How My Road Less Traveled Led to Fabric Art
At my high school graduation Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” was prominently displayed in the auditorium. This was the first time I had seen this particular poem and it resonated deeply within me.
It was probably because I had a rebellious gene passed down to me by generations of forbears that had resisted being physically or mentally imprisoned.
I decided then and there that no matter what I did on the outside of my life, my inner life would always be free – I would always follow the road where few others had gone before.
It was a decision that would come to define my life as “unconventional.”
Way Leading on to Way
My liberated attitude resulted in my having quite a few unconventional adventures, and dealing with the fallout and consequences of those adventures:
As you may know from your own life experiences, an adventure is something exciting and dangerous that happens to someone else and always turns out right. When it’s happening to you it’s just plain terrifying and dangerous and there are often unpleasant consequences.
- Adventure: Spending two months on a short-term mission trip deep in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest
- Consequence: Nearly dying from malaria
- Adventure: Putting myself through university to get a teaching degree at a time when my entire family all felt that higher education was not something a good Mennonite girl did
- Consequence: I became fiscally independent
- Adventure: Spending my first year teaching on a Cree (Native Canadian) Reserve in the Northern Bush
- Consequence: Handling a problem child who – at age twelve had a serious drug problem – and never, ever losing control of a classroom during the rest of my career
- Adventure: Teaching on a Hutterite Colony, grades K-9 in one room
- Consequence: Discovered that I best liked being my own boss and in charge daily program
- Adventure: Spending a year teaching at a school for American military kids right on the DMZ in South Korea
- Consequence: Insomnia – the constant raid drills and tension of living just a few miles from one of the most dangerous borders in the world left a lasting impression
The Road Not Taken
Poem by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Adventure: Reluctantly being goaded into sending a letter to a man in America that one of my fellow teachers from Korea knew
- Consequence: Marriage
- Adventure: Moving 2,000 miles to a new country and completely different culture (if you want to change cultures try moving from liberal, proper Canada to rough-and-tumble free-thinking Arizona ranch country!)
- Consequence: Really, really like being my own boss
- Adventure: Raising 3 kids and deciding that, once again, the road less travelled and best for us all would be homeschooling them
- Consequence: Brilliant, free-thinking children
- Adventure: Moving my family from Arizona to Colorado
- Consequence: Learning to weed
- Adventure: Deciding to pursue quilting and fabric art full time as my little chickens graduated their high school and began pursuing their own lives
- Consequence: Discovered I hate matching corners and love making my own patterns
Which is why we have to make adjustments and take detours on our life’s road. As the poem so rightly puts it – “As way leads on to way, I doubted I should ever come back.”
Where it Bent in the Undergrowth
Where I started from is so far from where I am now, that an outsider would be left bewildered. But from the inside, my life’s journey has simply been way leading onto to way as I made the best decisions I knew out at every crossroads. Robert Frost really nailed this concept because it is everyone’s story.
In my case, simply because I have that one rebellious gene that just hates being told what to do and how to do it, I wandered off into interpretive quilting and creating my own designs. In other words, fabric art.
I will freely admit here that I get a real kick out of knowing that I have created something that is uniquely mine.
I deeply enjoy taking something that someone else has come up with, and figuring out a way to do it quicker, or easier, or cooler. J For instance, my girls needed a briefcase sort of bag to take to a conference, so I went to the quilt store and found 3 different patterns for:
- A diaper bag,
- A makeup bag
- And a classmate bag for pens and notions
Then I took aspects of all 3 and came up with the media bag that is featured in this website. The girls took it to their conference to test drive it and pronounced it “awesome”! I deeply enjoy doing this. I like to learn something new, like fractures, and then take it up another level or two.
Doubting that I Shall Ever Return
I would really like to encourage all of you to do the same, both in your lives and your quilting adventure.
If you’re going to live, live your own life the best you can, taking the road which is less traveled and, sometimes, much more difficult. Because, in the end, what’s in your heart will be in your life, and the roads you’ve traveled will lead you where you need to be, rather than where other people think you should be.
As another example, I have to say that I find much of the “modern” patterns, colors and material choices less than inspiring.
I particularly loathe the combination of the pale teal and anemic coffee brown that is all the rage nowadays. I also loathe the boring blocky shapes that they make out of everything – like strawberries and cats.
These colors and shapes really offend my sense of beauty.
You may have noticed that I lean towards bright colors, flowers, fantasy, and bling, so that’s what I sew. It helps a lot that Suzanna and Leiajoy think the same way I do and that Suzanna is the Queen of Bling. If you view much of our stuff, you will see that we are liberal in our use of “notions”. I love what they add to a project!
So, feel free to express your individuality fellow travelers. You’ll have a few wrecks, but many more successes!
“May the road ever rise to greet you”