Stitches

“Mama, I don’t ever want to hike—ever—again!”

A mother held her young daughter in her arms, shushing her and rocking her back and forth. The daughter was about 8 years old, dressed in dark pink warmups from head to toe. The fabrics touching, polyester and nylon, mimicked the mother’s hushing. Moments before, the girl had been crawling on her hands and knees when she cracked her left shin on a rock. She was a few moments from the summit, but too short to see it. The mother, lost, exhausted, paused in the crevice as men, on their ways up and down the path, waited to pass them by.

The father, who had gone ahead, came back after some time wondering why they hadn’t made it up yet. He looked down, made a noise with his mouth signaling dissatisfaction, motioning with his hands that they should come up, “What took you so long?”

He offered a hand from above. The mother protested and waved off her husband.

“No,” she said. She was protective and annoyed. She rocked her daughter a few more times and carried her the rest of the way.

***

I got into my first car accident when I was 17 years old.

I was driving about 60 mph in the passing lane on a 5-lane road. The car one lane over to my right crashed into two parked cars that had pulled over earlier from their own accident. He careened into my lane, and the back of his car swung into the front passenger side of my car, pushing me into opposing traffic, activating my airbags, and totally wrecking my car. The engine was no longer revving. I steered back to the right side of traffic and slowly rolled to a stop fifty meters away.

The front half of the passenger side was crushed like an aluminum can. But I was okay. I walked away from that high-speed collision with a few bruises and a ringing in my ears.

Cars are designed with deforming materials in the front and rear parts to absorb damage and a rigid cage in the center to protect occupants.

That division of materials is called the crumple zone, and it’s why I survived.

***

A tear is always along the seams.

When two materials are being joined, use a thread that is weaker than the materials. If the thread is stronger than the materials, the materials themselves may break when placed under stress.

When a fabric tears into two, you can salvage the halves into new materials, or sew a new thread. Like trying to tape a torn photo back together, you cannot easily salvage half a cloth—or the image of half a face.