Last Wednesday, I spread a brightly colored quilt across the grass lawn in front of Smith College’s science quad, and my friend and I sat down to study. It was the middle of midterms week; my friend was drowning in French reviews and I was struggling to correct an Arabic essay. We were tired, overworked, and exceedingly stressed. I was feeling extremely inadequate and unintelligent; I simply could not figure out how to conjugate Arabic verbs into the past tense, and I felt that no matter how many times I tried, I would never understand. At that moment last Wednesday, it was impossible for me to see anything decent coming from this failure of an essay.
My friend and I worked for about an hour and a half before we packed up and left for dinner. As I picked up my quilt, brushed it off and folded it up, I thought about my quilt and the failures it represented.
My grandmother had come to visit right before I left for college in August. As was my grandmother’s habit, she brought with her several quilts that she was trying to get rid of. She loves making them, but always has too many, and she is constantly trying to give them away. As a result, I already had three quilts, and my mom had who-knows-how-many packed away. But my grandmother had brought more, and if I didn’t accept at least one of them, I was going to feel guilty.
One of the several quilts she had brought with her had a bright pink base, and was made up of a variety of colored and patterned scraps. I liked it; it was full of happy colors, and I recognized some of the patterned pieces from other quilts she had made for my siblings, cousins, and I, and some from the holiday napkins she used to make. “It’s made of my mistakes” she told me. “See, none of the lines are straight, and the pieces don’t match up. I didn’t want the scraps to go to waste.”
This beautiful quilt had been made out of a series of my grandmother’s failures. As my grandmother had accumulated the incorrect pieces and stored them away, she had continued to make her perfect quilts. Some of the scraps were from quilts my grandmother had made over ten years ago, some were from the other quilts she had brought to give us that day. Each of those quilts had been wonderful: they were warm, and beautiful, and precise. But this one was different. It was made of failure, and it was magnificent.
Last Wednesday, as I folded my quilt and carried my ailing Arabic essay inside, I realized that I very well might fail this assignment. I might fail, but it would be ok. I had colossally failed in the past, and I will colossally fail in the future. And like my grandmother collecting her scraps, I’ll collect my failures, and I’ll keep going to make something marvelous. My shortcomings will not tie me down unless I let them. Failures will happen to each and every one of us, but as long as we keep working with and through them, we can make something incredible.
