`Keep your heart clean…` Sevgul Uludag Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436 At a very early age, my mother would learn to sew her own dresses, knit her own sweaters, embroider the collars of her shirts… She would learn these from her big sisters or her cousin Ulufer. Ulufer's sister, Tomris was a hat maker and my mother would learn a few things from her as well, making me beautiful hats when I was a child for my dancing ceremonies on Children's Day. I would grow up surrounded with fabrics like cotton, velvet, thick woolen fabrics for coats, fake furs to put around the collars, knitting yarn to make sweaters, threads of different colors, beads and shiny sequins to embroider elaborate flowers on dresses, tin boxes of tea filled with different colored buttons… If she was `recycling` a dress, she would cut the buttons and put them in these tin boxes of Hornimans' Tea and if one of the children of my sister came to us, she would give her the boxes of buttons to build trains or dogs or cats, showing the child how to do it. Buttons were very important to her and we had buttons in Hornimans' Tea Boxes shiny like diamonds, wavy like the seas, buttons with tiny flowers painted on them, brass buttons, white buttons for shirts, pretty red buttons for velvet dresses she would sew, big buttons and tiny buttons… So when she was sewing, she would always check these tea boxes to see if there were enough buttons for the dress or nightgown she was making. We also had different colors of `kurdella` to put at the collars or hems of dresses… My uncles from London would sometimes bring her thread or some fabrics and she would be so happy while planning what to do with it… She had sewn her own wedding dress as well as my sister's, embroidering lovely flowers with sequins on it – she had designed it herself and my sister looked very pretty in it. I was a little bridesmaid with a pink gown that she had sewn and I would wear this, standing next to my sister at her wedding. I was only 3 or 4 years old – we have a difference of 14 years between my sister and me and I remember `La Comparsita` playing while my beautiful sister danced with the groom… There were never any nylon bags in those times – everything would be kept in either brown paper bags or bags she would make out of different fabrics. The traditional trahana, the molihiya, the rice and bulgur would all be kept in cloth bags tied tightly so no bugs would get in… Even the unused clothes would be wrapped in sheets and then put in chests. She valued fabrics, any fabric, even the smallest piece she would keep in case she would need it one day. When she would sew a dress or have a seamstress sew her something, she would keep a piece of the fabric, in case one day, she would need to mend that dress… And many times she was proven right: If some minor accident happened and a spot on the dress got burned or stained, she would mend it with the fabric she had kept. If there was a stain at the front of her shirt or dress that proved impossible to remove, she would sit and make a design and embroider it in such a way to hide the stain. Nothing was ever thrown out, everything would be recycled, old sweaters unstitched, the wool washed and hung to dry… I would have to hold my arms in front of me while she would make colorful balls of knitting yarn from the wool around my arms… These then, would be re-knitted for me or for her… She would lay down an old coat of hers on the table and cut out a new pattern that would turn into a coat for me! She was very creative with patterns and she would draw elaborate designs of embroidery on thin, almost transparent paper and she would sew these over the dresses she would make for us, later on tearing down the paper and the colorful flowers would stand out on our collars or skirts… Inside books, I would find these thin pieces of paper with her designs… She had a way with seeing something only once and then doing almost exactly the same thing later on… When I was pregnant to my son, she would create tens of cuddly animals, dogs, cats, bears, complete with eyes and noses, rabbits with puffy tails… She would see something on TV and she would sit down and make it… When my son was born, he had loads of handmade toys to play with that we still keep now as a memory of those days… With ordinary thread and ordinary needle she would create flowers, bunches of violets, cactuses, daisies, roses… I would buy her books about flowers and she would look at them and make flowers resembling in the book. Once, she had put a flower on TV and I said to her, `Mom, why did you cut off the flower of the cactus? It's a shame! You shouldn't do that!` and she would laugh at me and say, `It's not real! I made this one looking at the cactus flower outside!` She was not doing these to keep them, she would distribute them to my friends, to her friends, to relatives so her handmade flowers, complete with stalk and green leaves are distributed all over the world… I salute her skills, her way of life, her wisdom and the way she cared about what she had in this new year that gives us a chance to look back and see what we have lost and what we can hope for… Hers was a different generation who knew how to cook, how to sew, how to knit, how to embroider, how to survive on this island with little money but with lots of love and care towards others. She taught all of us the magic of love, that you had to take care of others so that the earth could take care of you… `Keep your heart clean` she would say, over and over again… `Keep your heart clean and the earth would know that… If one door closes, you must know that another door will open… Just keep your faith and don't do anything to harm others…` She would say that but she would also implement her words: I would realize that the more you shared, the more you would receive… She didn't like thrifty people, she didn't like stingy people – she thought that the more stingy they are, the more they would lose… She had an open heart and an open mind: She said what she believed in, without hesitation but she also showed respect and tried to understand why that person was thinking or acting in that particular way and she would explain these to me, pointing out what was important and what was not. `Look at your fingers` she would say to me, `are they all the same? But still, it's your hand… You and your sister and your brother are quite different… You simply can't be the same… Don't expect people to act or think the same way you do… Just put it from one ear and let it flow from the other one! Don't think about it too much! Relax!` As the situation in our divided country gets worse and worse, I think of her more and more often, her wisdom, her words, her deeds… Even after her death, she is still with me, guiding me through difficulties and giving me hope with her endless love and care… I know that so long as I remember her, she will always remain beside me, smiling from her photo on my desk, reminding me how Cyprus was and how Cyprus could be… 26.12.2012 Photo: My mother in Limassol in 1930s… (*) Article published in POLITIS on the 6th of January, 2013. |
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