The most Inspirational Woman in my life - my Mother

I've just realised that tonight - on International Women's Day - I spent my time doing things inspired by the most inspirational woman in my life, my mum, Christine Mackenzie.  I finally finished a draft excluder I started making in January on the sewing machine which belonged to her.  I think it looks pretty good - as long as you don't look too closely at the bad stitching on the finish.  I used instructions I found on the Guardian website here.  The main mistake I made was not sticking so closely to the instructions given about the width - I used up at least four large bags of rice to fill it, maybe necessary if you live in a cave but slightly excessive for a small under-door draft!  I also think I should have picked a material with a smaller, more repetitive pattern, but that's purely aesthetic and to be honest given the cold weather this winter it's the function I'm more bothered about.  It took me a while to work out which needle head to use on the sewing machine but luckily I still had the instruction manual so managed to work it out with the help of that.

I was amazed that I remembered how to thread it all up, having been shown on many occasions as a young girl by my mum.  As a teenager I was always starting up art projects which my mum always encouraged - although invariably, any ones involving the sewing machine, she ended up finishing off for me.  It is very comforting for me to use her sewing machine as it brings back so many happy memories, even the noise of the foot pedal bring back memories of sitting reading a book or watching TV in the living room, hearing my mum being creative in the other room - she was never one for sitting in front of the TV, always preferring to do something creative (maybe more than preferring actually, it was like an imperative, it was essential to who she was I think). 

my draft excluder

I'll never live up to my mum's inspirational and creative work on the sewing machine but it's going to be nice to use the same machine to (hopefully!) make clothes that my mum used to make such beautiful art work - such as the first image here, an early work of a farm just across the fields from the house we grew up in in Eaglesham.  Believe it or not this is just a scanned image of a photo of the work - the texture has come through so well!  This photo of the piece, mounted on board and with explanations would have been done for the classes she taught.  This archive of my mum's work, the samples she did, the explanations she gave, is something I want to collect, along with photos of her finished art works, on a website - a project for this year I think.

© Christine Mackenzie

The mermaid is a more recent work and I absolutely love it - the colours, the skill and detail in the stitching, the romance and mythology of the boat on the water and the Gaelic text (which I know I have a translation of but can't find right now).

© Christine Mackenzie

After that I made pancakes - large crepe style ones rather than scotch ones.  It brought back lots of happy memories of making them with my mum and for my mum.  I remember on pancake day when we were younger and both me and my mum were vegetarians, and my brother just fussy, that we would make 'savory' pancakes - filling the with grated cheese - followed by sweet pancakes - filled with Golden Syrup and maybe a bit of cream.  Tonight though I stuck to the traditional lemon and sugar for me and Oliver.

The recipe for the pancakes I made tonight came from the Glasgow Cookery Book, Centenary Edition.  But the history of the Glasgow Cookery Book and the inspirational women behind it is definitely a story for another blog post!  if you can't wait for that and want more information then you can find out more about the history of the book at Glasgow Caledonian University Archives and about the centenary edition here.

I hope everyone else has had some positive thoughts, actions and memories on International Women's Day.

Giving thanks

This post is a slight departure from usual in that it has nothing to do with archives and not much to do with film.

I've been reading a lot of interviews with Apichatpong Weerasethakul recently about his recently released film Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives.  The interviews have really struck me as, as well as coming across like a really nice guy, Weerasethakul makes some really simple but incredibly profound and meaningful statements.  I just like his simple way of wording things and some of his words came to my mind yesterday when I got the terribly sad news that a friend of a friend had recently passed away.  I knew Jose too and having seen him only a few months ago found the news very hard to take in.  He loved Thailand and was planning to return there to live and work so it seems fitting that the words of Weerasethakul gave me some comfort. 

This is the section that came to my mind when I got the sad news:

‘So, we are going to die right, you and I?’ opens Apichatpong Weerasethakul conversationally. ‘One day we are all going to turn to dust. But we will not disappear,’ he adds reassuringly.

‘We just integrate and transform into other things. In classical reincarnation you are reborn into another animal but I believe it’s more like an energy, what Buddhists call a transmigration of souls. The idea we connect with everything: with the sunlight, the Earth, the animals – we are all recycled. That’s what I’m interested in.’

It's not like I hadn't heard these ideas before, in fact it fits in with my beliefs, but I think to read it in the Metro newspaper on a crowded tube on the way to work just really hit home how powerful and how complex these simple sentiments really are.

To finish this post I though I would use a beautiful image which my mum drew, with some inspirational words from Thich Nhat Hanh which she used as the centerpiece.  She used to have it hanging on her bedroom wall so she would read the words every morning when she woke.  I don't have this up on our wall yet but I do try and remember to smile first thing when I wake up and give thanks in that way, through a quick thought and a smile.  

So I just thought that on this day of Thanksgiving in America I would take the opportunity to write a few words to give thanks for love, for friendship and for this beautiful world we live in.  Jose's energy will live on through his friends and family and all the people he has met along the way.