Curious Case of the Happy Brownie

Ahhh brownies... that is what this quilt top reminds me of...Brownies.  Not the fudgy, chocolatey kind.  No my friend, more along the lines of twit-a-wit-a-woo.  Those words send shivers down my spine.

"Oh no, not Brownies, not Brownies again.  Can't I just stay home and watch TV?"  My pleas fell on deaf ears, after all my Mum was the Brown Owl.

Brownies was wearing a scratchy unflattering brown polyester dress with heavy black lace up shoes. Brownies was pretending I was outgoing, pretending I cared to fit in.  Brownies was about team work and conformity.  Brownies was sitting on the hard wood floor of a gymnasium, legs stretched out to meet those of another across from you, all of us spread out in a long line. Other Brownies ran across our outstretched legs as fast as they could trying to step in the spaces between. Brownies was cringing and bracing for the crush of a solid black laced shoe on my skinny, bruised legs.

One day I met a lady, I will call her Dilly.  She was funny, irreverent and full of mischief.  I should have known.  As we talked somehow the topic turned to Brownies.  She ADORED being a Brownie.  She recalled those meetings with something close to joy.  Her eyes sparkled with memories.

However for me the pain of being a Brownie never went away.  I could not find anyway to face this trauma but to make a quilt about it.  This is my quilt design.  It is called the Curious Case of the Happy Brownie.  To remind me that while I suffered in my Brownie Pack, there were some who found happiness there, bizarre as that may seem to me.

If not for meeting Dilly and our chance conversation about Brownies, I would never have made peace with my Brownie self.

Twit-a-wit-a-woo.