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This pretty much sums up my life right now:

I really like my Mom's decorating style. It's fun and quirky, yet clean and simple. I'm sure some of my style is from hers, but it's a pale comparison to the magnificence of her style.

Her bathroom has a number of eclectic items in it: small items found or rediscovered, each with a small story, none the same and all fitting together. A marble from the walk along the canal, a tiny charm found at the park, blue glass from beach in Hawaii, white glass from the beach on one of the Cook Islands, a Lego dude from one of the grandkids, and (previously) a small frog that decided to stow away in the daughter's bag for a different adventure: all of these fit together, though none of them match.

One of the items in her bathroom was a yellow and green Cotillion china dish. I don't know how old it is, but I've always loved it. Mom had her soap in it. When I mentioned that I liked it, she pulled the soap out of it, rinsed it off and handed it to me. I've had it for years. It's one of my comfort items. It reminds me of my mom every day, when I reach for the soap in the bathroom, just as my mom had it in her bathroom.

It went to the apartment with me, and has come back to the house with me. I had it on my desk, close to me, holding my cup of tea.

Today, as I lifted my cup of tea, the dish stuck to the bottom of of the cup.

When I had the cup two centimeters off the desk, the dish released and fell.

And cracked.

I sat there looking at my now broken dish from Mom and thought, "Yep, that's about right."

It sums up my life perfectly right now: been around for a while; broken and still beautiful; reparable and now a bit more fragile along that one point; never the same again.

I'm adding it to the pile of things to repair with superglue. I kinda wish my life could be repaired as easily.

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My mom and dad were married two years before I was born. One of the wedding gifts they received was a blue blanket. That blue blanket became my blanket some time when I was very young. I remember that blanket being on my bed at every house we had when I was a kid. It was a fort wall, a curtain, a source of warmth and a hideaway. That blanket stayed with me in Indiana when half my family drove away, and came with me when I followed them six months later. It went with me to college, and was with me afterward from apartment to apartment, job to job, Southern to Northern California.

It went into the closet a decade or so ago, an auxiliary blanket maybe for the dog if she needed one (she didn't) or a guest on a cold night. It came out maybe once before being moved to the garage, and eventually found again five years ago. I washed it and put it in the guest room dresser, one of several blankets available should a guest need it.

While putting away the guest room sheets last night, I found the blanket tucked in the dresser drawer.

I pulled it out and put it, still folded, on the bed.

Later, after I undressed for bed, I wrapped the blanket around me, climbed into bed, and with the feel of childhood along my skin, slept soundly for the first time in many months.

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Not very effective, I would say.

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Sorta.

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