March 10, 2012

Wedded Bliss or An Unreasonable Facsimile

Marriage is a blessing and a wonderful thing in life. It is a tremendous undertaking and can bring joy and happiness.


However, wedding preparation can bring terror.


The plan was simple. My friend Billi Jo was coming Friday to help Kari. They are both accomplished seamstresses and can work wonders with all that lovely and expensive fabric to craft an elegant and beautiful gown that reflected the personality and beauty of Tianna. It was going to be a fait accompli – they bring together their considerable skills and I stand ready at the ironing board to press seams. I am a very skilled ironer… very, very skilled.


Plans changed in ways that NO ONE could have expected.


A tornado literally wrecked my younger sister Xan’s home on Friday during some pretty horrible storms in our area. Billi Jo was originally set to arrive on Friday, then on Saturday but then their son's Cub Scout Pinewood Derby needed to be moved so they arrived on Sunday after church about the time we decided to go out and help at Xan’s broken home to box up their life that could be salvaged from the ravages of the storm. Weather sucks lemons here during tornado season. More especially so in an area that is already wounded and weary from the damage that pounded it only a few months ago. But it really sucks bitter lemons for my sister's family because their house is toast... wet, soggy, mildewing and molding toast. It will be months and months before they can return home. That breaks my heart in ways that words cannot cover. So their suffering makes what follows pale in comparison and I do not intend to create some kind of line between the two to make them equal in any measure. They are not nor will they ever be equal. They have lost their house. I just lost my composure. I don't mean any disrespect to them by writing what follows.


When Monday morning rolled around, Xan’s family was gathered in at Daddy’s place and trying to come to grips with the gypsy-like existence that would be theirs for a while. From his home to their home to his again, their day-to-day has been disrupted in ways that trump any wedding plans and bridal angst.


But, as they say in the biz, the show must go on and time was a wastin’ and we were burning daylight. We had a dress to create and precious little time to do it in… Spring Break is only ONE WEEK LONG!! I’m hearing the music to “Final Countdown” playing in my head…


Monday, Monday… can’t trust that day… or our own pitiful minds. I think we worked on the dress for 14 hours… not kidding here. 14 hours. Sacrifices must be made. Sanity must be tested. Satin must be cut by better hands than mine…


But it was not to be… scissors were thrust into my trembling hands and the pronouncement of doom settled in. They, the two experienced, skilled, gifted, brilliant and wonderful seamstresses in the form of Kari and Billi Jo had apparently lost their minds sometime between Friday after the tornado and Monday morning.


They decided that I needed to cut the material. REALLY!?!?!?! ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME??????


I can HEAR my heart beating now and see my life flash before my eyes as everyone in the entire universe knows that the only thing I have managed to sew in DECADES is three pair of PAJAMA pants!! That is NOTHING like cutting up SATIN for a bride’s gown!!


Flannel is flannel. It’s not “precious” like wedding fabric. Wedding fabric is expensive and precious and not to be trifled with by unskilled labor and trembling hands. I begged, I pleaded and I flat out cried… I can’t be trusted to not make a mess of this!!!


My soon to be daughter will NEVER forgive me if I mess this up!


HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!


At this point, I was hyperventilating and crying and unable to be rational. The other three women in the room sew. They have skill. I can build a campfire and that generally isn’t considered useful when crafting a wedding gown for a bride.


I haven’t heard of very many curtain calls for gals who can cook Dutch oven food, set up tarps for a campsite area or who are conversant with fishing tackle when it comes to sewing a dress. They aren’t complementary skills. At least I don't consider them to be complementary. Yet the delusional women at the church on Monday somehow equated all those camping and survival skills with the ability to cut out wedding material without screwing up.


Did someone pass out drugs and I missed the baggie? That must certainly be the explanation for why they were smilingly pressing ultra-sharp scissors into MY unskilled and trembling hands demanding that I sink the blades deep into the gleaming bridal fabrics!!!


For the record, when your heart is beating so loudly that you can hear it outside of your own body, that isn’t a good thing. It’s a scary thing. It means something isn’t right.


Trusting that I would either sell my plasma or mortgage my house and sell my jewelry to replace the material I was sure I was about to destroy, I did what they said to do.


We, Tianna and I, carefully (and in my case TEARFULLY) pinned the pattern pieces on the material in very specific alignments. Some had to be “cut on the fold”. I learned that meant the fabric had to be folded, not the pattern piece. Some had to be aligned with the grain of the fabric and I learned that had nothing to do with bread or cereal. There was selvage and bias and edging and all kinds of new vocabulary that had nothing to do with camping. And my head was reeling.


The scissors were in my hand, a gigantic lump was in my throat and the most fervent prayer I’m sure that has ever been uttered over a piece of yard goods was in my heart and mind as both a plea and a mantra… “DON’T LET ME MESS THIS UP, LORD! PLEASE DON’T LET ME MESS THIS UP!”


For those who sew confidently and without hesitation, this seems ridiculous. They laugh as if I have been made privy to some special inner circle that is a joy to behold.


For those who do not sew, I am certain you share my dread and terror. This is about to be an action that isn’t just removing me from my comfort zone… this is removing me from the entire comfort planet!


I desperately desire to do the right things the right way with this horribly frightening task and not waste fabric or leave the bride-to-be with dribbly little fabric shreds to be run up by loving hands at home so that she looks like she is wearing nothing more than a satiny feed sack.


My trembling hands had to be stilled by a sheer force of will and mighty prayer. I took the first tender, tentative cut into the fabric. It might have been an inch long. I was on my knees crawling along beside the fabric trying not to touch it, or bump it, or alter the trajectory of the snipping of the scissors in any way that would make them veer from the dark black razor thin line that separated deftness from disaster by the slimmest margin. If you mess up, you can’t shout “take backs” and hit the redo button on the gaming console.


While I don’t know that a sewing game would bring in money to the developers, a 3-D experience might help gun-shy novices like me to either develop more confidence or cement the fact that not everyone was sent to the earth to have the same experiences in life. Either way, it would be less terrifying than looking at the scissors “snick snick snicking” their way through the shiny and matte finished fabric.


Did you know when you are terrified, sound and sensation is amplified? Did you also know you can will your pores to suck back up the beads of sweat that threaten to dampen and stain bridal silk… yeah, me neither, but it happened.


When finally the first piece was cut out, I discovered that I was not fast enough and using the wrong scissors. I had inadvertently picked up the pair with “short blades” and I needed to use the larger ones. Holy cow! I thought those were pruning shears! I was assured that the freshly sharpened implements of death and destruction… uh, I mean fabric shears… were the very tool I needed to “work my way through the fabric quicker”.


Not only do they expect me to cut along the lines, but they want speed too???


WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE WOMEN?!?! You either get accurate or fast. Not both.


Again, I hear the experienced seamstresses of the world laughing their heads off at my distress. I’ll try to be more charitable when you show up to my campfire starving to death after a long day on the pioneer trail…
Trying to keep perspective about this exercise in humility and prayer, I kept reminding myself that there was greater tragedy in the world than my being handing sewing shears. Funny thing was that I was having a great deal of trouble coming up with more than Xan's tornado damaged home… that sort of wiped out pretty much everything else.



I persevered.


Finally, the fourteen hour day was over! I wasn’t dead!! The fabric was thankfully not ruined! I could live another day secure in the knowledge that I hadn’t destroyed the chance of eternal happiness for Tianna and Thomas!


When I came home to share my angst, Rick was NOT sympathetic. Not one smidgen. Instead, he took the side of the tormentors and even hinted and talked outright about how “wonderful” it was for me to have this “ great experience”.


Yeah, and panic attacks are a legitimate form of exercise…


I wasn’t having any luck finding anyone who understood my terror and beginning to feel rather put upon that no one was grasping the severity of my feelings of having survived the crucible. Either everyone in the world secretly sews brilliantly from the moment they leave the womb, or there is some target which is visible only to others that tells the world that I deserve these opportunities of forced humility and prayer because I am so evil and wicked the rest of the time.


For the record, I have prayed more this last week over this dress and in particular the fabric pieces I touched than I have prayed over any other clothing related issue including my OWN wedding dress that Kari fashioned 27+ years ago.


The dress is beautiful! It is more than beautiful… it is astounding.  Billi Jo and Kari did in a week what is a feat beyond understanding.  They made a wedding gown that will knock Thomas’ socks off. Tianna will be a beautiful bride.


And the good news is that I can relax for the time being… no one needs anything cut out or sewed up this next week. Thank heavens!


I don’t think I like that cardio program. I’m not entirely sure that panic attacks are all that good for my heart.

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