Stitching Time: How My Grandmother's Quilt Inspired My 1000-day Plan

E160: Meet the 2027 version of Karena, Goa School Talk "Tilting Your Future"

Oct 04, 2024

My Grandmother’s Quilt

“Avo sewed us all matching outfits out of this green material when we travelled from Uganda to India. And this pink material is the first dress I sewed for myself!” I shared fifty years of our family’s oral history with my son as we draped my grandmother’s hand-stitched quilt in his “music studio” to absorb the sound and improve his recordings.

Whenever my Grandmother found a few free moments in the middle of the monsoons (while helping raise her son’s family) she would pull out her quilting basket. She’d sift through for a memorable remnant of fabric and cut the octagon shapes using the same old tin shape from colonial Uganda. Six 1.5” diameter hexagon petals and a contrasting solid centre made up each flower in Grandmother’s Garden1 . I loved sitting by her side, leafing through the stacks of flowers waiting to be placed on the quilt. “Tell me about this one,” I would beg. And she would float back in time.

Each flower had its own story.

I remember her tales as my fingers trace the windmill and sailboat design on one of the earliest ones — these were the pyjamas she’d sewn for her young children. Here were the colourful gingham dresses for her two little girls. I run my hands over one with pink tulips — her teenage daughters had giggled over this fabric as they pored over the latest 1940s fashion they would wear to the local dance.

Then come the flowers of my childhood.

This beautiful navy with red roses was once a flare skirt that would twirl around my Mum’s knees as she walked. A mottled fabric takes me back to the moment we stared in wonder, watching Mummy sitting on the steps—elbow deep in purple—experimenting with tie-dye when it was all the rage in the hippy era. Other flowers are fashioned out of our Christmas dresses and our school uniforms, each earning their place as my Grandmother gradually grew her quilt over fifty years and three generations.

Among these I lovingly trace the familiar fabric from my Grandmother’s own dresses in shades of black, grey, and navy—she never came out of mourning her youngest daughter who did not live to see her 35th birthday.

Searching for a place to handwrite the letter that I will open on June 30, 2027 (E158 challenge to write your own 1000-day letter) I find myself gravitating back to this desk. It seems fitting. My grandmother started this quilt in 1927 as a young 20-year-old pregnant mother dreaming of what might be possible for her marriage and her children. Oh, how her world would change.

The mid-morning sun casts a glow on the quilt as it streams through window. I have my coffee and, a bottle of water in front of me, and click on Spotify’s 40 Hz Binaural Beats. I pull out my deep blue leather-bound journal and my favourite Muji 0.25mm hexagonal black ink pen … and I start writing in long hand, feeling the words find their way onto the page, the draft of what I hope will happen over the next 1,000 days:

How has MY world changed since September 2024?
How have I changed in the past 1,000 days & what surprised me?

If you also joined the E158 challenge to write a letter to your 2027-self, what did you discover? Did you get surprised, as I did?

Introducing you to Karena circa 2027

Note: Everything written from this point on is written in the past tense from a letter I will receive on June 2027. Because Karena circa 2027 writes from her experiences of the past 1000 days between September 2024-June 2027.

Hey Girl!

It is a good thing I set that challenge back in September 2024. It opened up so many opportunities once I explored how my world would be changing over the coming 1000 days.

I’m doing a lot of traveling and meeting family. I’m just back from celebrating my aunt’s 100th birthday! In 2025 I did the Camino with my brother, and visited Bhutan. In 2026 our family trip included a visit back to Uganda.
I’d hoped to be a grandmother (no pressure, kids). But as I assessed how my family-life would change by 2027, I realized that in these (past) 1000 days I was sitting in bonus time: I am in good health; my children do not yet need that active child care support; my work is mobile. It is the perfect moment to take these longer, complex trips.
This moment felt déjà vu. We leveraged a similar pocket in time in 2004 when we decided to take our three (then young) children around the world for a year. The timing just made sense. You don’t know what the future holds, so you have to use these windows of time when the heavens offer them.
I’m working hard to stay fit and flexible so that I can travel with ease and child care with strength. After watching my in-laws crouch with their grandchildren on the ground to play cars or lift them so they could pick apples off the trees, I realized that my muscles need to be toned and ready for some heavy lifting! I had to make some tough choices. Sedentary treats like watching K-dramas with subtitles gave way to chair-yoga and longer walks. The pain-free activity vacations have been my reward.
My quilt reminded me of something my sister says: Growing older is a privilege denied to many. I’m not getting any younger. However …
“Publish already!” was a message that I leaned into. Jane Austen died at age 41. John O’Donohue died in his sleep two days after his 52nd birthday. Enough with the wordsmithing. If I have something to say, I should get on and say it. Thanks to a well-time conversation with
Vicky Zhao
in 2024 I started the paid Substack for my book.
I’m at a stage when many of my peers are retiring. But I still have 30 productive years ahead of me (a whole ‘nother career span!) The world has not yet run out of problems. Could I expand my role as Encourager (E145) and Community-builder (E159)? I started exploring ideas and forging new networks.
I’m surprised at the surge in demand for conversations on “Raising Future-Ready Leaders”. We desperately needed to create cross-generational communities that supported young generations, helping them lean towards the technologies that helped solve the world’s big problems faster, while also coming up with guardrails to support them and keep them human.

Technology is progressing rapidly—faster than the internet changed the way we live, learn and earn at the turn of this century. It will create monumental shifts. But it is still early days - and 90% of the apps and use-cases prove to be dead ends. Remember the short-lived hurrah of million dollar NFTs? It's better to wait for some ideas to stabilize. Meantime, we focus on protecting the precious childhood of our children. I hope we come up with some solutions before the reality of babysitting my own grandchildren comes face-to-face with the theory of steering child from technology.
Planning out my travel three years into the future opened up global opportunities. I’ve met Tribe Tilt members face-to-face on four continents. I often speak at events globally - in person and virtually. There was a moment when AI dubbing looked like it would threaten this space, but my perspective, material and message is unique. I learned to leverage the new technologies to spread my messages of hope and empowerment.
Thank you, DuoLingo. I didn’t want to break my streak, so I learned enough Korean to understand 20% of the spoken dialogue. Reading hangeul is still challenging, but I’m working on it in my bid to forestall dementia. I still turn on subtitles, but I now anticipate some sentence structures. That moment of immersion was a nice surprise (which I celebrated by ordering in dialect at my now regular Korean restaurant!) And no, I did not make it to South Korea for the BTS reunion concert in 2025. I’ll wait till they Butter their way down the Budweiser Stage in Ontario Place in 2040. They will be older, but probably still as popular.
I kept a lovely journal so that I can share the stories of these past 1000 days with my grandchildren. It may not be a quilt, but the words of all my adventures will wrap warm around them.

My Grandmother's quilt showed me that our lives are a patchwork of experiences—some joyous, others challenging. Every moment, whether planned or unexpected contributes to the rich tapestry of our journey. As I stitch together my 1000-day letter, I see how I’m adding to my own life's quilt over the next 1000 days. What patterns do you see emerging as you create yours?

If you have also tried the 1000-day radar exercise, DM me. I’d love to chat about what you discovered as possible.

If you are intrigued, want to try this out, but could use some help? Vicky and I are planning a 1000-day-radar workshop in December. DM or comment for more details.

Did you know I do talks?

Tilting your Future: Training your Inner Dragon

http://www.thegoaschool.com/talks/

Listen if any of these ideas interest you:

What does becoming “future-ready” really mean?
What three big trends do you expect?
How can we really prepare for a Future that no one can predict? (radar)
Let's talk about the specific skills needed to become future-ready (eg critical thinking, or pivoting, or resilience building)
How do you wrap your head around a topic as big as Climate? Are there ways to break it down?
What are your tips for staying calm in the present?

Madhuri Dass, Founder-Director of The Goa School crafted a great conversation with co-presenters hospitality strategist and trainer Paloma Quadros, and Director of a global career-counselling organization, Kavita Dass.

Tilt the Future - answering when serendipity knocks

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