Tuesday 16 June 2009

The Rainbow Blanket

She lies in bed and pulls the blanket around her shoulders. It drapes heavily over her and her child, shielding them from the winter chill.

She looks down at its myriad of colours and remembers watching her mother knit square, after square, after square.  Her mother asked her to put the 100 squares into sets of four, picking combinations of colours that bounced off each other in a way that pleased her, then she asked what colour she would like the edge ... It was a different time, these days she would have answered green, but she was so much younger then and she asked for black.  And so night after night that winter she watched as her mother knitted those squares together to make a bedspread to big for her childhood bed, and wondered if it had been an accident that there were so many squares.

She looks at it again feeling its weight warming her and her child, and wonders now if her mother made it without knowing but somehow knowing that after she was long gone, her daughter would spread that magnificent rainbow blanket on her bed on cold winters nights and it would warm her and the grandchild she would never meet ... And they would both remember that she loves them.

5 comments:

Shereen said...

Oh my goodness, you made me cry.
xxx

Buffy Stun-Hers said...

Thanks Shereen, it was written in a very soppy moment cuddled with Hamish under my rainbow blanket, its funny to me how most of my writing is done in bed, i was thinking that i might start doing that 3 pages of writing last thing at night, instead of in the morning, it seems to be the best time for my brain to slow down and actually think of other things besides the days events xx

Shereen said...

Thats pretty much how I do it- and its funny how it reslly does free up your mind so you can blog more freely. I havent done my 3 pages for a week or two and I haven't been able to find anything worth writing about even though I have an urge to write. That reminds me, I should get back onto it...

You are very lucky to have such a beautiful mum-made blanket. My mum gave me an ornament that is a mother angel cuddling a young girl from behind, with the inscription of 'My daughter, My joy'. It makes me wonder sometimes if she knew that she would die soon, and this was her way of letting me know that she would always be around to support me.

Keep blogging, I love reading xx

Catriona said...

You may just work better at night than in the morning. There's no way I could ever write anything worthwhile in the morning: it takes me an hour and a half just to start feeling human.

I do know writers who get up early to have some writing time, but that would never work for me.

I always work better at night--though, unfortunately, by that point, I've usually spent the day writing/researching and I'm too tired to actually do any good writing--and you may be that way, as well.

Buffy Stun-Hers said...

Yep that sounds like me :)

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