Raggedy Ann
It occurs to me that I’m probably unravelling. Not in the metaphorical sense of losing my mind, but in the absolutely literal sense of coming to pieces bit by bit. Not a finger here and a toe there, though. I’m coming apart as if I were stuffed with cotton batting and had somehow sprung a leak.
No one ever mentioned it to me when I was growing up. No doctor has ever told me that my innards were different from those of other people. Maybe that they were more like Raggedy Ann’s than Margaret O’Brien’s. But, how else is there to explain the little white bits and pieces I seem to strew about without even realizing it?
Margaret O’Brien
I probably wouldn’t notice even now were it not for our wall-to-wall cranberry carpet. Acres of cranberry color underfoot. Since we seem to know a lot of people who enjoy spilling red wine now and again, we feel that it has served us well these last twenty-five years. But now that I’m leaving stray snippets of myself from one end of the house to another, I’m becoming disenchanted with its color. White on cranberry is just too obvious.
Before you jump to the conclusion that this problem is but a minor and ‘normal’ scattering of lint, perhaps caught on my clothing or left behind by visitors, let me assure you that I’ve been studying the problem for some time. Even when I am in the house by myself, even on the rare occasions that I gallop around naked as a jaybird on a freshly vacuumed carpet, the lint appears. And it’s getting worse.
Poised for Pursuit
I’m considering a new floor covering. Not that I think the problem will be solved, exactly. But I seem to remember that when a carpet is new, it more or less repels the detritus. Perhaps we should consider a different color. Or a different texture. But, if in fact, I’m just fraying at a faster pace, it might be wiser to invest in a new vacuuming system.
Mostly, I wonder if this condition is just one more example of the “secrets of old age” that my mother alluded to but never explained…
“Galloping around naked as a jaybird”…!. Lovely And, yes, we are coming apart little bit by little bit (like the Velveteen Rabbit teaches us of course). My Raggedy Annie is safely resting on the top of my dresser; however, a goodly number of Jackson’s dog toys are sorely in need of surgery, again. Legs missing, ruptured spleens, ears chewed off—and little white tuffs adorning the rugs everywhere in the house. Starla and I had a sewing circle this past weekend and managed to put back into service squirrel, hedgehog and blue dog though not for long!