Make Yourself at Home
by Jill McMillan

I made my way into the world by dislocating a hip, so that I could fit. No one noticed the effort I’d gone to, and I didn’t make a fuss about it either. I like to think I was just pleased to be here. I might have even been a little triumphant. When at six months old my Mum noticed an extra fold in my chubby right leg, she made a fuss at the doctor’s and I was admitted to hospital, for fixing.

On discovering that I had hip dysplasia my Mum tells me she was distraught. She used that exact word. She was distraught that her baby was not as perfect as she’d believed her to be. My hips had caused me no distress during those first six months on earth. I don’t believe I suffered any anguish. Quite the opposite. I was in love with a beautiful woman who looked at me with love hearts in her eyes every single day. I often wonder if the moment that loving gaze turned to distressed concern was the day I learned the importance of perfection—that positive regard is not unconditional but rather offered as a reward for flawlessness. As my Mum slowly absorbed my brokenness into her heart, I got to work finding ways to return us to that loving suspension, where our gazes intertwined, and we made each other whole.

Hips back in their rightful sockets, I made my way into childhood. Literally. For ‘making’ is what it appears I was born for and what gave me greatest joy. And now with my fully functioning flexible hips I could splay myself on the floor and get to work. Tin foil robots with light up eyes, cardboard houses with real curtains cut from hankies, advent calendars with tiny, perforated windows revealing hand-drawn robins and bells, mini dolls house furniture constructed from toothpaste caps and cotton spools. On any given day, my bedroom was littered with sequins and glue, every inch of carpet covered in a detritus of colourful crafty creations. I was an industrious child. Santa would have definitely promoted me in his workshop each Christmas.

When I was making, the world hung in the balance. I became my hands. They knew exactly what to do without ever needing to locate myself in my head. During a heavy crafting session, it’s like I was inside my hands, my mind surplus to requirements. Time stopped as each stitch, mark and cut was confidently and mysteriously executed, as if I myself wasn’t even present. From this trance-like state as if by magic, perfection flowed out of the tips of my fingers, like fairy dust.

When I wasn’t making, I was sprawled on the floor in the Arts and Crafts aisle at the local library, piles of books towering around me. While my peers were giggling in corners over Judy Blume and Sweet Valley High, I was ferociously leafing through books on card-making, calligraphy, knitting, decoupage, quilling, quilting, paper-cutting, patchwork and pottery. I’d borrow five books at a time and within a year I’d read everything on the shelves cover to cover, so I started all over again.

I started entering crafty competitions and winning. I swept the board in the homecrafts section at the local horticultural show, so I went further afield and won those in neighbouring towns, much to the annoyance of older children and even some adults, one of whom I recall reported me to the committee on grounds of unfairness.

I just couldn’t get enough, and I sought out more and more outlets to showcase my creative wares. Each week at Brownies I’d announce to a formidable ‘Brown Owl’ that I had completed all the required tasks for a new creative badge, as if not already evident from the pile of creations that had teetered into the hall ahead of their small staggering maker. After a while she stopped raising a disbelieving eyebrow and resigned herself to handing over a steady stream of little brown triangular badges. I had more badges than room on sleeves. I was undoubtedly an insufferable child.

In my teens, my making became more purposeful, in service of the noblest of causes — love. It was the 1990s ergo I mastered the art of the mixed tape, not only curating the most epic of musical compilations for friends and flames alike, but also making custom cassette covers worthy of any major record label. It’s a wonder I ever got any homework done, as my bedroom had become a graphic design studio, with little room for academia of any sort.

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I wonder what you make of this girl, this whirling dervish of a child? I wonder what images you conjure when you think of her, when you paint her in your mind’s eye? I wonder if your eye travels beyond her bedroom walls, if your ear tunes into the station playing outside her room. I wonder if you see the bloated raincloud above her head, the tears spilling into the corner of her eyes. Do you sense the pressure on the walls, the tension pressing into this safe space she’s made for herself out of paper and cotton wool?

Zoom out, look around. There’s a bathroom beneath her. Put your ear to the floor. Can you hear the muffled angry voices? Empty the glass of beads on the shelf and press it to the carpet. Now can you hear the ‘fuck you’s’ and the ‘just go’s’? There’s a blue bedroom beside hers with a train set and a small boy. Can you see what he’s doing? Is he pushing a silent steam engine around the track? Are the violent sounds creeping up the stairwell and seeping under his door? Can you please cover his ears just in case?

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September 2024
Surrey, UK