An open letter to Jess de Wahls
I knitted my wedding dress, and Jess embroidered it, and so I wrote her an open letter about it.
Dear Jess,
I’m sitting here waiting for a parcel from you to arrive. I’ve been trying for months to find words for what your gift means to me. It is such a personal, meaningful and symbolic thing for me. I’ve found it really hard, but I think I managed. Here goes.
Fibre has always meant a lot to me, as I know it does to you. My grandmother used to knit all the time. There is a photo of me in one of her Aran sweaters. I was maybe two years old. Grandmama was one of the bright spots in my childhood. I always had questions about whether my parents loved me, but I knew she did. She even stuck up for me occasionally against my parents, which meant that we hardly ever saw her. What sanity I have is rooted in the knowledge that she loved me, for a long time, deeply, when I was a little girl. Fibre, threads are a symbol of my connection to her.
In my early adulthood, I was mired in dysfunction. I lived through a childhood that left me broken and disordered. I struggled with the basics of life, even just eating at the right time, or eating at all. I didn’t do appointments or work or anything that required any consistency. I was not capable. When I was learning to function as a going human concern, somebody suggested I pick up a hobby. I picked up knitting. It required work, patience, time, learning, careful picking and unpicking. In important ways, those threads stitched me together as a human being.
I have no natural talent at knitting. I find reading maps and charts incredibly counter intuitive. I have little visuospatial skill. I could work for a hundred years and never gain a real understanding of colour. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned slowly and painstakingly. I value it. I value that I can make things that are beautiful, because I’ve taught my unwilling hands to be clever. I value that because of the work of my hands, I can make the threads that connect me to my grandmother and to my difficult past into something beautiful, despite my lack of talent. It means something to me.
Those threads connect me to my adopted family too. I don’t have any contact with my family of origin, but my wife’s family have taken me in, and every time I think of it, I think of the book of Ruth, and I well up. “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.” The threads I’ve made connect me to the only family I have. I knit a baby blanket for the children born in the family, and there is love in every stitch. Fibre connects me to them, and has always held deep meaning for me, as well as being a source of deep joy.
One of the greatest privileges of my life was when my friend asked me to repair the threadbare baby blanket that she took with her through her difficult childhood, from foster home to foster home. It was the only thing her mother had ever given her, and it was in tatters. Some of those threads, I cut, but others I saved, and I wrapped the stitches up in love of my own, and made it whole again, and gave it back to her, and now her children can play with it. Thread connects me to her, and to her mother, and to our difficult pasts. Through those threads are stitched friendship, love and healing light, a deep connection made into something she can hold.
The most meaningful things in my life are threads, and love, and the work of women’s hands, and time, and the giving of gifts. They are everything to me. They are, in every sense that matters, the warp and weft of my soul, the fabric of who I am. So when Lauren and I decided, last year, that we were going to have a wedding, it stood to reason that I would knit my dress, and make shawls for the bridesmaids too. I shared sneak previews on my social media and was so grateful for all the love and positivity that came my way. But then something happened that I never expected.
I had been following you for a good long time. We had a few lovely chats on twitter, and I was completely envious of your talent. You have more natural talent for colour and fibre in your little finger than I do in my whole body. You paint with thread. Your work is incredible. Everything you make is beautiful and there is always another detail to discover, always another thing to find in your art. Your threads gather in a whole movement, galvanise it, hold it together. There’s power in your needles, Jess. I’m a little bit in awe of you, honestly.
You’ll remember that you said to me on twitter that you’d shared something I wrote on another platform, and said “I hope that’s okay” or something to that effect. I jokingly fired back “of course, but it now obligates you to embroider my wedding dress, lol.” I was joking around. I had no hope or expectation that you would reply how you did. “Go on then,” you said. You had taken me seriously.
I always have words. I always do. But it’s impossible for me to describe how I felt in that moment or how I feel right now. Every time I’ve tried to write it down so far, I hit a block and cry happy tears instead. So, I’m just going to type through the tears. Sure, they’re just the ice around my heart melting, under the generous warmth you radiate. So here goes.
When I walk down the aisle, I’m going to do it alone. I felt alone all my life, before I met Lauren, so it seems fitting. But when I arrive to be wed, I’ll be at Lauren’s side, and we will be surrounded by our family and friends. My walk down the aisle will echo my real-life journey. As I walk, I’ll come home.
Taking that walk wrapped in my own threads, threads that connect me to my grandmother, and to my family, and to my difficult history, and to the way I rescued myself from the mire I was sinking into, has deep meaning for me. The fact that a woman I so admire has wrapped me up again in the gifts of her clever, clever hands, and from the generosity of her spirit, has honoured my craft with her beautiful art, means more to me than I can possibly say. Gifts freely given and gratefully received. And those threads don’t just connect me to you, Jess, but to the movement which has become so important to me.
Last summer, I got a little bit brave on twitter. In the wake of the Wii Spa incident, where a sexual predator exposed his genitals in the women’s changing room at a spa, I decided that I couldn’t keep quiet any longer, and I started sharing about what happened to me when I was a little girl, and why self ID was a nightmare for child protection.
People in my phone, people I had never met, wrapped their arms around me, and stood in solidarity with me, and were angry on my behalf, and messaged me to say that they had been abused too, and they had read my threads, and now felt less alone. Women messaged me to say that they’d read my threads, spotted that their boyfriend was an abuser, and got rid of him. There are children safe in their beds tonight because I got a little bit brave and my courage emboldened women to protect their children. I can’t tell you what that means to me, except to say that I’ve become the person I needed in my life when I was a little girl, and that is everything.
I had spent so long being small and frightened. Somehow, between last summer, when I got brave enough and angry enough to say something, and today, I am no longer small, or frightened, and I am definitely not alone. The threads that you will wrap me up in are, to me, a symbol of the courage I have found. They bind me to the movement, to the army of women and men who made me brave. I will bring your threads with me down the aisle, but in their form I will bring the women and men who emboldened me, who showed me who I am. I won’t be alone. Not at all.
The dress might even arrive tomorrow. I am so excited that I’m almost overwhelmed. I keep shrieking and then feeling like I’m going to burst into tears of joy. I haven’t seen a single bit of it, so it’ll be a complete surprise. I keep imagining wearing it on my wedding day, and then I think of my grandmother, and of stitching myself back together again. I think about my adopted family, and of the suffragettes sewing their patches into friendship quilts, and of my friend and her childhood blanket, and of my twitter family, so many of whom have become real life friends. I think about finding my courage, about being brave instead of frightened, and I think about not being alone any-more. I think about gifts, and fibre, and connections, and the work of women’s hands, and I run out of words and burst into tears instead.
I am so, so grateful, happy and proud. Jess, it seems inadequate to say it, but from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
In sisterhood,
Ceri
Beautifully expressed. I feel such profound happiness for you and your family. From this vile madness has come the warp and weft of enriching new acquaintances and friendships. Happy Wedding day!
You have such talent and skill with words - which is really crafting with a different type of thread.
I can think of no higher achievement or more worthwhile goal than...
"I’ve become the person I needed in my life when I was a little girl, and that is everything."
Thank you.