I moved to Manchester, NH a week ago. I'm living on my own once more--but in a converted mill building this time, rather than in a stuccoed and tiled apartment complex. I am on the top floor, with sparrows and robins constantly flitting past my window as they prepare to land on the roof above me.
Yesterday, some childhood friends made the drive up to see me in my new space. I had a gift for one of them: a woven wool pillowcase from Morocco. I bought it in Marrakech's medina this past June when I returned to Morocco to retrieve my belongings and money from the bank.
I took pictures of the shop where the weaver worked. One of the looms stood unused, a testament to the devastating economic impact of the pandemic. At the other loom, a weaver stopped to nod hello and to see if I would actually buy his wares.
This is how the weaver practiced his craft: he tied wool threads down the length of the loom, then used a wooden pedal set to lift every other thread so that he could pass a shuttle across the width of the loom and in between the lengthwise threads with ease. He then released the long threads and used a lever to secure the new row of fabric snug against the old rows.
It is a process that is slow and painstaking. Even an expert going at full speed needs hours to complete a bolt of fabric that can then be made into a pillowcase.
This weaving process also requires that consistent tension be applied to the threads throughout the process. The long threads are pushed up and down, up and down, up and down. The wide thread is shuttled back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Don't you feel it would be maddening to be a thread on the loom?
And wouldn't you need patience to be a weaver? Wouldn't you need to distract yourself from the repetitive actions of the everyday with conversation, or singing, or storytelling?
Would you need to keep a greater purpose in mind to make a life as a weaver worthwhile? Would the work itself be worthwhile to you? Perhaps you would value your day's labor not for its grand purpose or for its inherent nature, but for what it provided for you.
Is there something beautiful about making a bolt of fabric one thread at a time? Is there something lovely about making a life one day, one action, one word at a time?
These are my thoughts as I watch the birds flit in and out of the window frame in front of me.
As they bring twine to their nests to make them warm for the coming winter.
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