The daughter of a weaver

    Sweya was the daughter of a weaver.

    Few people hold weavers in high regard; they are seen as a necessity, craftspeople like any other. They spin fibers into thread, thread into fabric, fabric into clothes, each step unremarkable, a task any person could perform. But Sweya knew better. She had watched with fascination as her mother’s dye-stained fingers danced, nimble and precise; she had seen the beauty in the rich colors, in the elaborate patterns. Each time her mother laid out a new piece of fabric, Sweya knew she had created something no one else could. They were more intricate than the spider webs that stretched across the dew-soaked grass, as striking as a sunset sky, as lush as the hillside carpeted with purple bellflowers. To Sweya, a child with a passion for knowledge and understanding, her mother’s craft seemed to surpass the logic of it. And so she regarded herself as, above all else, the daughter of a weaver.

    Sweya was the one who delivered the finished fabrics and clothes. She knew what each person in her village bought; the little old man across the street, the one who could usually be found sitting and whistling on his doorstep, always wanted the same linen shirts and trousers, which he replaced whenever his old ones wore away. The woman with sunflowers outside her window had five daughters, and sewed them new dresses every year. The village priest bought patterned and complicated pieces, soft turquoise, or swirls of red, green, yellow and blue.

    Sweya delivered swaths of bright colors for ceremonies, gold fabrics for funerals and births. Warm wool for the winter snows, soft material for a baby’s first swaddle. She saw the edges of beginnings, of endings, and all the pieces of life that came in between. They were only glimpses, but she felt that she knew each person her mother sold to, at least a little bit.

    But despite her love for her mother and the admiration she had for her mother’s creations, Sweya did not want to become a weaver. She grew out of her village as one grows out of an old pair of shoes, and, eventually, she found that she wanted to be something other than her mother’s daughter. She saw beauty in the fabrics without wanting to create them, saw peace in the art while knowing that such a life was too small, too simple for her. Her passion had never been weaving; it was learning. She had devoured every book her mother owned and every book her neighbors would lend her. She had an eye for logic, a mind for science, and wanted, above all else, to understand the world beyond the small confines of her childhood. She wanted the truth.

    And so Sweya moved away. She left and found herself in a city, where she could study matters of philosophy and biology, literature, architecture, history and mathematics. She molded herself into a scholar. And yet, she was never quite satisfied, for everything she read felt dry and distant. She wanted to understand the way people thought, and yet the philosophy she was taught felt too analytical. She wanted to feel history, but none of the timelines and matter-of-fact accounts she read had the emotion she craved. 

    It was many years before Sweya returned to her old home, and it was not for a happy reunion. Her mother had died, and so it was with a heavy soul that Sweya found herself in her village again, feeling more knowledgeable than when she had left, but not any more wise. 

    Returning to the cottage that had once been hers, Sweya felt a sense of peace. Her mother’s work space looked as though it had been left for a moment, not abandoned forever. Fabric still hung, gently fluttering, the colors making the room feel more alive than it was. The dye pots sat partially full, though the loom was empty. And on the chair beside the loom, Sweya found a cloak. It was dark teal and beautifully crafted, with pleated shoulders and a deep hood. Attached to it was a note. Perhaps it was meant to be found this way, or perhaps her mother had simply made it to remind herself. 

    For Sweya, my truth seeker.

    Sweya smiled and pulled the cloak over her head, reveling in the familiar feel of her mother’s soft fabric, the familiar smell of her work space. She spun, letting the circular shape of the cloak flare out around her. And though it may have simply been because of the way she was feeling, the cloak seemed to flow in a way more smooth and natural than any fabric Sweya had seen before.

    The cloak settled. She stood still for a moment, then reluctantly did what she had come to do. As she had expected, her old funeral dress was still there, as were the painted bead strings and the face makeup. She dressed, feeling her sense of peace drift into a sense of loss. Tears slipped from her eyes, smudging the gold of her makeup, and in a moment she was on the floor, broken, trying to breathe. She waited. She waited. She reached inside herself and managed to steady her feelings, easing the chaos and the misery, and once she was calm, she stood. Just as she was about to leave, she reached back and pulled on the cloak, her mother’s final gift, wrapping it around her. Letting it dry her tears.

    When Sweya reached the place of the funeral, she was surprised at the number of people who had gathered there. There were dozens of them, old and young – every person her mother had ever sold to had come to pay their respects and tell the tale of her mother’s life, as was their tradition.

    And as Sweya listened, she realized something. These stories, the stories they told, weren’t true. They were romanticized, they were fictionalized. They called her the queen of spiders, blessed by the gods. They told of how her mother had called down the winds and commanded the rain, how she had woven her fabrics with music and love, how her loom had been strung with rainbows and glittered with stars. 

    Sweya felt the urge to protest, to say something to these people who so clearly did not know her mother. It had never bothered her before, when people told these sorts of tales after someone’s rising to the beyond, but this was her mother, the woman who had raised her. And yet she paused. Because these stories, whether true or false, had something none of the books she had read had. They felt real. They felt whole.

    And as she glanced down, she saw that with each story, a new splash of color spread across the fabric of her cloak, vibrant and alive. For Sweya, my truth seeker.

    These stories were not the truth. But they held a piece of it.

    And so Sweya listened. She listened to the old man sitting on his doorstep, and to the woman with sunflowers outside her window. She listened to children, to beggars, to farmers and priests. She had lived at the edges of their lives for so long, but now she was in their midst, listening to them speak from their very souls. They told her stories of the past, hopes for the future, lies and fantasies, fables and myths. She heard of blessings and curses, of other worlds and other gods. And with each, a new splash of color was added to the cloak, until they spilled together into something beautiful. They were not the truth. But they held a piece of it.

    As time went on, the cloak seemed to grow. It has been carried through forests and deserts, rain and snow, over mountains, from village to village. Person to person. Tale to tale. Now it is a long, flowing thing, thick woven and dappled with every color it has collected. It looks to be woven from rainbows, and it glitters with a thousand stars.

    Sweya has grown too, and she carries her cloak with grace. And she is still searching for stories. She is still searching for stories, because with each story it absorbs, the cloak becomes a little brighter. A little more vibrant. 

    And a little closer to holding the truth.