Mandalas

I looked at the fabric in front of me. My scissors were poised to cut around the first pattern piece, and I hesitated for the slightest moment before pressing the blades together and enjoying the sound of metal transforming cloth. The precise ripping snip told the story – there was no turning back now. As excited as I was, the journey to the first cut was a lot like the rest of my life, and included adventure, self-doubt, and overthinking everything.

The shop was located on the Rue du Champs de Mars in Paris. We found it quite by chance on our way from the area around the Eiffel Tower to a small bistro where we had reservations for dinner. “We” included my mother, a good friend, and her mother – on a mother/daughter adventure. We are all interested in sewing, so any shop with fabric in the window caught our eyes.

Mandalas was a tiny shop, no more that fifteen feet or so wide. Bright colors abounded on every surface, and while the beautiful, gemstone jewelry and home goods were carefully curated, it was the fabric that really showcased the vibrancy of the shop. Whether flat fabrics pieces, pillow covers, or carefully crafted garments, Mandalas has a lot of special objects in a small space.

As you can imagine, making a choice in such a place is difficult, especially with looming dinner reservations dictating your time. The language barrier might have also been a concern, except that the proprietress spoke fluent French and English in addition to her native dialect in India. She proudly showed us a video that demonstrates how her father supervised the factory in Indian where the block printing is manually done. Each color in a pattern requires a wooden block to be made for the print design, with color applied separately after drying time in-between.

The fabric itself was an Indian cotton that was soft, light, breathable and had a delectable softness. I chose a pristine white cotton with a circular blue block printing, and told myself that I would let the fabric tell me what it wanted to be. The two-meter square piece should suffice for whatever I would decide later.

That was in October of 2019. I came home, got involved in end-of-the-year and holiday events, so I forgot about the fabric, and it stayed inside the bag from Mandalas in my sewing room. Next thing I knew, it was my birthday in 2020, which happened three days before everything went into a global pandemic lock-down. While the state of the world and the unpredictability of everything might have thrown me into a full-blown panic, the truth was that I did not mind hitting the pause button on my life.

I returned to my sewing machine and had time to dream about what to do with that fabric. As someone who has worked constantly on losing weight, trying to keep off weight, and failing repeatedly, I was afraid to touch this fabric. Surely something this special should be saved until I was at an ideal weight. Funny how the seemingly smallest decision can carry with it a lifetime of self-confidence issues and doubt.

The more I worked my way through mending that had piled up, hemming pants, and applying patches, the more I realized that I was angry at myself for not doing something with my Mandalas fabric. But I was not angry because I wasn’t the ideal weight to make something for me to wear. I was angry that I was still allowing myself, at the age of 58, to feel unworthy. I was tired of waiting for the right weight, the right time, to lose 20 more pounds – all so that I would feel like I wasn’t wasting something of value.

Maybe it was a lifetime of reading self-help books or posting inspirational notes all over my work-from-home desktop. Maybe I was just tired of more than 40 years of being so self-critical. Whether it was psychological evolution or exhaustion, I took out my favorite shirt pattern and started planning.

By the time I had the pattern pieces laid out, I was buzzing with the anticipation of transforming this fabric into a memory that I could wear. I proceeded carefully through every step of sewing and figured out that I could wear something that fit my body and made me feel amazing. Maybe I felt more confident wearing it because I knew how hard I fought mentally to feel deserving.

Every time I wear that shirt now, I feel more like myself than in any other piece I own. The weight and softness of the fabric are sculpted into a flowy summer top that perfectly fits its personality, and mine. The size no longer matters to me, except that it fits exactly right. From its humble beginnings in India, through a Paris shop on the Rue du Champs de Mars, to my sewing room in Indiana, this fabric has become a reminder that striving for perfection is all well and good, but not at the expense of really living your life and enjoying the unique gifts it gives you.

More important than reviving my love of sewing, it has given me a new perspective on myself. And while I have not given up on improving my health, I am no longer relinquishing my current happiness for the promise of whatever tomorrow brings. A mandala is a Buddhist symbol that appears in a dream and represents a search for completeness and self-unity. It is a lot of meaning, perhaps, for one shirt, but it has become my own dream symbol for what I want for myself from this point forward.