Monday March 13 2017  A BLANKET OF MANY COLORS

Recently I mentioned my mother and her best friend Merle.  We first met Merle when we moved into government housing.  I think their friendship was slow in coming.  We lived in the apartment above them and my bedroom was over Merle and her husband’s bedroom.  To say the least, her husband known as Chalky, was a bit of an imbiber and was often drunk, especially in the evenings.  It was an unfortunate circumstance that the bedroom I shared with my younger sister was right above theirs.  The floors were linoleum and more than likely there was not much insulation between their ceiling and my bedroom floor.

I loved to play with marbles during my younger years and had collected a huge coffee can full of them. We children played for “keepsies”.  When you hit a marble out of the circle the prize was the friend’s marble.  On occasion I had the ill-fated happenstance of setting the can of marbles on the foot of the bed before I fell asleep.  I soon learned that I should not do that.  Perhaps the first time was excusable, but not the second or third.  When the marbles tipped over in the night they made a loud clatter on the hard floor above Chalky and Merle’s bedroom.  The noise was enough to awaken the dead.  And if that noise had not awakened everyone in hearing distance they were soon awake from Chalky’s loud pounding on our door with a few loud expletives adding to the chaos.  It was quite scary to the six-year-old me.  I think it frightened my mom too.  If I remember correctly is was the marble event(s) that opened the door to my mom and Merle having a reason to talk.  Their friendship was born and only died when they did.

I truly believe Merle was the reason I had such a happy childhood.  She was so good to me and genuinely loved me.  She was never “put out” by all my questions, imaginative stories, or my incessant talking.  At least, if she was, she never let it show.  When I was about eight or nine years old Merle and her family moved three miles away because Chalky qualified for housing in a “company town” offered by the coal company who employed him.  It was out in the country alongside a few other company owned houses.  Albert, Merle’s son, was my tried and true best friend, and I often spent weekends in the country with his family.  We explored, I got bucked off a horse and broke my tail bone, had a salamander shoved down my shirt by Albert’s “mean” older sister as we traipsed through a viaduct under the interstate freeway system, went on Easter egg hunts at the little schoolhouse across the highway, made Christmas cookies each holiday, and Albert and I slept together telling each other secrets.  I did the talking and he did the listening.  Albert was always a good listener.  We explored under the weeping willow trees, picked cumquats from a tree outside his parent’s bedroom window, ate lots of Spanish rice and tortillas, and played paper dolls on their garage floor.  We also jumped and bounced on their beds!  Those weekend and summer overnight stays were the highlight of my life.  And I fell in love with Merle, too.  Chalky always frightened me but I just stayed out of his way.  When he wasn’t working long hours he was rarely home and usually came home drunk and then gave way to sleep.  Years later after he sobered up he was actually quite a nice guy.

Now, in reference to the title of my blog “A BLANKET OF MANY COLORS”; one of the things Merle taught my mom was how to crochet. One of my mom’s first projects was to learn how to crochet little squares.  These square pieces delighted me because they had so many different colors.  I wondered how she put so many different colors in one square.  I did eventually learn it was the variegated yarn that made it possible.  After all the squares (which I counted many times) were complete she crocheted them all together and made a blanket.  It was a tight yarn made out of wool.  It was very heavy and very warm. 

That blanket followed us around as a family for many years.  I saw it on many different beds and it was often saved for company who slept on the couch or on the floor.  Wherever my mother moved she always took that blanket with her.  I think it was the first project she completed after she learned how to crochet.  From then on one of my clearest memories of her was the crochet hook in her hand as she edged delicate lace on ladies’ hankys (our word for handkerchiefs), table cloth edging, pillow edging, and once even on the collar of a dress she made for me.  Except for my mother’s mid-day nap time she was always in motion.  As she aged her motion might have been with a crochet hook or holding a book, but she was ALWAYS occupied with some sort of activity.  She was never a television watcher, seldom listened to the radio, but was always on the “do”.  She definitely knew how to rest, she knew how to visit (with a crochet hook in hand), and ALWAYS knew how to keep us kids busy if we got “underfoot”.  To be “underfoot” usually meant work (with a capital W). 

Now, back to her first crocheted blanket.  A couple of weeks ago during the warm spell we experienced Dave and I took our down comforter off our bed.  Well, the temperatures have again dropped and I woke up cold the other night.  In the dark I searched on top of the cedar chest through the pile of blankets folded there and picked up the familiar heavy crocheted wool blanket and added it to my quilt spread on my side of the bed.  When I awakened in the morning the light shown on my mom’s beautiful blanket of many colors and all the memories I have shared above came tumbling down memory lane.  I remembered my mom visiting with Merle at the grey Formica kitchen table as Merle instructed her how to crochet the squares.  I remembered leaning against mama and peering with amazement as she created something out of a string.  I remembered the blanket being packed in the car when we made visits to other places.  I remembered seeing it folded double and laid long-ways across the back of our gold upholstered couch.  I remembered seeing it packed away and then reappearing again a few years later.  And I remembered longing to take possession of that blanket.  Never in a million years did I ever think it would be mine.  After mama died it was one of the items I asked for as we sisters wrote down our requests.

Today the blanket of many colors belongs to me along with all its memories of years past. But they are only my memories and this blanket will probably hold no nostalgia to the ones who come after me.  But I still enjoy it.  It still gives me warmth and satisfaction as I sleep under its weight.  It’s as if it’s a little bit of my mama still giving me a hug at night as I pull the blanket up over my shoulders to tuck myself in.  The blanket is still beautiful in my eyes and will ever be in my heart.  In later years my mama made me a coat of many colors.  I love having the coat she made especially for me, but it will never compare to the affection I own for my blanket of many colors.

 

A BLANKET OF MANY COLORS

Kathleen Martens

March 13, 2017

http://www.visionsofpoetry.com

 

A blanket of many colors,

A patient friend of mine.

Waiting for when I need it,

Providing warmth so fine.

 

Summer is its time for slumber

In piles which await winter’s cold.

Peacefully quite and stilled

In gentle careful folds.

 

I wish I knew its stories

Of untold nights unseen

Providing comforting warmth

During times so lean.

 

It added a spark of color

Wherever it was adorned.

As if smiling through its beauty

To those who were forlorn.

 

Not only did it travel well

But showed not its dirt.

As if it were impervious

To all it had to skirt.

 

Mama’s fingers curled each angle

As square after square was formed.

And though mama is long gone

The blanket does not mourn.

 

Its value is in the present

And the kindness it provides at night.

As it caresses the body’s warmth

Causing cold to take its flight.

 

So many years it has born

Lone nights alone.

As well as having comforted others

Through nights while they mourned.

 

Oh the stories it could tell

If it had but voice to speak.

Even if it could, I don’t think it would,

Not even one secret leak.

 

It’s a friend in the truest sense.

Made from a heart of love.

A little bit of mama’s touch,

Left behind when she went above.

 

 

Thank You Lord for my blanket of many colors.

Thank You Lord that I have blankets that keep me warm.

Thank You for the bed I sleep in each night.

Thank You for all the good memories I have.

Thank You for placing Merle and Albert in my life as I grew up.

Thank You for my mother’s heart of love for You, and for her children.

 

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!  GOD BLESS YOU.

Take time to stop and give yourself the pleasure of remembering a wonderful memory.