Almost 25 years in the hanging

THE TAPESTRY

8/86 is in the upper left hand corner. 12/94 is in the bottom right. That is how long it took my daughter to create this tapestry for me. It took me longer, almost 14 years, to get it hung.
I had it on a stretcher in Argeles, but there was no wall where it fit properly. The stretcher came off so I could bring it back to Geneva and I am still looking for someone to put it on another stretcher, but I refuse to wait any longer to have it up.
Now it is across from the bottom of my bed so it is the first thing I see when I wake in the morning.
There are twelve squares in two rows of six, one for each month of the year. My birth month has a water lily on a pad, and the same yellow flowers that were in my vase before I left Argeles. March has violets, my favourite flower. The month where important people in our lives have birthdays have their names enscribed in yarn: even my dog, Albert's name is noted. May is for Susan and iris. Some are no longer with us like my mother, one person has gone out of my life, another is important to Llara's childhood.
When I look at it I find my eyes moisten because in each stitch something else was going on in her life, my life, in our lives.
Part of the time she was pushing the needle through the fabric hundreds of times, deciding on colours, selecting the design we were under the same roof, an apartment on The Riverway in Boston. Part of the time we were in separate countries. During the period between the start of the tapestry and the finish, she went from Boston Latin to Mannheim University. I went from working at Digital to fulfilling my dream to work and live full time in Europe. Many of the evenings when the tapestry was only a couple of squares while she sewed, I was in my Riverway office alcove, a pretty yellow room, writing hoping against hope that someone, some day would publish me.
That tapestry has been in the US, Germany, Switzerland and France and back to Switzerland, travelling more than many people.
I adore you Llara.