, feeling like crap??

Don’t get me wrong.  There is certainly value in setting goals (some call them “resolutions”, that word doesn’t strike a chord with me).  Without goals, sometimes it is hard to know where we are heading.  But if the goal is PERFECTION (even if that is unconscious) – then I think we need to do a double-take on how we are approaching life.

I started thinking about this the morning of my sister Annette’s celebration of life service 3 weeks ago.  My other sister and I had gone shopping the day before to get new outfits to wear for the service (which, if you find yourself in that position, is actually a dumb idea…  The dress, the sweater, the pants, the whatever will forever be known as “the clothes I wore to my sister’s funeral”.  Yeah.  If that doesn’t steal the joy out of any outfit I don’t know what will.  Trust me – just wear something old in your closet, the day is not about you anyway…).  But I digress.  Sorry.

I put on my new “funeral outfit”.  I decided to wear one of my deceased sister’s necklaces as a way to keep her close to my heart that day.  I love the necklace – it is a clay heart on string with a few clay beads.  It is beautiful and went very well with my sweater.  It has a strange clasp in the back – it doesn’t so much “hook” as just have a little “s” that gracefully sits in a little “o” on the other side.

Then, over this “perfect” outfit, I put on my brand new shawl.  This is a shawl I had thought about for a YEAR before getting it.  it was handmade by Kitt Hamersky, a weaver in Omaha who works out of the Hot Shops.  I had seen her shawls the year before and was really drawn to them.  Not only are they beautiful, each one contains a secret, hidden message woven into the threads in MORSE CODE.  And you can choose whatever you want for the message!  Isn’t that fabulous? 

I had thought about investing in one for a solid year.  They are art, so they are not cheap.  The artists spends hours on each one, she hand paints the warp.  Anyway, Sherry and I went to an open house at the studios and I decided to go for it.  I plunked down my credit card and chose the colors of thread I wanted. 

But I wasn’t sure what I wanted my secret message to say.  It seemed like such a big commitment!  It was a message that would be woven permanently into a wearable work of art.  I was going to leave the studio, think about it, then come back, but then the artist mentioned she had just made a shawl with this phrase: “Choose your days make them sunny or grey.”

It is a line out of one of my very favorite books!  The book is called, aptly, “Choose Your Days” and it is written and illustrated by Omaha artist Paula Wallace.  I have met Paula and she is amazing.  Her work speaks to me, and that book in particular is very special.  My sister Sherry gave it to me for my firthday (fake sister birthdays that we celebrate) just 1 or 2 days before our sister Annette was diagnosed with brain cancer.  When I read it that first time I cried, and when I read it over and over and I always have the same response.  But it is not only a sad cry, it is also poignant and uplifting cry.  The book and it’s message is, in a word, perfect.

So YES, that would be my saying!!  “Choose your days make them sunny or grey” would be woven into my shawl.  I paid, left, and sort of forgot about the piece with all of the confusion and sadness that was happening in our lives.

But then the day before the funeral, Kitt texted and said that my shawl was ready and that I could come pick it up.  So, the night before the service, I did.  And it was beautiful.  I think it is even prettier than I imagined it would be.  The greens stand out, but the blues and the purples make delicate appearances.  As we stood in her studio she showed my partner David and I how to “decode” the message written in Morse Code.  And she pointed out the little metal piece on the end of the shawl which she had hand-stamped my phrase stamped onto.  And she explained that she had a bit of extra space after she finished my message, so she added the words “the key” to it, another important part of the book I adore.

My shawl

The shawl is amazing.  I really love it.  Kitt talked about how people USE their shawls she makes.  Some use them as table runners. Some as art on a wall.  Some a lap blanket.  And some people wear them.  When she talked about her daughter wearing hers, Kitt’s eye lit up.  Her daughter doesn’t treat her shawl with reverence – she USES IT.  Crinkles it up.  Throws it on.  Makes it hers.  She doesn’t, as we say in our house, “keep her slip in a drawer”.  She has a special piece of art and it is part of her, not a museum work to only be admired from afar.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to use mine, but I was quite certain that I would be afraid to just “throw it on” and wrinkle it up.  I had thought long and hard about this expensive purchase, and I wanted to make sure to treat it with respect.

Which is why it felt so “perfect” (that word again…) to put it on over my funeral outfit.  Pants, sweater, boots, sister’s heart necklace – all topped off with “Choose your days make them sunny or gray” hidden in my shawl. 

So, I took the brand new shawl out of the bag and I draped it around my neck.  It felt so lovely.  It was soft, felt like an embrace.  And it looked beautiful.    

And then it hooked onto that strange necklace clasp.

And I pulled.

And it SNAGGED.

My brand new, expensive, custom made piece of art had snagged before I even stepped foot out the door.

I felt like crying.  I was miserable.  I had, in my mind, “ruined it”.  it was no longer perfect.

But, you see, it WAS perfect.  Because it taught me a lesson.  It reminded me that nothing in life is perfect.  And if it hadn’t gotten snagged on this initial outing, it most certainly would have at some point down the road.  And even more importantly to me, now that it was no longer “perfect”, it somehow felt more like it was MINE.  It belonged to me.  I had permission to USE it.  WEAR it.  Take it on and off at will.  I didn’t need to fear it.  I couldn’t “break it”, I already had.

And in actuality, the snag was small.  In my heart it was big, but David pulled and wiggled the threads and now I am not sure I could find the snag even if I tried.

But I know it is there.  A snag on my shawl.  And snags in my home and in my relationships and in my heart. 

And those snags make me ME. 

I am far from perfect.  I am snagged.  And I will embrace and love that.

Choose your days make them sunny or grey.  The key.

(If you would like to contact artist Kitt Hamersky she can be reached at kitt.hamersky@gmail.com .  If you would like to see Paula Wallace’s work, follow her on Facebook at Paula Wallace Fine Art (and come to my home, I will show you 2 original pieces I bought of hers and the book, too!).