It’s amazing how much your eyes grow when you go out of your
comfort zone and into the unknown to test out the visibility you currently
possess. It’s humbling how big the world is and how we’ve only previously seen
a tiny corner of what IS the quilt. The quilt made up of many different patterns, many
different stitches, many different colors. A quilt that looks different in each
square, and even within each square is a diversity that is almost inexplicable
with the words we know. The language we speak. Yet maybe the adequate words are
found in the language of that square, or the parts that make it whole.
If your eyes focus on one little piece you can only truly
see that piece. And I use truly loosely. But if you have no sense, no
perception, pay no attention that the quilt is so much vaster than what your
tiny eyes see, you’ll miss the beauty, the vivacity contained throughout the
whole.
Yet it’s not just taking a few steps back and getting a
quick overview of the whole, although that is better than doing nothing at all.
It’s not comparing every single square to the one you know, to the place where
you seem to understand. It’s not writing off the other squares as dull or wrong
because they don’t match your familiar pattern. It’s not perusing the patters
just to say you did.
It’s about learning. Growing. Seeing and experiencing.
Suspending judgment and making connections. It’s about noticing the
intricacies found hidden within each picture, each square, each color. It’s
about learning the pattern, recreating it, yet not being trapped by it. And when
you’re in their square, not attempting to alter the picture to fit your
perceived ideal.
And in the middle or on the back of the quilt is the lining
or the backing. One piece that connects the whole, one piece that unifies,
giving shape to the basic human needs, the commonality within it all. And the
stitches through each square are the core characteristics of the people.
Something that knits them together within the pattern of the whole.
For if there wasn’t a pattern, it would be dry, it would be
dull, it wouldn’t be a quilt at all. A blanket covers things and aids with
comfortability. A quilt does all that, but at the same time is made to be marveled
at.
And, an interesting fact, the quilt is made the by two hands of the same being, not to be disapproved because of the diversity, but so that the intricate uniqueness can be truly seen.
