Making Do/Art in Heaven

a solo theatre/dance play

by Tracey Zerwig Ford

Synopsis: Memories and regrets weave together a life as the audience watches a woman struggle to move out of a tangled past towards a place of rest. This piece explores the fine line of creativity and the sacred.

Setting: A chair in front of a large floor loom with strips of fabric hanging down and piled on the floor around the chair. By the end of the play, the Artist is wearing some of what she wove as her shroud.

Character: The artist, a woman of any age and any ethnicity, stitching her prayers and regrets together to make a life

THE ARTIST:

As I weave, I worry. My thoughts unravel. I pray as I work.

Blue and Blue and Blue and tie on Cream. And Cream and Cream and Cream.

I dream in creams. Ivories. Soft whites.

Thy soft negative space adds more and more. Kingdoms come from heaps of Cream. Delicious to my eyes and peace for my soul.

More Cream and Cream and dream of another life full of what ifs and knots not tied.

Soft layers keep me company and each other. Out and in; and out in world. Without sin, tie a knot.

Thy will be Blue in, Blue out, Blue in, Blue out. My clever hands. Be not done. Be undone. Knot.

I go back and forth with who trespasses and back against us and leads us. Knot back.

Blue out, Blue in, Blue out, Blue in. Leading me. Leading us like spirals running horizontal.

My stitches like witches’ spells spin yarns; making do magic more then knot.

I sat under fabric as a child while quilting hands started then stopped then stitched threads of stories. But also prayers to make do. I’ve heard magic in old women’s threads through long tales. My Creamy winter evenings as a baby.

Linear and spinnier lines layer Black and back. Then forth adding texture as thoughts trail weaving threads that trespass temptations. Tie a knot.

Hey you–me–Stop. Go back and grasp soft Brown. Add back and forth. Women’s lives and lines layer. They tie a knot. Making do did not seem like having less growing up. I felt full of Grace. Undo and going back.

Making do was an invitation to surprise. And going forth creative and brave.

Blue out, blue in. Blue out, blue in. Back. Child one, then two, then three, then four. I was two.

Blessed art thou among women. Layering your line, momma. Tying the knots to us.

What was missing was not needed, because you, model of motherhood, were busy making do.

For the sake of Making-Bits and scraps were used. His sorrowful Passion done by saving and scrimping and scraping.

I will chase Blues for Greens and Creams and Browns to forward forth and get through. Knot back.

You, then we, then me scraped into layers that colored our lives. My life is lined with ties that knot.

My threads of thoughts float through as I search past blues, for greens and creams and the Lord is with this green; His will do. And quickly spin into lines back and forth.

I go back as we forgive and back to those who trespass. Go back. I need to untie a knot.

Back noticing against us what was left unsaid and unanswered.

Back then forth and back then forth. Back, against us, to untie a knot.

Looking past Green and Blue to Grey in. Grey out. Grey in. Thy gifts, Grey out, which we are about to receive.

Up that hill in that old square house lived four lonely Grey crones. One, then two, then three, then goes a fourth. Greys.

Out languishing loveless in educating the innocent children born of ignorant parents. Tie a knot.

Blessed be unnamed Yellow hair and more Yellow and also Browns and Black. Pulling together tight. Tied up in a knot.

Church Browns and Greys, stacked neat brick layers. Invited no one in. All in already pulling tighter.

To receive Thy bounty, Brass bell one, come in; brass bell two, to church; brass bell three, go play.

I had no need for Pinks’ wish or Reds’ want. Knot. When you were having so much fun making do.

Laughing and teasing and frantic ravings breathless with giggles and tears while making do.

Spinning and turning and dancing and running stitches in our sides, quick, tie a knot!

Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Momma, we cry as tears of fun washed our faces, making do.

Poor children play making do while poor parents and uneducated educators pray. Tie a knot.

Poor children play outside inside a Grey yard, just below the square house out on a hill inside a graveyard.

We all played and prayed under the watchful Grey eyes of Grey crones from Browns and Greys Church and Greys’ house tied to the School.

Back and back, have mercy. Sinners one, then two, then three, then fourth. Have mercy. Still back. I pray. Still. Afraid of fraying. Or of untying a tied knot.

For the sake of His sorrowful Blue in, Blue out. Blue, bless this, oh lord, our daily thread. Don’t pull too tight, I pray. I may break–Have Mercy. Just give us just this day.

On us, the dance macabre was daily duty on earth. As it is in the warp and the weft, that spun us into fits of hysterics.

But deliver us in Golden threads with Grey and Blue thoughts out.

Forgive us forth and only back I pray. Spinners Grey out, Green in and sinners now, Blue out, Cream in and out and in the whole world.

For the sake of His Sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and the woven world we weave behind us. Weave me knot into temptations.

His threaded mercy is endless. I pray. May my treasury of colors and compassion be inexhaustible. And tied in a knot. Tied to me.

Chasing Blues to Greens, and layering Yellows and Blacks, working Creams forth; moving cold Greys to warm Browns then back. Working still. Still I pull through.

Layers of lives and lives lined with ties of knots. I may be slipping soon. Deliver me mercy in Golden threads.

And at the hour of my death, loop the colored thread and slip the knot. I will bravely make do and through it send the end.

About the Author

Tracey is a playwright, director, and teaching artist with a BA in Theatre from Lindenwood University and an MFA from Western Illinois University. A Memphis transplant by way of an internship at Playhouse on the Square, she has performed and directed across the Midwest and South. She has led arts training programs with the Memphis Arts Council/Arts Memphis, Lincoln Center Institute, and Wolf Trap. A member of Voices of the South Writers’ Workshop, she hosts an annual writers’ retreat in Mississippi. Offstage, she serves on multiple nonprofit boards and founded the Community Partnership Roundtable, convening 90+ organizations quarterly.