Mendinspiration 3 - duffles

Couple of months back, or so, as it happens, I visited my ex out at The Wild, the first time in a few years, after meaning to get around to going out there for a while... He lives there now with his partner of some time, in the upstairs space of that giant shed that now has walls. It's turned out a lovely enough space. And the kitchen slowly evolved in its corner downstairs to be more of an inside sort of a kitchen, again, it's turned out pretty nice, very functional, with a great looking wood stove for cooking, in the corner where the sugar glider once sat. There's a shower just outside and they now have a tank up the hill for added pressure too. The garden has grown, they now have a chook run. The toilet remains the same.

Things are more or less complete, and more or less still in progress, as these things tend to be... 

I wouldn't want to live there. 

I loved living there with no walls, but walls would have ruined it for me. They were ruining it for me. Section by section closing in around me; cutting me off, disconnecting me; boxing me in; restricting my freedom, my movement, my growth...

My ex asked what I'm up to at the moment. Mostly being a mother takes up my time I said, at that point with my toddler along and enjoying exploring, and growing the next little one in my belly. I couldn't in that moment think of a single other thing I'd really done lately...

But not long after I was there I finally got moving on some of that mending I so love doing, some things long overdue that had been bearing down on my attention, wanting doing, in all my spare time... I mended the aforementioned orange hippy pants. But before that I mended my duffle coat. 

I bought this coat something like 15 years ago, back when I used to still sometimes 'go shopping'. I bought it in Bridge Road, Richmond. I think it was on sale. Maybe it was $100. A good deal for a good wool coat in any case, that has lasted me now a good many years, with some fairly heavy use along the way.

It needed the cords replaced on the don't know if it's really the name for them but what I always call the duffles. As usual I failed to remember to take a before picture. And as usual I added a little extra embroidery, for the sake of it, and also for extra strength. And so as my perfectionist side didn't worry about it being perfect and instead just let it be, evolve, as it would, with spirally triangley sort of random different ways on each attachment point. I used my old sewing machine, a hand me down from my parents, to get it done quicker, in all my spare time, which meant it was harder to get it exact. And I ran out of black so some random few I did in a khaki kind of green.

I'd like to some time hand embroider, on the back of the coat, perhaps "earth lover," with artistic style, in green leaves and vines, flowers and autumn colours. Maybe I'll get there eventually.

Seems fitting somehow that I mended that coat finally, not long after that visit, as I wore it almost constantly, those two winters out there in the weather of The Wild. Even then it needed mending, it's been a long time.

But now it is mended.

And now it is written.

And I now have an answer to the question of what I've been doing, that goes just a little beyond my day-and-night job, my most important vocation, of mothering. Because despite the immense important of that occupation, sometimes it's also important to carve out a little time and space for oneself. And for me sometimes that means mending; sometimes expressing, writing, or creating; flowing; working; healing; reflecting, feeling; doing, being…

A before photo after all - the coat as it was in The Wild days,-as yet and already in need of repair. Photo taken on return from our great South Australian Odyssey, along with our friend and his veg oil running Troopy - yet another story to be told, on some other day...

And funnily enough, this week a guy came to our house to value it, as we're in the process of changing our mortgage over to the more ethical Bank Australia (who rejected us when we bought the place), and he wore a coat, and his coat had duffles, and they were in need of repair too. Perhaps we all sometimes need a little mending.