The Manual

I am drowning. The words of the sewing machine manual dance on the page, dissolving here and there in a drop of sweat. The word “bobbin”, whose existence I thought was confined to nineteenth-century homemaker guides, will be haunting the rest of my nights. I have the manual in one hand and two pieces of fabric in the other. They are the two halves of what should become a simple tote bag, but all I have managed to do so far is to scrunch up the fabric on three corners and break a needle. I have also uttered curse words I didn’t even know inhabited my subconscious.

My grandmother’s 1940s Husqvarna Viking, shiny green like a sweltering rainforest, taunts me. I am halfway through the user manual, nowhere closer to finishing my tote bag, and my fingers are throbbing. “Give me an hour,” I told my wife, “I’ll have that old sewing machine running like new and you’ll have a brand new shopping bag.” After two months moping around the house, injured, I desperately needed a project.

I am an English teacher by day, and a kids’ soccer coach by night. I played soccer throughout high school, university and before I injured myself, I played every Sunday with the neighbourhood fathers. I live for movement of any kind, for hiking on Saturdays with my teenage daughter, swimming twice a week at the local YMCA, walking our young husky every day. Two months ago, on the soccer field, I felt a sudden pain in my hip, and it’s now my constant companion. Labral tear: torn cartilage of the hip socket. Putting any kind of pressure on my right side is now agony. Standing is torture. I can’t work, I can’t walk, I can’t even cook for myself right now. I can only sit and cut the ingredients my wife puts down on the table in front of me.

I’m trying to be grateful that it isn’t worse, but if the tear doesn’t stabilize I’ll need an operation, and that will mean four to six more months of recovery. Maybe more. I just want to move. To run. To score. I can’t stand not being able to do any of the things I’m good at anymore.

And even though I’m an English teacher, two months of reading books nearly drove me insane. I desperately needed something more active, and the internet, blissfully unaware of my uncoordinated fingers, informed me that a tote bag was the perfect sewing starter project.

“Hey Dad, looks like you’re doing great. Can you make me a dress, next? Something with pockets?”

I sigh, glancing at my daughter standing at the door. She looks hopeful, like she means it. She wants to get her dad back, whatever shape that might take. I sigh again, and turn back to the user manual with a half-smile upon my face.