I M Perfect lady

This "Valentine" Lady was created in 2012.  

Grey and burdened, raining pain, she bows to the emotions, is chilled by their feelings.  

Is this a Love expression?  

Are feelings of a broken heart evidence that you loved?

Is a whole heart is formed from the brokenness…you enter.

Feeling the broken pieces…you feel love. 

Last year I tried to make another Valentine quilt. This one remains unfinished, just didn't speak to me clearly or loudly.  I didn't know it.

I had added the words and bird trying to make it make sense or have a theme….

It appears that she is on the road…crossing the road.  Perhaps she is the transition quilt…  While pondering this, I then wondered if she felt safe to remain in the middle of the road and not veer off the sides. That love is to not rattle cages or upset others…Perhaps the safety of the middle of the road didn't speak for I had left the safety zone.

This is my 2014 Valentine Quilt…

To me, she represents the courage it takes to love your self and to embrace and celebrate who you are.  She is not weak in her self love.  Her love has strength.

On Valentine's Day, we see love in chocolates and hearts. We don't see the love in breaking the silences…the courage it takes to stand for love and not cower out of fear.

Love isn't displayed when you do nothing when children are still in danger.

Taking the ride past our old house yesterday, was a reminder in how much things have stayed the same.  

Ironically, there are children now owning the homes they once lived in or live near by. 

The children are now the parents of the children in the neighborhood.

I wondered if this neighborhood was now different. If all the evil threats diminished.

Can it be different, if the children are not different than their parents.

Is the mind…the belief, the faith, the actions of love similar to when I grew up there?

What has changed in the neighborhood, except that the wounded children are now parents?  

How will they do better than their parents? What have they learned from their history? Will the fear of their own wounds keep the old neighborhood going?  

Are they more aware than my parents and theirs?  Has enough changed to make it a safe place for their children?

And, what needs to have changed in order for the threat to have been removed?

What makes a home and neighborhood a safe place for a child?

What kind of love is the kindest to children?

What kind of mother do these new children in their neighborhood need?

Will she look like me or like my mother?

Will she be trying to shake and rattle the foundations that seek to hide abusers in their pews and families…and friends.

Or will she be saying "It doesn't matter" what that crazy mental woman is doing, we are family. We have love.  

There was a young girl in our neighborhood, who we knew had lost her mind….but actually she was trying, like me, to expose abuse. She had a mental breakdown, for no one believed her.  I know this feeling well.

As I drove away from that old neighborhood, I felt that I too was seen as mentally impaired; for I see the perfect combination that is needed for the legacy of abuse to grow and flourish…all believing it is not there.

Call me Mental, but I needed a Mom like me.