Plain to Exotic: a Haibun
5. Slices and Bits
Welcome, readers, I’m glad you are here for the fifth in the series, Slices and Bits. I so enjoy your encouraging comments, when my writing resonates with you.
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An Acquired Heritage
I often write about my adoptive mother’s mother — you may have met “Nana” in I Must Have Wandered, or Permanent Home, and in standalone pieces. She was intrinsic to my upbringing, supplying me with calm, unconditional love. Please let me hear how you have been cared for or influenced by such a special person, whether or not you were adopted.
An early version of this memory poem was published in Haibun Today.
Plain to Exotic: a Haibun
In the glow of a single 15-watt bulb, her right hand poised to shift the balance wheel, gently advance the machine, and move the plain, domestic needle, she presses into the task set for her: to sew a simple dress for herself, without wondering the names of her needles’ parts — except for the point — the shank is clamped by the needle holder, the shoulder. The shank tapers down to the shaft, and the groove of the shaft allows the thread to lie close to the needle, to smooth it through the fabric. The scarf allows the shuttle to pass close by.
"The needle's eye/That doth supply/The thread that runs so true/Ah! many a lass/Have I let past/Because I wanted you."- traditional children’s game *
In the Pennsylvania Allegheny Mountains, where Julia’s parents settled within the Polish immigrant community, strength, drive, religious devotion, steadfastness, and readiness to assist each other were survival traits of the laborers and their families. They lived within the rhythms and limitations of practical industry in 1900s rural America.
Though Julia was bright, resourceful, and receptive to learning, she was obliged to leave school after a few years to help with her younger siblings and aging relatives. But her eldest sister trained as a wartime Army nurse and married an Army eye surgeon, settling in California. And the second eldest daughter had set off for secretarial school in the Big City.
The steam train was running from Mount Union to Broad Top Mountain into Robertsdale. Married at sixteen, Julia wanted her daughter to be educated beyond the one-room schoolhouse, away from the coal mines. So she moved with her husband and children to New York City.
In a high, plain melody, Julia sings a memory from the farm in words that tell of hard times. The little girl listens, and absorbs the message, humming with the well-oiled Singer sewing machine. The morning suburban sunlight streams through her grandmother's lace curtains on pots of purple violets.
An old floral tin holds the frugal notions of Julia’s past life. Her antique buttons are transformed, in the eyes and hands of the child who sits cross-legged on her grandmother’s sisal carpet to exotic treasures. Sifting and sorting shapes, colors, and sizes: azure squares, rounded charms of saffron yellow, tiny elephant-shaped ivory from a long-lost silk shirt, a cold brass button — Napoleanic War memento, icy diamond sparkles removed from its cashmere sweater. And now, the synthetic whiff of Bakelite, the tang of the tin box, and the warm lemon fragrance of Nana’s 3-in-1 oil — the palm-sized can, a Moroccan man, wears a tiny red fez.
her button tin -
a journey
from plain to exotic
*
the eastern light
on her African violets -
royal purple
© Mary Ellen Gambutti
My gram gave unconditional love to me, too. My witch of a mother always commented that I wished Gram was my mother which was true. Gram's love sustained me. She prepared dinner every night after her hard day's work at the sewing factory, made our clothes, dried our tears. How I miss her still after all these years. She was my light and love and the only one who attended my college graduation, tall and regal and so proud of me. TY for these lovely memories.