The quilted heart

Birthday blues and pockets of light.

On the eve of my 34th birthday, I found a quilted heart. I was walking along a path through the woods, on the verge of a mental breakdown, when I spotted something fluttering at the edge of my vision. At first, I thought it was a leaf, one of thousands softly shimmering in the warm breeze. I strode past it like it was nothing and then instinctively turned back, Will strolling ahead of me, to get a closer look.

The heart was palm-sized, pale green on one side, and quilted with dark green and burgundy, almost Christmassy fabric on the reverse. It dangled from a nub on a tree by a loop of bright red ribbon sewn into where the heart’s two humps meet. Stitched along the border, a tag read: I Need A Home.

I glanced around to see if anyone else was coming. Almost certainly, the quilted heart was not meant for me but for some other wanderer, one more suited to the task. I, after all, was barely capable of tending my own heart: moments earlier, I’d been engaged in a barrage of negative self-talk, the kind of rambling vitriol that prompted Will to say, with care, “Do you hear what you’re saying to yourself? Do you hear it?”

I had heard it and felt like even more of a failure for being unable to stop the disparaging thoughts and words spouting from my mouth. Given the strides I’ve made in recent times toward self-love and acceptance, I especially felt ashamed. I knew better, yet I'd brushed Will off cooly and continued moving one mindless step after another, committed to being mean.

Until the quilted heart interrupted me.

I Need A Home, it silently petitioned.

“What kind of home?” my heart piped up. “We can be a home.”

Again I looked to see if anyone else was coming. Not a soul was in sight, save for a toad the size of a thumbnail, its skin as thin as the barrier between this world and the next. My mind must have still been preoccupied with analyzing my shortcomings; before it could protest, I reached out and plucked the quilted heart away from the tree at my heart’s persistent urging.

“There’s room,” it assured me.

I had no choice but to believe it.

I carried the quilted heart along the path until I found a clearing filled with light. Minuscule bugs clouded the air as I strung the heart from a branch and made several pictures, my negativity lessening with the advent of a task to focus on that wasn’t me.

In the distance, I heard the fizz of instruments being plugged into a PA system. The drone of an accordion struck me as atypical for the area, and I drifted toward the sound (quilted heart in tow) until I reached the riverbank. Behind a cluster of trees, I watched a troupe of circus performers and musicians rehearsing for a show. Their stage—a makeshift wooden raft—gently bobbed along the shoreline.

If I were a braver, hungrier photographer, I would have marched down to the water’s edge, introduced myself, and made pictures of the troupe with all their wild costumes and props. But alas, I am no such photographer or person, preferring instead to flex my courage in other, more subtle ways, such as taking responsibility for an inanimate object when I felt incapable of almost anything; permitting myself to soften, as I did into Will’s arms upon reuniting with him on the path; and putting another roll of film into my camera after I realized I’d made an error and all the frames I’d shot that day, every single one, was blank.

“Pockets of light,” I told Will as we circled back to where we started, my heart aching. “I’m looking for pockets of light.”

The morning of my birthday, I nearly choked to death on a sip of water. My chest heaved as I sputtered and spat, continuing to hack for several minutes after the initial event. By mid-afternoon, my chest muscles twinged with every movement—a combined strain from the coughing spree and the hours I’d spent crying earlier. So often, occasions such as birthdays and holidays deplete me before they’ve even commenced. The negativity I felt the day prior was, in my mind, connected to that anticipation. I woke up and quickly started to fret, tears pooling and spilling down my face. Even though I stayed home for the most part and didn’t have to socialize beyond my limits, the internalized pressure of the day left me feeling fragile and, thereby, more susceptible to self-generated pain.

“Today is a wet day for you,” Will said gently after I’d recovered from choking, eyes swollen and damp.

Being alive is a tenuous enterprise. In terms of physical form, as humans, it’s a wonder we’re even here. Because of the chest spasms, I was acutely aware of my heart (the organ) and kept placing my hand over it throughout the day. So little exists between my heart and the outside world. A bit of meat and bone is my only protection from possible death (impalement), yet I navigate the world and its dangers every second I’m alive. It’s insane! A drip of water goes down the wrong pipe, and suddenly, mortality feels closer than ever.

In much the same way, I’m not impenetrable to tenderness, which, if I’m feeling blue or standoffish, can be just as sharp and uncomfortable as a sword tip pointed against my breast. Excluding healthy boundaries, sometimes it feels bonkers to walk around without armor shielding my heart (the dream space), yet I know it’s the only way I’ll continue to survive.

Three of Swords by Pamela Colman Smith.

In the evening, I took the quilted heart back to the woods and made a few pictures near the river—a do-over of my previous outing. By then, I was in a better mood, though my chest still ached. The river circus performers were gone, all evidence of their activity blown away downstream. I found a pocket of light enclosed in green and let my hearts (all three of them) soak it up. Despite the feelings I’d been having, the magic of the quilted heart was not lost on me. It felt like a birthday present from the universe—an unseen force gently guiding me toward love and acceptance at a time when I needed them most. That another person made the heart and left it for someone (me) to find is yet another light source that continues to move me. Tenderness is everywhere, lest I ever forget. ✶

The quilted heart. August 2023.

Thank you for reading. If you would like more information about quilted hearts, go here. For more on the floating river circus, go here. 🎪