Dyed-In-The-Wool

“You must be the only Albertan who knows where Fermoy is!”

I remembered her words as I turned down an old road that at some point in the last five decades had acquired a name and a road sign. This was surely the last place I expected to be when I set out to sell my stash of fine wool for traditional rug hooking. The irony of the whole operation just kept getting richer and richer as I passed the sign to the Christian camp where I had first met my ex-husband, 49 years ago. I didn’t turn off there…this time. I was going to have to go a little further down this road to sell that wool. And that’s why I was here…this time.

I managed to find her elegant home set up from the lake on the Canadian Shield of granite and limestone that runs through my soul the way it runs through my country. Bags of wool to sell unloaded along with the old cutter on which I sought her opinion, I made my way to the porch pretty much like any other door-to-door salesperson.

She was warm and gracious, as most fine crafters are, leading me to her enclosed porch where I spread out my wool on her long table, trying not to feel anything but pleasure at the colours. In seeing how I handled it with care and clearly “knew my wool” she finally asked “Why are you selling this?”

I took a breath and told her. “A little over 10 years ago I ended up with C-PTSD and I lost my ability to do many things. I worked really hard to recover everything from reading to playing the piano to quilting to writing, and more. I gave myself ten years. After that, I would determine what was gone and I needed to let go, so that I could keep going forward. Hooking was one of the last crafts I learned, and even though it’s simple, I never could get it to ‘click’ again. I believe I will be happier knowing someone else is using these wonderful colours, with me recovering some of my financial investment.”

I thought I had done pretty well. She listened and just started going through it, clearly admiring it. In the end she paid me 30% of its retail value, which is all she would pay for new wool she chose herself. I understood that. We agreed on the price. She bought all of it. It was already worth the trip. Then she looked at my cutter, letting me know it was worth 4 times what I had thought and telling me she would put my contact information in her blog and let her readers know I had one for sale. So that was a bonus round.

At the door, she asked me how I knew this road from Fermoy. I told her I worked many summers in the 70’s at the camp down the road. She was delighted to know that and told me she sometimes did workshops there. I told her I had married and divorced the stepson of the man who started the camp. She was very kind in her presence, and if it weren’t for the pandemic (we both wore masks the whole time) and social distancing I think she would have wrapped me up in her arms for a big hug. Instead we just said good-bye and waved.

Driving back down the old road, I passed the camp sign again, and kept going. I just kept going. That’s what I’ve been doing since discovering my ex-husband took every marriage vow he made and over 30 years perverted its meaning into the cruelest promise of violation possible.

I’ve been “keeping going” for over ten years, putting one foot in front of the other, holding onto my entrails as they spilled out into the street and stuffing my shredded heart back down my throat for some damn hard swallows. I’ve been refusing to die and refusing to kill myself and refusing to be bullied by the colluding abusers of the treatment industry into handing over my soul so they could sell it to someone else for 30% of its retail value. 

I’ve kept going, working hard to save my life, salvage some of my life’s shining glory, and glue-gun it back onto something that resembles me enough not to scare me in the morning. I’ve been mothering grown sons who knew all the time I was the only one they could count on. Then, as they reeled from the now unavoidable truth that their father was relatively useless and untrustworthy, they punished me for a few years because they knew I would not stop being their mother while they worked this through. And they did—work it through. I’ve kept going. I’ve been scratching the dirt to pay my bills and start over financially, and in the midst of being a “human crash site” attracted a wonderful man who is kind and true and kisses me like I’ve never been kissed before. I’ve kept going.

And so, here I am. Steadfast enough to let my wool go for the cash I need and closure I seek. Steadfast enough to drive down the same road where it all began 50 years ago and not veer head-on into an old maple. Steadfast enough to tell my children the truth and let them hate me for a while but believe in them more than that. Steadfast enough to laugh with someone who makes my heart vulnerable again and choose love just because loving is worth it after all. Steadfast enough to tell you my stories because I know you need me to tell them in order for you to pick yourself up again and live your life, too. Steadfast enough to cry long and hard about my beautiful wool, my first hope for love now gone, my dream of family life fractured, and the sorrow I will always keep to affirm how true I was while he lied.

I am dyed in the wool—a steadfast soul. I’m steadfast in believing that my life is precious and should never be sacrificed on the altar of abuse. I came close to losing myself, but in the midst of crippling self-doubts, something told me not to accept anything less that the full value of “me.” I held on to my life. I kept going.

What is “steadfast” within you? When family and friends look back at this hideous time in your life what is the core value they will see through all the lies and confusion and suffering? Where are you “dyed in the wool?”

When I was just a young girl, we would sing the hymn “How firm a foundation” regularly in our little United Church. And I remember I would tremble with the truth that was already in me as I sang the last lines of the last verse, my voice cracking with emotion: That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake, I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.

What great truth trembles inside you? What will you never, no, never, no, never forsake? That’s the one thing that will help you pack up the parts of your life that will be left behind because they are meant now for leaving behind. That’s the one thing that will help you press on down a familiar road that now leads somewhere new.

It’s there. That trembling dyed-in-the woolness truth of you. Let it speak.

With you,

Diane.

P.S. My Fermoy wool buyer emailed me today to say she has a friend interested in my cutter. Total bonus round x2.