Photograph: Terri Bleeker, Unsplash!
When you see the patience and care it takes to make just one spool of silk, it seems that the best wish one could bestow on a friend would be to wish them a new silk year. This month our writer, The Gentle One, shares a story from her childhood about her mother harvesting silk thread.
WE lived in a big city until I was 8 years old. My father was an officer in the Agriculture Office. I remember my mother and our neighbors saved silkworms in the spring season. I remember how my father bought a small box of worms and brought it home. In the box were very small seeds, like sugar, as I think. My mother opened the box and flattened it into to a tray. I didn't understand very well because I was small. After many days they grew and my mother carried them to be with other flats. The worms continued to grow day by day. In the last days there were, I think, maybe about 8 flats. They ate berry foliage my mother gave them.
My mother said: “I was busy 40 nights and days with them.” After that the worms made balls. The color of the balls was white. Then my father sold them and got enough money that was about equal to half of the salary of my father in a year. — The Gentle One