Does anyone remember samplers? I’ve written about them before but maybe not for you. (Who, then? it was an essay I wrote that has not yet been published. I’m about to cannibaliize it.)
Years ago I saved a cartoon and put it on my bulletin board. Picture an old woman stitching away viciously at her embroidery. She is making a sampler. I looked it up for you.
sampler noun 1 a piece of embroidery worked in various stitches as a specimen of skill, typically containing the alphabet and some mottoes.
Then I looked up some samples of modern sayings for samplers (or post-it notes). I offer one or two modern examples of sampler sayings:
“When work feels overwhelming remember that you’re going to die.”
“I do many things well, none of which generates income.”
Like right now. Just when I think I can begin to disseminate Wisdom, I end up with clichés and sampler truisms, none of which generate income.
Is that all there is? Well ,fashions change. The changes define and exacerbate the differences between three of my granddaughters and me. Without them, one of them in particular, I would never have known how much weight Daisy Ridley can bench press. I would never have known who Daisy Ridley is.
“Daisy Jazz Isobel Ridley is an English actress. She is best known for playing the lead role of Rey in the Star Wars sequel trilogy: The Force Awakens (2015), The Last Jedi (2017), and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), in which she rose to international prominence.” (Wikipedia)
There is more to life than Star Wars. People my granddaughters’s age don’t know that yet. They make me think of Mark Twain. I thought I knew what Twain said but I looked it up and he didn’t say it. (Learn something every day!) I thought he had commented on how much his old man had learned in the eight or so years it took Twain to grow up (mature? wiser?). It’s something we all must learn—humility, I guess—and must keep on learning.
When I was researching samplers for this essay I came across one I thought fitted my know-it-all granddaughter and I sent it to her. “I am fluent in sarcasm and movie quotes.”
She knew it already. Her response:
“Yeah, I've seen that before. A very apt description of my personal brand.”
But I haven’t told you about the bulletins my old lady stitched into her samplers. They’re all framed and hanging on the wall behind her.They read:
THE FOOD IS TERRIBLE
MY FEET HURT
THE KIDS DON’T CALL
Well, it could be worse