8. The fabric of life

with Pilar and Emily
 
Today I am meeting a couple who both met and fell in love with each other after they'd both had children and their own marriages had fallen apart. This couple had to wait some time to get married for a second time, because the law did not allow for lesbian and gay couples to tie the knot until 2014, although they had been a couple for many years.
Despite her dementia diagnosis, Pilar has just returned from an extended visit down under to see one of her daughters and her family in Australia. "You must have really missed each other," I suggest, on hearing the news. "Not really!" jokes Emily, "I enjoyed the peace and quiet!" "Me too!" laughs Pilar, "And no one to nag me either!"

We are anything but quiet as we drink tea together and I catch up with this couple, discussing friends, family, the past and the future. As they share their individual journeys towards self-discovery and each other, I am struck by how candid they both are about their lives, their struggles and their sexuality. This was a central theme and the subject of a film about Emily and Pilar which was made by Gabriel Prado, one of the apprentices on the Remembering Together programme, with film-maker Anna Cady. I asked him to explain what had inspired him.
"My inspiration was the relationship between Pilar and her uncle, Moyo. She had told me that her uncle was a very important person to her, since she had grown up without her dad in her life. Pilar told me that Moyo had taught her to respect and love life. I was also particularly keen to see the honest way Pilar and Emily talked about their relationship as a lesbian couple and how they helped others to come out. I found it strange to hear older people talk with such integrity and I was so moved by this!" 
I wanted to understand how working with the couple and making the film had informed Gabriel's own practice as a dancer and dance therapist.
"I am interested in the tension between knowing and not knowing," he told me. "My dancing, my improvisation is about unfinished histories of ourselves and others... This is me. The experience of making this artwork gave me the opportunity to think about my own life and inspired me to create an autobiographical dance performance about my family experience. It also prompted me to return to Mexico and visit my great-great grandmother's house, in order to take photos and reminisce about my childhood. The fact that I took part in the Remembering Together project has helped me to realise the importance of family and to honour my relatives, both living and deceased."
I'm also interested to hear what Emily and Pilar made of the Remembering Together sessions. Pilar is very enthusiastic and tells me, "We thoroughly enjoyed the sessions, but on the first day we wanted to leave! We were worried about being patronised and we could not believe everyone was so nice! But by the end, we knew they were genuine and we loved it! We loved it! We loved the games, we liked everyone and we wanted to make friends with everyone."
Emily is equally positive. "We liked it and we wanted it to go on all the time! We loved learning about a person's life so quickly, we wanted it to go on and on."
Unusually in this case, the couple were also the subject of another art piece made for them by Deborah Lewis, a former teacher, who trained as a tailor and pattern cutter and now makes made-to-measure suits.  Debs used her knowledge of Pilar and Emily's story from the Remembering Together Sessions to design bespoke fabric, using photographs, images and words connected to the couple. She used the fabric to make a shirt with the idea it would fit one of their grandchildren.  It's a very unique art work piece and I asked Debs to tell me something about what had inspired her to make it.
 
​"During the home visit it became clear that they adored their grandchildren and talking about them. Their home was full of photos of them. It was the couple's main shared interest.  I took the relevant images from the Remembering Together sessions and family photos that they gave me, along with photos of art images they had made on the course, such as a postcard and lyrics to a Spanish song that Pilar loved."
We talk about what were the particular challenges of making an artwork using someone else's memories.  Deborah thinks it over and says, "There is a need to be very sensitive, especially in this case where the couple's children and grandchildren were with previous partners."
I ask Pilar and Emily what was it like getting so much attention. They both laugh, "We enjoyed making the film and talking about our lives and sexuality."  So how did it make them feel to see their memories in the artworks?  Emily elaborates, "We were gob-smacked! We were so impressed that someone had taken the time and trouble. Pilar was impressed too. The artwork has some great images of her whole life, including the hospital where she worked."​

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​As I take some photographs, Emily and Pilar spend time together looking at the images on the shirt. Pilar seems delighted to recognise people that she once knew and to discover the phrases from the Spanish song which Deborah has included in the design, and she starts to sing. Looking at the shirt has sparked off her memories.
I can see that the effect of the artwork is great, it has encouraged Pilar to look at the photos, remember the past and find her voice! Now both these amazing art pieces have become a storytelling thread and part of the pattern of the fabric of Pilar and Emily's life story as they continue to connect and weave their memories together.