Molly – OccasionalPiece

The phrase, crossing the divide, has haunted me for a while now, ever since my husband Dave and I crossed the Continental Divide twice on our April road trip.

While I was driving, and saw this sign, and knew it was coming, we did not take a photo of the actual moment we crossed. And this is like some recent experiences: somehow I crossed a dividing line and found myself in new country, and was not entirely sure how to behave or act.

Crossing the Divide • Quilt # 294

I long had wanted to make this quilt, using some positively ethereal, painterly fabrics from Shell Rummel, William Reue, and snippets from Deborah Edwards & Melanie Samar. I had to modify the pattern, because it called for an older panel which was now out of print. I sewed it all up. I picked apart every seam and re-sewed it (like Crossing the Divide…again). I got stuck on how to quilt it, and Dave talked it over with me: follow what’s in the fabric. I think that’s kind of like going with the flow, an attitude I am always working on/struggling with.

This quilt has a divide in it, with the soft pastel interrupting the more rock-like, stream-like bars of fabric in the top and bottom.

(see detail at end about fabrics)

Back.

Crossing the Divide waiting to cross.

Crossings are everywhere. Some I’ve recently noticed:

We honored my mother’s death this week, a two-year anniversary.
My father’s one-year anniversary of his death is coming up.
There are no baby grandchildren.
I wake up every day with something aching.
A milestone birthday was celebrated earlier this year, and the further I get from it, the more I realize I have no idea how to behave in this new place. I get many more condescending comments from people who don’t wake up with something aching. Which is annoying.
I no longer worry about flossing my teeth or cholesterol — it’s a different mindset, but it’s hard to explain. That doesn’t mean I’m not aware of those things, but I just don’t freak out about them.
I do freak out about other, more trivial things (you can ask my husband).
I also freak out about the time left to me in this world to do what I want before I cross over permanently, but this post isn’t about that.
There are divides in this life. While I cross over most of them without being aware, other demarkations come blaring at me like a train rumbling through the night, and I scramble across the tracks as best as I can.

It’s also about seeing the line that keeps divided from each other. Sometimes that line is physical distance. Sometimes it is an age difference, or a political distance, or an emotional distance. It’s also about time-as-a-line: there is much more behind me than in front of me, by any calculation. And all this started with a color and texture division in my quilt.

Here’s to making your way across the divide, in all ways–