The Art of Mending

And the times when it’s worth it to salvage the thing.

Photo: Getty Images

For years, I owned this dress that I 90% liked. Liked the print (large roses), liked the details (fluttery sleeves). Hated the length. It hit that awkward place that made my knees itch. I constantly held the fabric away from my legs with my fingertips, as if I were about to drop into a curtsy at any moment. Eventually, I hung the dress at the back of the closet between a wool blazer and a romper that hasn’t seen the light of day since ‘N Sync reunited at the VMAs. Wardrobe purgatory, in other words. 

But I’d look at my 90% dress longingly. If only it was the right length. That 10% mismatch haunted me. I spent months shopping online for a similar dress, using keywords like “floral” and “midi length,” but I never found a version I liked so much. If the length was right, the print was all wrong. I had a vision in my head (sprawling green lawn, a stack of books, my dress artfully draped around me) and I could not reconcile the dream with reality. 

Then I had the most obvious lightbulb moment, one that embarrasses me to type: I could just hem my dress. That very day, I took the dress down to my sewing space, gave it a quick cut, then tidied up the hem with a simple double fold. It took ten minutes. I wore the dress the next day, my knees itch-free, the sleeves fluttering lightly against my shoulders. 

It turns out, it’s often so much easier to fix the thing than it is to try to find an entirely new version. 

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After that day, I looked around for other things I could mend. My daughter’s ripped jeans? Easily repaired with a patch. A shirt that rode up too high? I could add a peplum band. Then I was on a tear. It wasn’t just clothes. I scrubbed old shoes; I repainted frames. I began eyeing our cabinets for new things to fix. I was a mending queen. It gave me such profound satisfaction to eke more life out of objects. 

So why then, in more ephemeral matters of art and relationships, am I so willing to toss out the old for something new? 

Yesterday, I had a hard writing day. I’m so fortunate to be able to write for a living, but the downside is that I don’t have another occupation to turn to for validation. So when the writing goes badly, it warps my identity and muddies my perspective. (I’m working on it!) Rereading my (messy) pages, I thought: Is this thing worthwhile? Why not scrap it for something new? 

It’s an all-too-familiar thought pattern. I have a whole bank of abandoned drafts that were almost enough. Ones that had promised, but lacked the spark or polish to make them presentable to the outside world. I think about those drafts all the time. The stories that almost were. Often, I turned from them for stories that were easier to tell.

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I suffer from perfectionism, an unfortunate souvenir from my youth, where I performed my role as a much-doted-upon eldest immigrant granddaughter. Consistently told that nothing but “best” counted, I tried to eliminate perceived imperfections from my life. If I had a conflict with a friend, I’d retreat from the relationship, rather than taking the time to resolve the problem. If I struggled to play an instrument, I dropped it at the first opportunity for a hobby I could excel at. But I missed the friend and I missed the instrument, even as I replaced them with other versions, hoping to get a little bit closer to that ideal in my head. It was more important for me to get the shiny, perfect thing out of reach than to preserve what I had. 

But now I’m older and more tired. I don’t want to discard anymore. I want to mend where I can, lovingly and with reverence. The accumulation of time means more to me than it once did. A thirteen-year friendship is worth preserving. A beautiful dress is worth repairing.

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My mother keeps so many things—clothes and knickknacks and sometimes, people who’ve treated her ill. I tell her to let them go. She’ll be freer without them. She, of everyone, deserves a chance to start fresh. 

But she’s the ultimate mender. She has the tough conversations and glues the cracked porcelain teacups and bleaches the ragged dishcloths. I’m exasperated and in awe of her forgiveness. She forgives things—people—for their imperfections. She wants to improve what exists, instead of reaching for the unknown. Occasionally, inspired by her resolute belief that they can be better, people begin to show up for her too. That’s the magic of her mending.

My daughter and I watch a TikTokker who calls herself the Stuffed Animal Restorer. Children and adults from around the country send in their favorite stuffed animals, ones that have seen far better days. They’re ripped and dirty, often missing eyes or even limbs. One was burnt in a fire. Some are decades old, while others have merely been loved to literal pieces. The Stuffed Animal Restorer, Danielle, brings them back to life with a good wash and some thread and needle. She usually narrates the stuffed animals’ journeys, emphasizing the history behind each. Before she sends the stuffed animals home, she sews in a small envelope of their “memories.”

It’s an emotional ride, and my daughter and I are always captivated. After we watch Danielle’s videos, my daughter pretends to bring her beloved Bunny back to life. She tells the story of their love and promises him that she won’t ever throw him away. She reassures her imaginary listeners that while preservation takes time and dedication, it’s always worth the effort. Even in her young years, she has the soul of a mender. 

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Mending starts with the belief that things can be better. The understanding that the raw material you are given isn’t necessarily the end product. That we are all capable of transformation. That’s the point of it—identity, relationships, living. After all, we are given only this one life. In that way, we’re all constantly repairing. Tearing and mending; separating and finding our way back. 

Art can be like that too. We take the 10% that haunts us, turn it around in our minds like stones until it becomes something new. Smoother, perhaps, or rough in the right ways. Transformed. 

And to be sure, some things aren’t able to be fixed. But many are.

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Less than a day after my gloomy writing session, I returned to the computer with dread and impatience. I didn’t want to face the words again. It was easier to close the draft and take a walk, have a snack. Maybe start a new story altogether.

But I forced myself to reread my pages. They were still messy. Yet in the reading, I saw the heart of the story more clearly. And something new slowly emerged: a vision for what the book could be. I began to see solutions to the plot holes, places where I could press harder or practice more restraint. This thing was worth fixing. I let out one deep breath and I began again.