> CD #7: Repairing is caring
An argument for fixing even a tiny part of all that is broken
Here’s an unpopular opinion: I’ve never liked wearing jeans. I know that many people think of them as comfy casual wear but, to me, they just feel like hard pants. I mean, I like how they look—denim is definitely one of the best neutrals around—but I don’t really understand the big love for jeans. Is everyone else just fooling themselves into thinking they’re actually comfortable? Am I buying the wrong size? Is my complaining a sign that I’ve gotten so old, the only pants I can wear now are trousers or slacks?
Anyway, I own two pairs of jeans, and only one of those pairs is what I’d call reasonably comfortable (for jeans). They are a straight-leg, medium-wash, mid-rise pair by Citizens of Humanity. I bought them eight years ago after our house fire and had them professionally hemmed so they’d look like they had not been hemmed. A lady, who was short like me, once chased me down in IKEA just to ask where I’d found them.
So when the knees started to rip last year, I looked for a way to save them and ended up learning about sashiko, a Japanese style of visible mending traditionally used to repair kimonos. I loved the subtle geometric patterns of white thread on blue denim, and also how the basic technique seemed simple enough that even I could attempt it. (Have I mentioned how impatient I am with repetitive tasks in particular and maintenance in general?)
For years, I’ve been trying more and more to repair things in an effort to generate less waste and reduce my consumption. What I didn’t expect, though, was how the simple act of mending or fixing something would also give me a stronger connection to the stuff in my life. Each time I mend another rip in my jeans, I put a little more of myself into them, and their visible scars are now telling me a story about care and attention and growing old.
There’s also this quote from textile artist Amy Meissner, who runs community mending workshops in Alaska:
Once you’ve mended something, if you didn’t have sentimental value attached to it before, then you certainly do once you’ve taken the time to care for it.
But I suspect I’m gaining more than just sentimental value from mending and repairing things, although I’m not entirely sure what. There is, perhaps, an answer in something I read recently in Olivia Laing’s book Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency.
Building on an essay by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick about “paranoid reading” vs. “reparative reading,” Laing writes how tempting it is for us to be paranoid readers, concerned only with gathering information, building an argument, exposing danger (see: the Internet). But the problem with paranoia as an approach is that it only confirms our worst fears: the world is an awful place and we’re all doomed. It offers no way out.
Reparative reading, on the other hand, is:
“… to be fundamentally more invested in finding nourishment than identifying poison. This doesn’t mean being naive or undeceived, unaware of crisis or undamaged by oppression. What it does mean is being driven to find or invent something new and sustaining out of inimical environments.
The reparative approach to reading—to life—means making the best of we have and stitching it together with hope, and in doing so, imagining a different way forward.
That might be what I’m ultimately getting out of mending my jeans. It’s the feeling of doing something with my hands when the world is on fire and everything else is out of my control. Repairing something small in the hope that somewhere out there, others are also looking for ways to fix even a tiny part of all that is broken. An act of resistance, a reminder to take care of things and find nourishment in the act of caring.
:) Teresa
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This was lovely. That Laing essay resonated with me, too, and has made me think about the kind of work I want to be making. Also: I have always loathed jeans. Have not owned a pair since college!