Secretly Shopping

Looking down I see the tent made in the soft, ratty quilt by my curly toes. The quilt is fourteen years old. I once wrapped my infant grandson in it. I meditate in its folds; roll up in it on the beach. It is in shreds and will not survive many more washings. If I were the mother of me, I’d start cutting it down in size and giving it back to me smaller each time by half, weaning me from its comfort so as to avoid the grief of losing it when it is no longer patchable. Idly, obliquely, almost surreptitiously from myself, I am shopping for its replacement. I will need time to break in the new one before this one is gone for good. The good mother in me tries to prepare me for change.

My sister weaned herself from solitude into a second marriage. The nuptials were just last week and were thoroughly ratified by the celebrants and the bride and groom are very happy. They waited a long time for this and they were thoroughly prepared. Still the bride finds herself fantasizing the disappearance of an unwanted cat that may be part of the package of coupledom. There are many ways to lose a cat, or a marriage, or a familiar old comfort; so many ways the current moment can feel unacceptably aligned with the unwanted .

My sisters and I are trying to make ‘home’ our sense of gratitude. As often as they appear we are cutting up our sorrows and disappointments and throwing the bits to the wind; remembering, and then indulging, thankfulness for this moment, the particular patch of the quilt we are living, this gossamer now.

Maybe the bride will embrace the groom’s ratty old cat, its trail of hairs, its distinctive smells, its habit of never ever going outside. Surely it has value if only as counter point to the perfection of her home. Then again, she could be secretly shopping for the cat’s ‘next’ home?

How do we stay present when ‘now’ requires so much acceptance of loss and annoyance, such prescient recognition of the value of unwanted gifts. Practice, I guess.

Why mourn in advance the loss of a favorite quilt when at this moment I am thankfully protected by its droopy old folds? It's
not gone yet.

The baby I wrapped in it yesterday, my heart expanding with love, is today a quixotic 13 year old boy, his expression of himself as impossible to hold onto as mercury. Every moment is both the first and last time for the opportunity it presents. Salinger said the only thing in the world of value is a dead cat because no one can put a price on it. Salinger aside, I think a dead cat might have a price to the right person but a live one, unwanted, might be worth more.