A woman’s passions may evanesce, but her ideas will never lose breath.

Between gentle fingertips lay a sewing needle, within delicate hands lay torn threads.

The story of a young woman in the 1940’s touched my heart. The woman relentlessly chased her dream in fashion, a time in which women were dissuaded from pursuing both a career and a family, as though a woman’s capacity only allowed for constraints. Her society believed that  women who held true careers could be neither a mother nor a wife; she could not uphold passions while holding a child, she could not be a wife when devoted to ambition. 

Regardless, the young woman envisioned herself within the fashion industry, drawing unique pieces which adorned the woman’s essence, unparalleled to the fashion within her time. Ingenuity radiates from each page of her sketchbook of designs. As a young woman, she held pain in tireless hands as if she were cradling delicate desires; imbuing her passions for fashion on pages. I resonate with this story as I hold deep feelings towards my passion. I could not possibly imagine a life in which I could not write simply because I was a woman. For my thoughts to never hold breath, my withering hands falling limp, my aching hands of senescence never to have written what’s within my dying soul. 

I learnt of this young woman’s designs from the 1940’s through her granddaughter, Julia, who brings the designs from the page to her own body for her grandmother. Julia, like me, hopes to keep the passions of our matriarch ancestors alive.

My great grandmother’s tranquil voice was an elegant lull of poetry. Her words left her tremulous lips as she placed abrasive cadence at the edge of her undying words. The powerful verses inflicted agonizing pains within my heart which my young soul found comfort within. I anticipated the harrowing knife digging into my delicate flesh, the very pages she read from severed irreparable incisions, bleeding wounds I still bleed from, the red ink with which I write. As the sound of her words reached me, the prick of my emotions comforted my soul. 

When the granddaughter Julia decided to complete her grandmother’s sketches, she had her work cut out for her. Intricate fabrics embellished the womanly figures, gracefully draping gentle silhouettes.  Her grandmother’s tireless hands depicted every single delicate element with the caress of vigilance, like opalescent lace and alluring trains transpiring from a plunged back. Flowy satin drizzled skin down to precise hems, while carefully refined necklines embellished the chest. The pencil’s engravings carved the insinuating path intended for needle and thread. 

But, the grandmother’s ideas lost breath as she shattered under the pressures of decision. The woman could not possibly sacrifice her wishes of a family, though her hands still tore at the cleaving of her ephemeral gift. Either she pursues her effervescence in a cradle of solitude, or she becomes a mother and a wife.

While her hands endured the touch of senescence and she mourned the touch of a pencil, she  placed a child in a bassinet. The thread of her gift became frail through time, but the touch of this gift was sewn deep within. 

If I were in her shoes, my soul would be tainted by resent, vitiated by my torpid heart, my voice the sound of mournful laments. 

Thankfully though, not all of her passions and talent were lost to evanescence. Her grandchild was born with remnants of her gift and precious ideas threaded within her newborn hands. The child grew into the age in which her grandmother created her sinuous designs. 

Julia stumbled upon her grandmother’s designs and was mesmerized by the intricacy of each garment, the breathless ideas gracefully wilting within Julia’s hands, as though holding a beautiful death.  

Julia wished to breathe life back into her grandmother’s forgotten designs. 

In one of her Tik Tok’s Julia says, “people have an expiration date, ideas have an expiration date, and grandma chose not to follow her dreams, she’s able to peruse her dreams now in this way but she no longer feels comfortable doing it in the way she probably would’ve done when she was younger, and that’s the bittersweet part of her story.”

I read the same pages my great-grandmother did while my head rested gently on her lap, her manicured hands grazing through my hair as her words softly placed gouging wounds against my bleeding heart. She placed a kiss on my head, tracing her abrasive lips against my scarred skin, the same lips which versed her impactful words. 

My heart’s bleeding wounds ink my writing hands, the kisses she placed on my skin remember the afflicting stain of her gentle lips. 

Now, between Julia’s gentle fingertips lay a sewing needle, in these delicate hands lay torn threads.

Julia’s sews breath within forgotten ideas, she threads her grandmother’s lost passions in and out of each stitch. She analyzes each design, discerning the intricacy, noticing every detail; the fabric of the garment, the scintillating pearls, the elegant ruching. Once Julia is done admiring each sketch, she begins sewing the idea into reality, precision breathing life into lost designs. 

Julia enlivens her grandmother’s creations, preserving the once breathless gift. 

She finds inspiration within each depiction, just as her grandmother finds healing in the actualization of her ideas. 

I still hear my great grandmother’s mesmeric voice under the breathless vows falling from my lips. She speaks through me. My voice is similar to hers my mother tells me. 

Her death was never true to me as she lives within my writing, within my poetic voice. She writes with me at this very moment.

Julia emulates her grandmother’s designs in hopes to keep her legacy alive. She refuses to let the generational ideas die. 

Her grandmother senses a piece of herself within her grandchild, the piece of herself which did follow her dreams. She says, “it’s one thing to see it in a drawing, but when you’re putting it together and I see it in real life it kind of makes me want to cry a little bit.” 

This beautiful gift has sewn a connecting thread between both women. Her grandmother’s designs will now forever withhold her memory, a piece of her eternally sewn within, and a piece irrevocably threaded within Julia’s hands. 

My voice will forever hold the sound of my great grandmother’s. 

A woman’s passions may evanesce, but her ideas will never lose breath. 

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Graphic by Amanda Forrester