Reading, The Red Tent and What We Pass On

A box of yarn under the lights of the christmas treeMy professional life is currently in flux–the sort of uncertainty that could lead to something really good, really bad or just very different. I’ve been waiting for The Call, not sleeping, picking at my cuticles obsessively and trying to soothe my stressed-out brain.

I’ve been teaching myself to crochet, a Knit Picks box filled with wool sitting next to my feet like a box of comfort. I’ve been reading mysteries where Bad Things Happen but everything is okay in the end. I’ve been reading schmaltzy holiday romance trimmed in LED lights and tinsel and spiked liberally with eggnog.

The Red Tent
A | BN | K | AB
As I was crocheting my fingers blue the other day, I started watching the Lifetime miniseries The Red Tent. Now, I’ve never read the book (although I want to now). I am also not familiar with Old Testament Bible stories. My experience with the Bible came from going to church with a friend. This was a place where Jesus was blond and blue-eyed, people had out-of-body religious experiences, and in youth group we watched an animated film on why Mormons were going to hell (I am not making this up. I told my mom about the movie and I wasn’t allowed to go back).

So I was totally unfamiliar with Dinah and Jacob and Joseph (hey, isn’t that the technicolor dream coat?). What I took away from the miniseries–other than Dinah’s brothers fuck everything up for everyone–was the importance of what women pass down to each other.

In the show this happens within the confines of the red tent, a woman-only zone where friendship and wisdom and stories are shared. Dinah learns to be a midwife, and a very skilled one, from her aunt Rachel. She worships “old gods” and learns ancient traditions from her mothers, traditions and worship that stay hidden from her father and brothers. For Dinah the red tent is a sanctuary and a school and a home.

As I watched, I reflected on the fact that my mother passed her love of reading and knitting on to me. I remember when I was child, I would watch my mother curl up with a book in the evening or on a lazy Saturday. She would be in her bathrobe, which always smelled like her soap, a scent I associate with warmth and safety, sitting on the couch with her legs tucked under her. I remember how she could be so absorbed in her reading. As a kid I liked reading, but I hadn’t yet experienced that totally immersive way a book could suck you in yet. Reading was more of an accomplishment thing–look, I read all these books! Now I get my free personal pan pizza and my Land Before Time puppet!

When I was older, about middle school, my mom let me read some of her books, and I felt like she was giving me a key to a totally secret world. I gobbled up all the Kinsey Milhone mysteries by Sue Grafton. I read Michael Crichton books. I devoured Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney.

I finally understood where my mom went when she got that faraway look in her eyes when she was reading. I understood now how you could be here and there all at once. I spent Saturday mornings with her, curled up on the couch, not really talking but sharing the same experience.

Later, when I was facing the first real hardships of my young life–my parents’ divorce, my father’s remarriage, my first experiences with insecurity and bullying–I turned to reading to escape. I started reading books that took me even farther away, to fantasy worlds and to outer space. I would steal an hour of reading during study hall, needing that escape like an oasis, as I struggled through adolescence.

My mother and aunt taught me to knit, and now to crochet, too. Over Thanksgiving, we sat in a room full of yarn, laughing and sharing stories. I didn’t actually learn anything because it wasn’t so much about the actual crafting as it was about being together. My sister, who breaks out in hives at the thought of doing something crafty, sat with us, sorting through colors of yarn, telling us stories about her job.

I think of the things I’ve learned over a skein of yarn and a cup of tea. While my fingers twitched and twisted a scarf into existence, my mother told me stories about the men she dated before my father, about my grandparents, about experiences she had that I never knew about when I was a child. Recently as I crocheted a hat, my motions agitated and staccato, she told me about how she moved halfway across the country for her job once. She told me how she navigated a new city, new community, new life on her own, away from her support system. She told me that she’d done this before me, and it was going to be fine.

When I talk to women about reading romance, and about knitting, I often hear that books and yarn were passed along by mothers, aunts, grandmothers or female friends. I think there’s something remarkable about that, about our shared history through our hobbies. This is our tent. We aren’t passing along favorite authors or techniques for casting on though: we’re passing along comfort, community, and a sense of strength.

My cuticles have seen better days, but I know I’m going to be fine. I also know that wherever I land, I’ll have a box of yarn at my feet and a book by my side.

The holidays can be stressful and challenging for some as much as they are warm and welcoming for others, so wherever you are this holiday season, I hope you have the warmth and safety of the people who love you, and the tent of your community, whether that’s one you’re born to, or one you’ve made. And if you’d like to share what you’ve learned, what has been passed down to you in your own community, I’d love to hear it.

 

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  1. I remember that feeling of being let into a secret community – almost a rite of passage – when my mother passed her old books down to me. They weren’t romance, and I rarely saw my mother read, but she’d hoarded her childhood books for the moment she could pass them along. I regret that I read and then moved on from the books she gave me, but now I’m older I’ve found myself trying to find those books again. I just rebought ‘Henrietta’s House’ by Elizabeth Goudge, reread it and then passed it on to my own eldest daughter. Shared books are shared memories.

    And, Elyse, it will all be all right. In the end. My very best wishes to you for your future.

  2. kkw says:

    My love of reading comes from my dad, whose favorite advice was probably ‘fuck em if they can’t take a joke’ but ‘I never met a drug I didn’t like’ comes a close second. My love of knitting comes from my grandmother, who also tried to pass on such gems as ‘pretend to be less smart so boys will like you’ and a general obsession with getting married and staying that way. My brother has claimed if we had a family motto it would be lower your expectations and drink more. So I love knitting, and my family, don’t get me wrong, but being stuck in a tent imbibing their wisdom sounds positively hellish.

  3. Vicki says:

    My love of reading also comes from my father along with my obsession with work – he would do house calls all night until, at times, he fell asleep at a red light and the police would bring him home. What my mother passed on, and I thank her for it, was her desire to be less abusive with her children than her parents had been with theirs.

  4. Melissa says:

    My mom used to buy my siblings and I children’s books and read to us almost every night. I grew up thinking a love of reading was natural in everyone. I learned later on how dear those books were to our family expenses, but my mother made sure to find us something new every month (libraries are neithr common nor well stocked on my part of the earth). I think what I got from that wasn’t just a love of reading, but a love of stories, especially those of the people around me. When you’re a child, the world and everyone in it exists for as long as you have. And I suppose in my culture, no one really asks either. The more I learned about the history of each elder member of my family, or anyone else, was a revelation and an insight into someone completely foreign. It’s great.

    By the way, super coincidentally, I just spent the last hour before this trying to google the histories and motivations of Delilah and Bathsheba, because I started wondering about their bad rap. Purely based on tbe Bible, though, they may as well have been sexy lamps. Can anyone recommend any fiction or non-fiction about their lives or of any Biblical women like them?

  5. Cynthia says:

    Thank you for such a wonderful post. It warms my heart to be reminded of the shared experiences with the women in our lives, be they best friends, moms, aunts or sisters. I am thankful for my tent!!!

  6. Darlynne says:

    Our tents may not be red or even tents, but I share the same sense about being women and daughters, part of a female group, and how we learn.

    Thanksgiving was always “our” holiday and 30+ relatives would crowd into our apartment. The best place to be was the kitchen with my mother and her four sisters. We listened, we talked, we learned by observing, and those traditions and ideas color so much of what my sister and I do today.

    At the end of every day, Mom would sit quietly in the living room, the smoke from her one-a-day cigarette curling up into the light from the lamp beside her, her bible and Upper Room open on her lap. This was my first experience and recognition of peace, where I came to understand that “all shall be well” was real.

    I am reminded of a verse that talks about how we always wish people well, when instead we should wish for whatever will most beautifully shape their soul. That’s my wish for all of us.

  7. Crysta says:

    Wow, Elyse, that was lovely!

    And I laughed out loud (in the dentist office) at the shout out to Book-it! Nothing like a giant button filled with star stickers to prove my worth.

    Much love.

  8. LauraL says:

    I don’t knit or crochet, but I can take care of the garden outside of the tent! My grandmothers were avid gardeners and so much was passed on to me that it is simply internalized. My mother and mother-in-law and their friends crocheted like fiends but it didn’t rub off on me. My Mom passed along a love of reading even though we didn’t always like the same books.

    As someone who was waiting for The Call this past July, Elyse, I know of what you are feeling. I took a leap with my career and my life today is better for it. My wish is that your leap turns out for the best, too.

  9. cleo says:

    This is timely. I’m going through a really rough time right now – both professionally and emotionally. And I’m also dealing with the fact that my mom can’t give me what I want/need right now.

    She’s given me many wonderful things, including a love of reading and teaching me how to sew – those gifts are helping me through this tough time and I’m grateful for that. But I had to get out of that claustrophobic red tent, where we all sat around with our books and our handwork, pretending that everything’s fine, with our best fake smiles in place, never admitting to any deeper emotions or serious problems. Gah.

  10. Mullgirl says:

    A timely post. I have an 11 year old and we were just this weekend talking about the idea of how when she is grown she will take what she loved about experiences and things I taught her and cherish them–and she will likely have colored lights on the christmas tree because I have white because my parents had colored ones and I hated them 😉 We talked about how my mother doesn’t sew, crochet, knit, cook etc. all likely because she grew up very poor and had to make her clothes and do all things domestic because it helped contribute to the family’s bottom line. She doesn’t own a needle now and eats what someone else cooks, frozen or take out. I had a strong desire to learn how to make things with my hands, so I taught myself. And now I teach my daughter. Sometimes you get to start your own new tradition.

  11. JacquiC says:

    Awesome post!! I get my love of reading from both my parents, though my tastes are much too “lowbrow” for them (sigh). I get my love of knitting partly from my mom, who doesn’t knit anymore but mostly from my grandma. And my love of other crafts and gardening from my other grandmother. I have sons, not daughters, but am trying to instil in them my love of the outdoors, and of craft in general.

    Hope your “Call” comes and that all turns out well. Happy holidays!

  12. EC Spurlock says:

    I never had a tent.

    I grew up in a household of largely women (one grandmother, one mother, one sister and two maiden aunts) who passed along the passion to sew, crochet, paint, craft, cook, sing,and read. They also passed along a crippling familial/inherited mental illness that ranged from OCD to depression to agoraphobia. I grew up hearing that I was never quite good enough, that I would never make anything of myself, that everyone is out to get us, that our family had nothing but bad luck and there was no way to escape it. But the one thing they did pass down to me was the one thing none of them ever recognized about themselves: Their incredible strength. The strength that enabled my grandmother to come to a strange country by herself at age 15, make a life for herself,raise six children through the depths of the Great Depression, and survive the murder of one of those children at a young age. The strength that enabled my mother to start life over after a wartime accident took off the fingers of one of her hands, and still raise two children, run a household, hold down a demanding factory job, win crochet competitions, and create new crafts every day until she died.

    I live in a household of men now, and my women friends are all too far away to gather with. My tent, such as it is, is the Internet. But that strength has gotten me through two moves into unknown territory and some difficult times. I try to keep the nagging little not-good-enough voices out of my head, and pass the good things – the passion, the strength, the courage, the imagination, the knowledge of who you are and where you come from – down to my sons. And whenever I make pascha or pierogies, I still see my grandmother’s hands kneading the dough.

  13. lindleepw says:

    @Melissa I read your question about Delilah and Bathsheba and the first book that popped in my head was “Bad Girls of the Bible” by Liz Curtis Higgs. I’ve actually never read it but I’ve always heard really good things about it. I would definitely check it out. Delilah is in this book. Bathsheba is in “Really Bad Girls of the Bible.”

  14. I feel ya, Elyse. I, too, am waiting for The Call. I also acknowledge that it’s not going to happen until January, as everyone shuts down for Christmas.

    So I am crocheting a scarf as a gift for a friend. It’s taking a long time as it’s a Doctor Who scarf. They’re awfully long, but the Merino wool is nice.

    It’s doing my poor frazzled authorial psyche some good.

    I never got the whole “other religions are going to hell” attitude of some faiths, as my faith taught that not only Mormons are going to heaven, but pretty much any human who behaves themselves well. I also wonder if those faiths who think Mormons are evil secretly fear the Mormons’ subtle yet rampant First Wave feminism.

    We all need red tents.

  15. Karin says:

    Thanks for that beautiful reminder, Elyse. My mother died of cancer when I was 16, but you brought back some great memories of things we used to do together. I learned a lot of cooking and baking techniques from her. She used to make about 10 different varies of Christmas cookies and also did some fancy baking. She also taught me how to knit. I was inspired to start knitting again by your patterns here, after many many years away from it. And when I picked up the needles, my hands automatically arranged the yarn and needles into the proper position to cast on the way my mother taught me(which is not like any of the cast-on videos I’ve seen, I guess it’s a European way).
    It was my grandmother who taught me how to crochet; actually it was tatting, she used to make those lace doilies. And she taught me how to use a sewing machine, on an old treadle machine which I still have. My mother, like @Mullgirl’s, hated to sew at home because she did it for a living, working in a garment factory. But on the rare occasions when she picked up a needle, like just to put a button on, I was impressed by the way she could knot the end of the thread one-handed. I never quite figured out that technique.

  16. There aren’t very many things that I’ve gotten from someone in my family as I’m not very like any of them. The only thing I can think of is that my taste in music come from my parents and my aunt. When most of my friends were blasting Biggie, I was listening to the Beatles, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Elton John, the Eagles, Billy Joel, and Meatloaf. Even now, I tend to listen to more classic rock and oldies than I do current pop/rock. Thankfully, my peers all think that’s cool compared to the kids at school who made fun of me for dancing to Staying Alive and Tainted Love with the chaperones at the school dances. (God forbid they saw me actually singing along to these songs.)

    The funny thing is that I’m still teaching people about the classics. I had a bunch of my coworkers listening to Country Joe and the Fish’s performance of the I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag from Woodstock because they’d never heard of it. Then, we were all aghast at the fact that my 22 year old manager did not know who Eric Clapton was. Sigh.

  17. sarita says:

    It was my father who got me into reading, and straight into nerd-dom by starting me off with Tolkien and D&D at the tender age of six-ish. My mom got me into jewelery making and long conversations on long walks. Between them they taught me to value human connection and to delight in the beauty of physical objects, from rocks to tea tins. I see their frailties and mistakes now in a way I didn’t as a child, but I remain grateful.

  18. Maggie Gean says:

    i read The Red Tent, more than once and loved the book, and I read some of it with the pages clipped open so I could knit and read. I learned to sew, knit, crochet, cook, garden from my grandmother, mother, a friend’s mother, that circle of women helped me build a strong foundation that has held me through many rough times

  19. Kilian Metcalf says:

    I loved The Red Tent. It wasn’t until this week listening to the readings in Temple that I realized why it is so important that Dinah’s daughter becomes Joseph’s wife. Without a Jewish wife/mother to his children, his children Ephraim and Manasseh wouldn’t have been Jewish, much less heads of two of the 12 tribes.

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