How Not to be Eroded
How Not to be Eroded
Reading ︎︎︎ Percival Everett, James
mending the blanket,
I learned to touch my son’s name,
the shape of his sleep.
the shape of his sleep.
I recently shredded Aiden’s baby blanket in the wheels of the stroller. A gutting moment — not because the blanket was precious in any obvious way, but because it was his. A gift, embroidered with his name. And as one of twins, second- and third-born, there are so few things that belong uniquely to him. Everything is a hand-me-down. Everything is shared. The blanket felt like a small claim — a minor stake in personhood. So when the stroller’s wheels chewed it apart, it felt like a metaphor I wasn’t ready for.
I decided to repair it. I didn’t hide the damage, largely because I lack the skill. I patched the holes with an old washcloth and stitched three dark blue stars into the soft, tan chenille. A visible mending. A kind of declaration: this was worth saving. My daughter, Evie, helped. She is delighted, generally, by breaking and mending, and when we finished, she insisted on presenting it to Aiden like a gift. And it was one. The repaired blanket has more presence than it did before. It has history now. Evidence of love and ruin and care.
Textiles invite this kind of meaning-making. They are the objects that live closest to us — on our skin, in our beds, underfoot. They bear witness. And unlike almost any other ephemera, cloth remembers without needing to be archived. It creases. It stains. It holds the body’s residue. The philosopher Sara Ahmed writes that emotions leave impressions — perhaps textiles are the most impressionable things we have. They absorb our dailiness, our mistakes, our midday snacks. It is emotionally obvious that we should hold on to the perfumed shirts of ex-lovers, the flimsy newborn hats distributed at hospitals, a grandparent’s favorite throw pillow.
Richard Sennett writes that repair “is a way of making the broken whole again,” but also that it “reveals the qualities of the object.” What I discovered as I stitched those stars was not just the texture of chenille, but the texture of my own longing — to hold onto time, to recognize my son, to protect something small and soft and his.
I decided to repair it. I didn’t hide the damage, largely because I lack the skill. I patched the holes with an old washcloth and stitched three dark blue stars into the soft, tan chenille. A visible mending. A kind of declaration: this was worth saving. My daughter, Evie, helped. She is delighted, generally, by breaking and mending, and when we finished, she insisted on presenting it to Aiden like a gift. And it was one. The repaired blanket has more presence than it did before. It has history now. Evidence of love and ruin and care.
Textiles invite this kind of meaning-making. They are the objects that live closest to us — on our skin, in our beds, underfoot. They bear witness. And unlike almost any other ephemera, cloth remembers without needing to be archived. It creases. It stains. It holds the body’s residue. The philosopher Sara Ahmed writes that emotions leave impressions — perhaps textiles are the most impressionable things we have. They absorb our dailiness, our mistakes, our midday snacks. It is emotionally obvious that we should hold on to the perfumed shirts of ex-lovers, the flimsy newborn hats distributed at hospitals, a grandparent’s favorite throw pillow.
Richard Sennett writes that repair “is a way of making the broken whole again,” but also that it “reveals the qualities of the object.” What I discovered as I stitched those stars was not just the texture of chenille, but the texture of my own longing — to hold onto time, to recognize my son, to protect something small and soft and his.
