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“Last night I dreamed I had a baby…

…I wasn’t raising her; my mother and siblings were.    I had no memory of being pregnant or giving birth,  but when I went to my family’s house, which was full of people I didn’t know, and saw her,  I knew she was mine.

When I picked her up, she looked at me, and her eyes sparkled so much that the sparkles hovered over her face like crystals. She smiled a knowing smile.  

As I looked at her, I saw a picture in my mind of her inside my body.   She told me she knew I was her mother, even though I had never seen her before. 

The baby radiated so much joy; I can still feel it now as I write this. I knew that the baby had come from me, but that she didn’t belong to me. She already seemed like her own person.

I didn’t want the baby,  but when I saw her and held her, I knew I could have cared for her if I had the chance.

But she was taken from me with my consent. My mother and siblings assumed I didn’t want her and wouldn’t have been able to take care of her.

I got angry and told my mother that I knew I was in debt to her for taking the baby, but that she should have asked me if I wanted her and not just assumed that I couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of her.

She didn’t reply, and I left the house thinking that, at least now, the baby would have lots of mothers, not just one.

The baby had a presence about her,  as if she was a wise woman already. 

The house was in a city, and when I left it, I looked down a side street I’d never been before. Up to that point, I never ventured off the main street because I was afraid of getting lost. But now I walked down the side street, which was filled with small shops and restaurants, no longer afraid.

I know this dream came from the quilt I started making yesterday.

It’s as if starting the quilt opened up something inside of me. I’m not surprised; my art often tells me about myself and gives me insights.  nd I’ve come to see, through sharing my art on my blog, that my ideas are more universal than I would have thought.

What I got from this dream is how my feelings of self-worth and incompetence come from the people I grew up around.  They believed they knew me, but in reality, I had hidden myself (much as Julia Alvarez writes about in her poem The Accident) from them to protect myself.

In my dream, I was able (as I wasn’t in life) to confront my mother and tell her that I was angry about what had happened.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t respond.   What mattered was that I could let her know how I felt without fearing I’d hurt her feelings or make her angry at me.

I knew the baby was safe; she was already her own person and wiser than I’d ever be.  It was because of the baby, of who she was and that she had come from me, that I was able to speak my truth.   was able to leave the house feeling more secure and confident than I had ever felt before.

I think of the fabric I used to begin this quilt, how it had been put aside for so many years.  When I brought it back into the world, it came out of hiding.

Just like Julia Alvarez writes in her poem about becoming “the woman she kept to herself.  he had to hide who she was from her family; they didn’t want to know, didn’t like who she really was.  But she didn’t give that person away, or forget about them.  He came out when it was safe for her to show herself.

I never wanted to have children, but I do sometimes dream I have a baby who I have forgotten about.   always think of that baby as a symbol of my art.  Now I put it aside for so many years until I could dedicate myself to it.

It seems to me that this dream is a continuation of those dreams.  Only now can I stand up for myself and see that this being, born from me like my art, affirms who I really am and the joy I feel in being true to myself.

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This quilt is just underway, not finished: [email protected].

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