Near the end of college, there came a sweet whimsical period when my thoughts turned to all the things I could do with my new free time after graduation. Of course, there were the ambitious ideas like practicing my Japanese every day, building a garden, and cleaning my family’s entire house. But the most whimsical of them was picking up embroidery. To begin practicing for my granny era.
My reasoning was this: First, if I like the way embroidered things look, and I don’t have any money to buy embroidered things, I should just learn how to embroider things myself (simple, right?). Second, if I begin practicing grannyhood now, by the time I’m a granny I’ll have sixty years of experience at it, so I’ll be a really good one.
Now, I am proud to announce that just two weeks ago, after assembling 185+ pins on my new Pinterest board and DIY-ing my pattern with a #2 pencil and scrap fabric, I finished my very first embroidery hoop. I have learned the ways of tying killer French knots and acceptably neat stem stitches and quaint little lazy daisies. But what I didn’t expect to pick up from embroidery—and perhaps what is the most “granny” about it—is a peaceful contentment with long, personally uninvolved conversations.
My mother brought me to a talkshow recently, where we sat for an hour and a half listening to two ladies chat about phrases of speech. It could have been mind-numbing given the right circumstances, but settling in with some flowers to stitch made the night downright cozy. When I was the only one below fifty-five years old in a discussion of politics and drama at a family reunion, my embroidery occupied my silence with pleasant attentiveness. As a young person, I am too busy to achieve full granny status by stitching away in a rocking chair on the porch, but packing my projects in my purse to-go has become an unanticipated boon in adulthood. My attention span has increased considerably.
I went into embroidery hoping for some nice flowers on my jeans and perhaps one or two gifts for my friends…and, well, the joke of yet another hobby that likens me to old retired women. What I am getting, though, is hours upon hours to sit with people and the quietude necessary to hear what they’re trying to say. It occurred to me, thinking about what I admire most about grandmothers, that my granny practice is digging deeper than a light joke. I’m actually practicing being the person I want to be by the time I’m eighty.
I want my time to be for the sake of other people, like my grandmother who has been quietly caring for my disabled uncle for the past four years. When someone is in need, she wordlessly sets aside her own life just to keep them company, to the point that she sold her own house several years ago because she was never in it. Would embroidery help me develop the patience necessary to become a person like that? When the random times come that someone is in need of a listening ear, could my stitching quiet the thoughts of all the other things I could be doing; or how long we’ve been sitting there; or how to phrase that I want to get back to my other projects and can you get to the point, please?
I’m thinking perhaps that becoming that type of person may actually take the next sixty years. The same sixty years my grandma spent building a family and raising four children and caring for her mother and, yes, sometimes embroidering.
So if you think about it, the money I’m wanting to spend on even more embroidery floss is for the sake of spiritual growth. To become more like Grandma. Yes, that’ll be a good thing to tell my mother when she asks.
Emilyn Shortridge (’25) spent her Calvin years studying English linguistics, Asian studies, and ministry leadership, and intends to finish her Asian studies program in Chiba, Japan, in 2026. When at home in Plymouth, Michigan, she thrives anywhere near fantasy novels, houseplants, hot tea, or her calico cat, Genie, but she plans to live and learn in many cultures before deciding which corner of the world needs her most.
