Thursday, May 15, 2014

“Friend me,” “Like me,” “Follow me,” “Circle me”

friendship quilt w wm

As I was passing through one of my guest bedrooms this morning, this quilt caught my eye. Quilters, or even people in my age group who are not quilters, will recognize this as a “Friendship Quilt.” My mother gave it to me several years ago, along with a note she had written about the quilt.

Mother's writing about friendship quilt

It is one of my prized possessions, handmade by my maternal grandmother. I well remember seeing my Mamo Eubanks working on quilts (as well as crocheting and knitting), and I even remember knowing some of the people whose names are on the quilt (from my very young childhood). I recall that Mamo was a part of a group of ladies, called a “circle,” in her little town of Blue Eye, MO/AR (on the state line). They would often sell their wares at an event called a “bazaar,” a fund-raising event for the church or community, I believe.

I have thought that maybe someday (when I’m older—LOL) I might learn to quilt, but it would need to be hand-sewn quilts, not machine-made.

As I left the bedroom this morning, I was overwhelmed by thoughts about friendship. Real friendship. I was thinking of the kind of friendship where you truly had a “circle” of real friends, friends who would sit together for an afternoon and “craft” together, if you will. Real friends who would each embroider a “block” that would be a forever-part of your quilt. It’s an amazing thought, and it makes me sad.

I’m sad that we have, to some extent, lost the meaning (or maybe lost the understanding of the significance) of that kind of friendship. Maybe it’s not lost, but it has certainly been “overtaken” by more “modern” connotations. We want people to “friend” us and “like” us, and “follow” us, and even “circle” us, and it doesn’t even seem to matter if those people are “real-life” friends or not—let’s just count the number—how many “friends,” how many “likes,” how many “followers,” how many in my “circle.”

Similarly to most everyone else, I’m on all those social media sites. My total philosophy about the dangers of social media has been and will be outlined in other blog posts. That “soapbox” is not my purpose here.

I just wanted to take a moment and revel in some of the wonderfulness about “the old timey-times.” And I wanted to say that I’m glad my grandmother’s Friendship Quilt served to remind me this morning about the value of true and real friendship—the kind where you can have true and real “facetime.” I hope we will remind our children and grandchildren about how it used to be….not that I would want to go back, because those times certainly had their disadvantages. But maybe we should remember the good things of “how it used to be.”

1 comment:

Florina said...

très joli récit sur l'amitié . jolie couverture d'amitié de votre grand mère. cette couverture est précieuse . merci du partage :)