Spheres of Influence

Like most women, I have shopped, cooked, sewed, kept house, given intimate care, and sought spheres of influence among kith and kin, friend and foe, to make my place in the world. My life has not flowed smoothly like pink cake frosting out of a piping bag, nor has it unfolded like shimmering cloth off of a bolt with only minor thumps and flaps, my reality has been a quilting of spheres in the world, patched together with ends that never quite met, from hard tasks here, difficult words there, and fragile bonds in the right places, or not. The memory of how I created my quilt of spheres is bittersweet, but the work I put into it keeps me warm in the winter of my final age.

Caption: Quilted Spheres by Annmarie Throckmorton, 2017.