I wrestled the new sewing machine out of its box. It had taken me a long time to choose it. Decisions are always like that for me.

There were so many attachments! I had skimmed the part of the brochure where it talked about the attachments, because my old machine didn’t have any, so I figured I wouldn’t use them.

Each attachment came in its own little square white paper envelope with the name typewritten on it. I started looking through them, trying to figure out what I might use.

Some of them probably made sense to people who did fancy sewing. There was a pivoting presser foot, a set of triple needles, a long herringbone attachment. I tried to imagine what I would use those for, but I couldn’t.

As I went further into the pile of attachments, the labels were different. I was grateful that there were now descriptions of what each one was to be used for. “For bringing together two elements that were torn asunder,” read the first one. “To mend an ancient grief,” read the next. “To accentuate an inherent beauty,” “To bind the broken skeins of the world.”

I put them all back neatly. My old sewing machine didn’t have all those. It just did the job that I asked it to do, mending and creating what needed to be mended or created.