Romneka G.

Threads of Wisdom: Childhood Visits, Warm Kitchens, and Lessons That Linger

I can’t remember which one of my grandmother’s friends gave me this little jewel but I do know it was one of them.  I wanna say it was the lady up the street but i’m not sure for real.  When I was a kid, one of the things I liked doing was “running errands” for my grandma. It’d always be to the same few homes on her street with specific instructions for each home.  Like use my manners, always stay on the porches of everybody house, get what you getting and give what you’re giving and come back. Boom, candy bar and a soda from the candy store.  Kids, am I right?  Lol.  But I loved the feeling of trustworthiness that came with every successful little mission. Cake flour for a jar of jam, returning a bowl and picking up some greens, random things like that.  It was like a lil inner neighborhood exchange.  Never saw the inside of any of those houses though.  My grandma had a friend who lived up the street, she’d send me up there to pick up peas and corn and all kinds of stuff.  Sometimes I’d go with her to the grocery store, listen to her tell me about her version of “the good old days” as if less freedoms were a think to revel for.  But I loved hearing about the happier memories of my grandma’s friends.  These ladies were some line steppers if not full blown line crossers. Blew my mind every time.  And as you can imagine, as a kid, it wasn’t exactly hard to do.  

As I am trying to remember where I was when I learned how to do what was told to me is called a “quick stitch”; “because a young lady should always know how to hem her dress and sew a button.” That was the lady up the street.  My memory is kind of shit, but her house was usually very breezy and always filled with sunlight. She hated when I used the front door to the living room.  Always made me use the side door to the kitchen.  It was always warm in her kitchen.  

But one day, I was sent up there to “visit”.  It’s what my grandma and the elders called it when they made you go see their selected friends periodically.  Usually when I’d visit the lady up the street she’d ask me about books I’ve read and why I read them. Ask me about friends I had, things I did for fun and stuff I learned from church.  She was into clothes, duh, she knew how to sew.  She had magazines in the living room I wasn’t supposed to be in, that she’d let me sit and read.  Sometimes she’d sit and read with me and she’d tell me why some designer was different than the other.  

She was kind and witty and soooo smart. She definitely tried to indoctrinate me into attending Fayetteville State University, pledging Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, becoming a teacher at worst and a fashionista designer, stylist, something at best. Her not so subtle hints and blanket statements were never lost on me. Lol.  My parents met there, I was lowkey conceived there.  Idk, something about that seemed too, second or third time’s a try.  I remember my mommy telling me about grandma doing the same thing to her as a kid.  Hoping it would encourage one to go to college, get a good job, meet a husband, who hopefully will also have a good job and you can continue the cycle of growing the lineage.  

And the “quick stitch” was one of those lessons.  You should know how to thread a needle and knot the end of it properly as in tight enough it come undone, big enough it won’t get pulled through the fabric, and small enough it wont be felt when you cover it up. You should know the needle your using for the fabric your sewing, use finger protectors, if you have chalk awesome, if not try to mark your line and see saw your way through.  

As a kid, I actually really cherished my visits with the lady up the street.  She would get me books from the library to read. They were usually mystery books.  Her shelf was full of them. She read fashion magazines for a while, JET, Ebony, Essence.  

Like with all of my grandma’s friends, teaching me the absolute basics of how to sew one kind of stitch, felt like some right of passage duty they all undertook.  Every little life lesson was like having a tool added to my personal arsenal for life.  As a black woman, our arsenal has to be filled with all kinds of knowledge of all kinds of things.  You never know what might save your life or change your life.  I’m paraphrasing several lessons, because they were always wrapped up in some super long parable used to give the same point.  

I am so grateful for all of those learned lessons of life and black womanhood today.  The abundance I was able to receive, simply by hanging out with a few of grandma’s friends for a little while a few times a week in the summertime.    

Trauma brain can take your memories. I didn’t realize until a few years later how much it annoyed me how all of these cool life jewels, these recipes and nuggets of wisdom were all centered around a husband.  Obtaining a husband, getting a husband.  It was annoying.  “Young ladies should know how to do xyz because when you’re married….”  or “no man wants a wife who can’t fix a decent meal”  or “you not gone ever get a husband with a mouth like that.” and a myriad of other little barbs and quips that were supposed to polish my bad habits out of my being so that I’d be a presentable bride option for a man.  And to a large degree, I fed right into it like the dutiful, church raised, obedient daughter/granddaughter I was raised to be.  While silently resenting every woman in my life over it.  This is where my internal divorcing process began for me.  I couldn’t understand why everything I did in life centered around me getting a husband when the boys never had to learn how to get a wife or be a husband.  That internal conflict grew with every year.  I knew early on I wasn’t sold on the whole husband thing and I wasn’t exactly running to be the kind of woman everyone was working so hard for me to become.  I liked running and being outside even though I was afraid of bugs.  I hated hearing anything related to “boys are better” or “that’s not for girls” in any capacity of the phrasing. However, I wanted to be a good christian daughter.  

Spending time with my grandma’s friends, listening to stories of husbands passed, children who stopped visiting, and all of the people who had come and gone in their lives, the more I believed that Daddy’s for sure had a purpose, but husbands, I had no concept of what that meant so it didn’t mean anything. Husbands were only a requirement because God said so, but reality is, husbands are the only way to get babies.  And as a young girl, I wanted boy babies.  Twin boys to be exact.  I wanted twin boys to raise to be better men than every men I had been around or grown up with.  Men who would be nice and kind to girls, speak to them nicely, never belittle them or make them feel less than, to not be intimidated by girls/women.  The only way to get the boys was to get the husband.  But I wasn’t sure I actually wanted one.  

The older I got the more ‘husband’ became synonymous with ‘daddy’.  Years brought new changes, like my cousin had children, unmarried and in high school to boot.  She wasn’t kicked out of the family but she was made to feel she did something very very wrong.  I learned then, that was the cardinal sin of womanhood.  Having children by a man who isn’t your husband.  My introduction to the baby momma/baby daddy situation is when I knew I definitely didn’t want a baby daddy. Absolutely not.  Spending time with grandma’s friends, these beautiful women who had known partnerships that lasted 30, 40, 50 years.  I heard stories of friendship, love, care.  Sometimes I heard stories of survival, courage, and heart-wrenching decisions.  

Anyway, I remember sitting in her good living room, the sewing kit open on the coffee table.  My ankles dangling off the edge of her good living room couch, she sat beside me and showed me how to do a seemingly simple straight stitch.   I practiced on an old handkerchief of her late husband’s. She had a small collection in a hat box or something of the sort.  She had me practice while she and my grandma talked on the phone.  When they were done, I was done.  I earned my reward of a sweet treat and she usually had some really good ones or some money, cuz she knew I’d spend it at grandma’s candy store.  This time it was  a sweet treat of a home made slice of spice cake and a cold soda. The cake I had to eat before I left, and I relished the berry flavored soda on my walk home. 

I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I am not a seamstress and that quick stitch is lightweight the only stitch I know to date, but that lesson has served me over and over and over again.  A quick hem,  I got that.  A button needs replacing, I got that.  Wanna tuck a part of a shirt without using safety pins, yeah lemme stitch that real quick.  

Did it bring a husband to my doorstep?  Nope.  I am still quite single, fortunately for my person (come get me btw!!).  

The part I hold closest to my heart: I hope to be that same kind of elder one day.  I won’t ever have children of my own, but I pray that I, too, can “visit” with the younger folks, pass on the bit of knowledge I’ve got tucked away, and share some of the sweet nostalgia that filled those breezy kitchens. I want them to look back and think of me the way I think of the lady up the street, with the warm house and the quick stitch, always ready to offer a kind word and a slice of spice cake—reminding us that sometimes, the tiniest lessons leave the biggest imprints on our souls.