Jan 6, 2018
A Tangled Web of Memories
It is okay when they’re tangled — it means more fun unraveling them.
This morning, after I enjoyed my coffee, I decided to sort out the growing “medical bag” my husband has had to carry around for the last few months for his ongoing dental treatment saga at the hospital. Long story, not relevant right now.
So he is scheduled for his next set of blood tests tomorrow, and thought it prudent to have the prescription handy rather than look for it just before leaving for the lab. Good thinking, I thought. While rummaging around in the bag, it occurred to me we now had enough paper in there to file them all systematically — something I love to do — and I cheerfully segregated it all to insert into plastic sleeves that I had put in a file.
Quite satisfied with my handiwork, I proudly showed it off and doubly happy with the praise, put the file into the bag when I noticed the stitches around the periphery of the bag had come off.
If there’s one thing I hate to postpone, it is mending work. A stitch in time saves nine and all that. Old jungle saying and staunch childhood habit.
I got the sewing box out — a large yellow teddy bear shaped box which was actually my son’s lunch box when he was a toddler — and opened it. Amidst the tangle of spools of thread, picked one that had a needle already threaded and started sewing the bag.
As I smiled to myself with each stitch, memories flooded into my consciousness. Took me back to the time when my son, then a three-year-old, loved playing with the balls of wool my Mom carefully stored in her knitting basket. It would take him exactly three minutes to mess up the bundles and he would look so puzzled at the tangled wool, probably wondering why they didn’t untangle themselves automatically. He once did that with a neighbor’s knitting kit and while the good folks laughed their heads off, I insisted on untangling them and rested only when I had returned them to their status quo.
Tangled also reminds me of my Mom’s gorgeous, long curly hair. After she washed it, and left it loose to air dry, it would be a major task to oil it and untangle it and plait it.
When I was done stitching the bag to my satisfaction, I reached out for the sewing box to place the spool of thread in it and accidentally tipped it. Its contents — a few bobbins, safety pins, hooks, buttons, a thimble and about ten spools of thread rolled hither and thither. Some were irretrievably meshed with one another. I picked them up and arranged them back in the box. Then I guiltily just snipped off the messy threads and trashed them. Guilty because another time, when my Mom was around, I would have insisted on painstakingly separating them.
Funny how life’s priorities change.
And oh, during my son’s recent visit, we watched the movie “Tangled” and enjoyed it thoroughly. Rapunzel was always a favorite among the fairy tales, not so much for the story itself, but for the way my Mom spun the story, making it last for days, sometimes weeks and each time she told it, put a new spin on it. It was pleasant to realize, years later, that memories are more important than money, because no matter what, memories always reside in the heart, like a safety net when you miss someone you love. It is okay when they’re tangled — it means more fun unraveling them.
