"This I Believe" 2012 Selection

Mariah Pattie Springfield High School

"Create Your Future" Listen to Mariah's essay

I have never played video games, never gone out for a sport.  I watch no regular TV shows, almost never do my homework at home, and have joined few high school clubs.  Yet my days are not filled with unending boredom.  In fact, I do not have time for sports and TV.  What fills my days?  I sew.  It is actually something of an obsession.  I started sewing classes nine years ago, and by the end of eighth grade I could finish practically any pattern.  I sketch during school hours, eager to get home and start my next project.  My sewing machine broke a couple months ago, leaving me on the verge of a meltdown when I realized that I was now incapable of creating anything until it was fixed.  My specialty is costumes, both historical and movie replicas.

There is something magical about putting on a costume.  When I lace up my gold Regency corset over a floor length skirt my mind is electrified by thoughts of the elegance and poise of those timeless eras.  Or I can don the creamy layers and flowing brown robes of a Jedi, with the steady assurance that my costume is nearly as accurate as the movie itself.  What about the chill I get when I look at my Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland dress and think of all the painstaking hours I spent searching the Internet for pictures and recording even the least perceptible of details?  The best part is the knowledge that I created those costumes from scratch.  Me.  Money could never buy the effort put into them.   I wore the gold corset dress for my senior pictures, with no regrets, because my creations are part of me.  I could not exist without them any more than they could have existed without me.  When I finally complete something, be it corset, dress, or even curtains, I get a thrill just looking at it and realizing that I dreamed it up, I sketched it out, I created the pattern, and I brought it to life with the skill of my own hands.

Don’t get me wrong; my life is not about sewing.  My life is about creating.  Mankind is nothing without creativity—individually or as a society.  When an artist dreams up a painting or an author a plot, they have the opportunity to create something lasting, something that will outlive themselves.  They have the opportunity to beautify the world.  When I was younger, I was embarrassed because my peers thought sewing was “old-fashioned,” “girly-girl,” or just plain “weird.”  But now that I have realized the power it gives me to bring imagination to life, I would not trade my skills for anyone else’s.  I believe in the power of creativity to shape our future.

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