It was my grandma Elsie who made quilts. We have them scattered throughout our home. Each one a hug waiting to be entered. (None of them wait long.) 

My mother loved to sew. But she was more about fashion. Because it came as a surprise, (and also upon my bed in our Jefferson Street apartment), I remember exactly the time she decided to try her hand at making a quilt. I didn’t ask why. I knew pretty early on that life was a series of attempts to connect. So I joyfully slept on the side of my high school bed that was not covered in squares, resting under the watchful hands of both my mother and grandmother.

I have that quilt as well, here in France. It may be smaller in size, but it retains an equal amount of magic — this ability to draw me in, hold me, comfortably. But perhaps even more magically, it sets me free to try the things that aren’t necessarily in my skill set. To keep reaching out when connections fail. To keep believing this might be the thread that holds. 

That’s a lot to expect, you might say, of a heart’s thread, but as I step from inside a quilt’s embrace, I know, it’s not too much to ask. 

We are as strong as our connections.