Peculiar Lessons by Lois Braun

Author:Lois Braun [Braun, Lois]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, History, Canada, General
ISBN: 9781773370378
Google: k4O9ywEACAAJ
Publisher: Great Plains Publications
Published: 2020-05-15T05:25:37+00:00

Quilt by Sharon Schmidt. Celebrating Diversity (2007). Hand-appliquéd and hand-quilted in brightly coloured fabrics, some of which are hand-dyed, with various embellishments added. Inspiration for its folk-art style came as a response to the overwhelming sameness seen in many of the suburban homes people live in. The quilt is in a private collection.

SLENDER THREADS

This is what I want. I want people to take care of me. I want them to force comfort on me. I want the soft-pillow feeling that I associate with memories of being ill when I was younger, soft pillows and fresh linens and satin-edged blankets and hot chocolate. It’s not so much the comfort itself as knowing there’s someone who wants to take care of you.

Franny Billingsley

Children’s book author

Her godmother simply touched her with her wand, and, at the same moment, her clothes were turned into cloth of gold and silver, all decked with jewels.

Charles Perrault

17th C. French author (Mother Goose)

My family, along with all other families, lived enveloped in substances and surfaces of varying textures and finishes that were peculiar to our home. And we remember these finishes and how they felt: the unyielding ceramic (or galvanized metal) of the bathtub; the nubbiness of towels and facecloths; the quilts on the bed; carpets and braided rugs under our feet; gauzy curtains and velvet drapes; wool scarves wrapped round and round our necks and chins in winter; knots in raw wood; the ivory on piano keys. The first tactile sensations we experience, as we emerge from a moist, silky womb, are sterile and man-made, though not necessarily synthetic: rubber gloves, steel medical instruments, cotton hospital gowns, flannel blankets. Prehistoric mothers swathed their newborns in animal hides, I imagine. We don’t consciously remember the sensations of these materials on our skin, but might they resonate in our subconscious throughout our lives? Does anyone have a fond attraction to the feel of rubber gloves? Don’t we all feel comforted by the sensation of soft flannel shirts? The older my mother got, the less she cared for synthetic fabrics, craving the downiness of flannel and brushed cotton next to her skin. Thus, we return to our natal memory as we near the end of life.

Some time around 1965, a man named Klaus arrived at my family’s house wearing white overalls and a painter’s cap. Completely in the dark about my parents’ plans, I was curious about him showing up one morning in our home. He was friendly, and equally curious about us as he began carrying his equipment into the living room—stepladder, troughs, paint trays, brushes, drop cloths. My mother, who had a streak of extravagance in her and was in a bit of a House Beautiful competition with some of her sisters and sisters-in-law, had convinced my father that it was time to redecorate the house. They had made several trips to the city to consult with a professional and pick out the new furnishings.

Klaus didn’t only paint the interior walls of our home, he also applied wallpaper here and there—in the living room, a product called grass cloth.

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