The P Word

A title that gets attention...it reminds me of sitting in a journalism class, circa 1987, my mind wondering, as it is wont to do. The day that comes to mind is a Thursday, just before Thanksgiving. I was resenting this 75 minute class. Boredom washed the entire south end of the campus into a bad gray; gray that looked perfect on the bolt, but then manages the icky, dead on arrival green cast the moment it hits the cutting table.

I felt the need to be back in my dorm room, cutting and pinning and planning. I'd decided I didn't have room for my sewing machine and it remained, at the ready, back home. The pile of things cut and pinned had grown like weeds. It was all going home for a marathon sewing session. I didn't really like the idea of no sewing machine, but it was a concession to practicality and to physics: the law of conservation of matter indicated nothing else could make it's way into the dorm room. I couldn't argue with the law of conservation of matter. The only known loop hole in the law regards atomic chain reactions. My New Home 920 wasn't nuclear, still isn't. So much for the loop hole.

I missed sewing. It would have been the perfect foil to Rugby practice. Better still, when the urge, the inspiration, the moment occurred, I could flip the switch, press the foot control, and set set the machine that moves imagination to reality into motion. But the space issue was a big one...the space small, the stereo was not...who remembers the rack systems with the 300 watt speakers and five or six "components". Having no sewing machine was one thing, having no stereo was impossible. I took pride in my stereo and the ability contained therein to shake the dorm with Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Vivaldi, The Smiths, or, if I really felt devious, the album of George Jones and Tammy Wynette...their greatest hits, no less.

The class finally ended. In the fifteen minutes I had to make it across campus to Non-Euclidian Geometry, with the professor who didn't believe in an attendence policy, I made my way to the dorm, changed clothes, and went for a run. Perfect day for a run. Me, thoughts of pinning and planning, and the English Beat in my cassette Walkman making our way. Not running to, not running from, just running, just getting the rush, just shaking off the boredom.

Halfway into the journey, I cut through a side street, into this great old neighboorhood, the kind of neighboorhood where the trees lining the streets overarch. I love that way that looks in the late fall, the trees, just bare and stippling the sky. I'm looking at the sky as I nearly run into a pile of junk spilling forth from the driveway of the house beside me. Then I saw it. It looked like a sewing machine case, 50's era, hardsided, with the leather handle afixed to the top, the toggles on hold the base and the lid together at the sides. Naturally, I'm looking into this.

I opened the case and died laughing. I reached for the handwheel, it turned. The presser foot moved, the feed dogs barked, the manual, the box containing the attachemts, all there. A Greist buttonholer with not just the four feet that came with it, but additional feet, including the "new" eyelet template. God looks after children and fools. I was nineteen. You, kind reader, may decide on that score.

So, halfway through my run I'm now running-ish with a Morse "Lightweight" - 30 pounds with case, but the price you pay for all metal gears - sewing machine in it's case. I'm thinking about what fun this is going to be. The machine was nearly thrown in front of me. It was clearly meant to be. The space issue, hmm, that's tricky, but I'm not accepting the oppression of issues like that, not while I'm running-ish down the street carrying a sewing machine. I kept laughing. It was ridiculous. It was such an endorphin rush. People watching me at intersections, wondering what was in the box. I just laughed. It was all coming together in my head. This machine was perfect for me. It suited who I was: this 6'4" guy with shoulders as wide as a seat and half in coach class, running down the street with a sewing machine, thinking of the rugby jersey that needed the sleeve cap reattached and the pile of planning and pinning and the thrill of rescuing this Morse "Lightweight" - no one knew what to do with it, so they sent it out into the world. I knew what to do with it. I would make people wonder. People have a hard time fitting me into a category. I would name the machine Enigma. And Enigma would do his part to perpetuate the wonder. Enigma was vivid lilac PINK.