The frigid night air whips outside; it penetrates the house through the space between my window and the wall. I pull my blanket closer. She wraps around me; her coils ward of the cold air and reflect my own heat back at me, keeping me warm. Her tiny down like scales are so unlike the raspy leather skin of her brethren. While she keeps me warm in her plumage like scales, I search in my mind for the passage that leads to sleep, and, when I find it, she stays wrapped around me, slightly tense, ready to strike at the hocks of the nightmares that try to disturb my sleep.
I often have to deal with other people’s scratchy or plastic-like blankets and covers when I go to their houses. The only protection I have from these uncomfortable sheets and the unknown air is my own slightly coarse, yet soft, blanket. Its soft, feathery fingers, that tickle my nose, are unlike the scratchy and dusty fringes of other blankets. It holds in heat, and maintains a cool texture, while others are either hot and itchy… or cold and callous. Its soft, soothing colors help me go to sleep, and the protective herd woven into keeps me there, fending off the mares of the night, even in these unfamiliar places.
Perhaps the most important things are the memories associated with it: the plane trips and bus rides, the good times with friends and family, the house where I received it, and the person who gave it to me. Imbued with my grandma’s love it reminds me of the time spent with her. It’s a bulwark from the knowledge of my grandma’s poisonous habits and her nighttimes spent on the porch, inebriated and surrounded by the tobacco filled air, but good memories seep from the blanket and protect from the possibility of her bad habits’ consequences. My blanket is a reminder of good times, and the good times to come; it’s protection in case the good times don’t show.
I am surrounded, comforted, wrapped in a cocoon of memories and warmth, my well being and sanity held together in this cloak of invisibility and invincibility, forever with me in spirit: even when I can’t reach it, even as I strip away the walls I’ve built around myself, it remains, giving me something to fall back on, even when I have opened my myself up, allowing myself to be hurt and to be loved.
