Pink Cushions
For Rolli
When I’m nervous I sew or make cushions.
I made 57 throw pillows when my son completed his final high school exam. It was a lot but I’ve made more since.
When throwing up with morning sickness with my first child I read each of the Narnia books and completed a 10000 piece jigsaw.
When I injured my back I hand embroidered maybe 30 different tops, sewing beads on individually until my fingertips ached from pricks by tiny quilting needles.
When my daughter completed her final exams, I made her 5 long, lavish formal gowns, jackets and wraps.
She wore the first one I made to her Year 12 graduation, and didn’t even like the matching bolero that was tricky to piece together. Not that I asked her what she wanted, I would have been just as happy to buy a gown she wanted off the rack instead.
When my son was hours away at university in Sydney doing his exams I made even more cushions. When he bought his own house, he took some. As my daughter went to various share houses, she took some, then more each time she moved to another place. Some cushions went outside so I could sit and photograph birds.
Still, there are over 100 throw pillows inside, secreted in all the rooms but bathrooms and kitchen. There’s even some in the laundry to sit on while sorting socks.
I like fresh roses in vases. I bend to inhale their full scent, even in parks or other peoples gardens as I’m walking along a suburban street. It’s what roses are for.
The perfume of roses can remind me of a beloved grandma I lost in my 20’s. Bringing back memories of her stuffing a chocolate in my hand as I got into the car to go home. Our own small, sweet, precious secret.
I adore rose printed dresses too, hoarding old-fashioned, full-skirted vintage pieces with giant pink, red or blue roses. There’s 50 items in my rose-clothes collection. They come in various sizes, including ones I might never squeeze into again.
I love rose petal potpourri, rose scented candles and diffusers. Can’t get enough of them.
I get excited entering tiny, old-style book stores. The shops that on-sell things like home-made fudge or peanut brittle in cellophane bags tied with ribbon. Where you can find hand drawn cards and crocheted baby booties. Quaint gift shops with pre-loved books smelling like dusty old paper. Not flashy new stores, but those with character that give off the distinctive feel of past lives, forgotten dreams and millions of words to swim around in. I could spend all days adventuring in those kind of places.
I’m not even sure why I did so much sewing now. A surplus of gowns that have never been worn. So many cushions you can’t sit down without displacing a few.
I was being industrious to stop myself from fretting.
It didn’t work, but it kept my mind from over-thinking or going gaga.
When stressed I need to do something I can control.
Being insanely busy relieves the tension.
A tactile person, a romantic, when I’m consumed with worry I go a bit bat-shit crazy.
I read Rolli’s cartoon about a book store that featured cushions and potpourri. It gave me a belly laugh to realise what others must make of me.
It occurred to me why my family cringe whenever I make or buy or change cushion covers in the house. It makes sense how they raise their eyes to heaven when I sew for hours, often right through dinner. Surprised when it turned 10 o’clock and my husband complained he was starving.
I get it.
Finally.
Not everyone likes the colour pink, frilly throw cushions, doilies, framed photos on the wall and the unmistakeable scent of roses.
If I ever walked into a book store that featured all those things I wouldn’t want to leave.
My smells-like-a-rose, candles and cushion loving psyche just rolls that way.
My family must really love me to put up with my mania, mustn’t they?
Of course they do.
Everyone deals with tension in different ways.
It’s not alcohol, drugs or reckless behaviour.
It’s cushions.
And too many sweet-smelling pink pillows
can’t really be the worst thing in the world.
