Short story in a vending machine

I saw this vending machine in an Italian train station last week. It contains items useful to nearly every stage of life.

Surely there is a story or at least a short poem there?

Dental floss.
Razor blades.
Deodorant.
Condoms. Lubricant.
Pregnancy test.
Baby butt paste.

Precision and perseverance, remembered in fiber

I'd never thought much about coverlets until I happened upon the National Museum of the American Coverlet in Bedford, Penn., last week. The museum aims to give "coverlets the recognition and respect they deserve, while bringing their history to life."

Unlike quilts, coverlets are made on looms and in the past, given the smaller size of home looms, were usually made in at least two parts to make them wide enough to fit across the bed. This required a preciseness in weaving so that both parts matched as perfectly as possible. Coverlets made for home use by women usually had simple geometric patterns, so stitching them together was not that challenging. But some weavers turned coverlets into an art form, creating intricate designs, perfectly matched. These makers wove their names into them, often in all four corners of the finished product, backwards and forwards.

Coverlet weavers who did this for money worked up to 18 hours a day, often in unheated sheds, according to Melinda Zongor, the museum director who gave us our tour. It took strength and perseverance to make a coverlet, in addition to nimble fingers and a craft sensibility. But the women who wove coverlets (and other linens for their families' use) often did so in between tending babies and doing all the work required of them to keep the household going. Each day was a series of nonstop chores, none of them much remembered. And yet, here some of their  coverlets had survived and traveled through the centuries, from their small looms to this wide space.

Though the main purpose of the coverlets was to keep people warm at night, I realized they also served a more intransient purpose—to give evidence of these weavers' lives beyond names on gravestones or recorded in family histories. Each coverlet was motion captured, an idea completed, a life remembered in woven fiber.

Solitude vs. the beautiful, chaotic hum

I’ve just returned from being out of the country for two weeks. During that time, I didn’t write anything but a postcard to my mom, assuring her that I was still alive. I attempted to write a couple of short emails to business contacts, when I had a few stolen moments on someone’s computer, but the French keyboard was so frustrating to use that I gave up (or, rather, gqvé up) after a couple of sentences. [A blog post appeared here last week through the miracle of Blogger’s post-dating feature—I’d written it before I left on my trip and it automatically uploaded while I was gone.]

The weird thing was that I didn’t feel a desire or need to write. This is an unusual feeling for me. Since I have known how to use a pencil to shape letters and words, I’ve had a persistent urge to write my thoughts down, though in recent years that urge has been satisfied by writing weekly essays rather than the daily journal updates of my youth.

I wasn’t experiencing any kind of creative constipation, but felt like some other, more visual/experiential part of my brain had been activated. I only wanted to take photos and make short movies of Parisian scenes, and to walk and take it all in—to eat luxurious meals, feel the breeze on my face, listen to street music, smell the pastries and chocolates—without attempting to describe any of it.

Perhaps in order to write about something, a writer must step back, set herself apart from things in order to filter and describe them. But in France, especially on the streets of Paris, I wanted to be a part of the beautiful, chaotic hum. Maybe if I’d spent a few weeks there I would have grown tired of it, or would feel a need to step back and return to the deep solitude I seem to only achieve during the writing process.

Now I am back in my quieter neighborhood, looking out to a narrow forest of oak trees from my bedroom window. My cat purrs on my bed, birds are speaking urgently to their kin outside. It is calm and maybe a little dull, but somehow it is stimulating for me—or is stimulating another part of my brain that was inactive during my European adventure. Thoughts and ideas for essays I could write began pouring out of me the day after I got home, especially after this morning’s walk on the sleepy streets around my house. I am suddenly a homebody, wanting to hang around the house, eat simple salads, pull weeds in my yard, and write. I am no longer yearning for pastries and people-watching on the Metro. I want to belong right now to a large but invisible community that is quiet and shaped by words, to seek immersion in ideas not crowds. I need both things—noise/conversation and quiet/thoughts. Finding the balance is an ongoing event in this writer’s life.

(Photos by Beth Blevins)