Blanketed

I don't know why, but lately I've been thinking about this blanket my dad used to have. Starting when I was 8 and leading very nearly into my teens I was fixated on this one large comforter that used to belong to my mom and dad when they were married.  This was before I was two.  Before they divorced.  In this magical alternate universe where two people who can't stand in a room together shared a bed.

It was cotton, and had that quality older well-made comforters have where the insides are perfectly tamped down and the outsides have been washed and worn and snuggled to a lovely smoothness. The bottom of the comforter was a dark woody brown and the top was covered with a flower pattern over a navy blue background. The flower design looked like the field in The Unicorn in Captivity. I know this now because I knew it then. I spent most of my young adulthood obsessed with the unicorn tapestries and my mother even had a framed print of one in our house.

The blanket was special to me because of that, but also special to me because its original use lived in my parent's marriage - a time I don't remember. I found any objects "from their marriage" of almost reverential significance. I own some pieces of their life together still, and to this day they hold a special kind of power for me. Not because I wish my parents had stayed married, not at all, the thought of them together is enough to give me hives - they are intense enough each on their own. No. More because I find the idea of them being together so...freaky, I guess.

Later on, when I went off to boarding school, my dad ended up using the blanket to cover his car in the garage. I wanted to take it back in the house the first summer I was home but it had that horrible garage smell, like oil and spiders, so I left it. Still, throughout the summer I would go into the garage by the side door to get this or that and I'd always end up touching the blanket. Ok, not touching.  I'd pet the blanket. How dumb is that?

 Sometimes I'll see a man with a tie that randomly has the same pattern as that blanket.  This really happens.  Usually in an elevator for some reason.  It never fails to make me feel kindly towards the man in question, who is usually my dad's age.  I wonder if that pattern is even available anymore.  I'm thinking of taking up quilting (to make Nico a blanket put together from my favorite oufits of his first year) so maybe if I find another one of those men and snip off the bottom of his tie and run to the garment district some kindly woman in a sari will find the pattern for me and I can stitch one up new.

Random thought for the day.

Also, today I ate a Thomas Keller Oreo (or TKO) at Bouchon bakery at the Time Warner Center and just. about. died.

You can go now.