First step.

A sewing blog begins.  Late.  My name is Pam.  Map to some.  And I am a sewing aficionado

Why start now? It is a question I must answer for myself.  I seem to be at the end of a great odyssey – of raising a family and of worldwide travels, of setting up house over and over, of finding community and work about a dozen times in the past two 30 years. Now I endeavor to find community and work to last. My husband and I have bought a house and begun to settle into St. Petersburg, Florida.  Not where I would have expected to end up, but every day brings more confirmation that this is a good place to be.

In the past, I did not reflect much while in the throes of raising three children and never put great effort into recording our family’s history, my history.  Much of this resistance I attribute to the fact my own history was not a very happy one.  My early life was marked by the dysfunction and substance abuse of my parents.  Going a million miles an hour, finding another place, surviving in foreign countries, felt more comfortable and helped me put distance and distinction between the then and now.  But in all honesty, it didn’t keep out the past. 

The struggle was ongoing, but I have travelled far and far from those people and that toxicity. But, in truth, reflection was missing.  Emotional inventories would have helped.  That mindfulness thing is so important. 

So starting now, I am writing here at Sewn on the Map to do those reflections within the contours of stitchery and home rehab and discoveries in a small coastal city in the South.  Newly landed and still without our furniture, there is disarray, and this is the process of putting things back together.  Dear readers, sewists most of all, the endeavor is to obtain a good fit.  And fit is all about honesty and finding the real contours of the self.  A metaphor for mental health if ever there was one. 

Launching, needle in hand.