The Tie That Binds

My daughter and I are hanging by a thread. She's on the second floor, I'm up on the third. We came home from dinner-and-a-movie and decided to tie opposite ends of a length of blue yarn around our respective wrists, so we could periodically signal one another as we went about our ablutions. One of those It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time moments. She's getting ready for bed, I'm lying on mine practicing breathing. So far we've signaled a half dozen times.

My daughter picked up this particular skein of yarn at a garage sale last fall, along with ten Beanie Babies and a brown coffee mug. She uses the mug for a stick-and-rock holder. The Beanies joined the herd on her bed, which must number close to four score and seven. Nor are they all Beanies, ranging in size from near microscopic to bigger than a microwave. Several approach the dimensions of small armored vehicles, necessitating their removal to the TV room, where they stand corralled in a corner like a drunkard's nightmare. There's a pink gorilla, a lavender rabbit, a larger-than-life Russian wolfhound in a turquoise vest, and a few assorted others of unknown species. My husband managed to win them over the years shooting baskets at the State Fair. The mighty hunter-gathererer, they're his trophies. He can't bear to part with a single one. I figure it's a step up from the coconut heads (not to mention real animals) and let him have at it.

When I first met my husband, the heads were hanging from the mahogany ceiling beams in the living room of his apartment, formerly the front parlor of the subdivided turn-of-the-century mansion where we both lived. He'd placed his bed on the polished oak floor in the center of this room, positioned beneath the heads and facing the floor-to-ceiling marble fireplace, and proceeded to eat all his meals standing upright in the formal entranceway while gazing about in self-congratulatory appreciation at his unique vision of feng shui. He calls it fun shit. I overlooked these cumbersome details due to his ass, which I hadn't overlooked. Now the heads are stacked in boxes on the top shelf of the closet in his office, although he periodically threatens to exhume them.

I've had myriad collections in my life, all of them more or less ongoing...books, buttons, bottles, dolls, vintage clothes, Occupied-Japan, license plates, lighted houses, china cups, figurines, comic books. Not to mention a detritus of found objects from nature...bones, cones, stones, shells, bark, antlers, feathers, nests. So that while certain corners of my house resemble the anteroom of a flea market, others appear to be the habitat of an enormous gerbil. You might say my addictive personality lends itself to the collecting gestalt.

Apparently my daughter has similar leanings. Aside from the menagerie which threatens to fill all available space on her bed, she collects journals, pens, thank-you cards, coins or currency dated the year of her birth, money in general, large bills in particular, Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, gymnastics ribbons, Nadia Comaneci memorabilia (they look alike), Elvis memorabilia (they share the same birthday), yarn (she doesn't knit), along with the usual rocks-sticks-pinecones flotsam. I never know what I'll encounter when I reach into the pockets of her backpack. And when she rolls over in bed, it's Noah's ark riding out a rogue wave. She hasn't yet discovered the treasure trove on her father's top closet shelf. Or my vintage La Palina cigarbox of Seventies era pot pipes.

All this...this stuff we surround ourselves with. Sometimes I feel like Alice fending off that pack of cards. Whoa! Incoming license plate! antler! gabardine suit jacket circa 1940! How did this happen? I used to move from one apartment to another in a couple of carloads. And most of it was plants. And most of them were legal. Come to think of it, I still have some of those plants. Add that to the list.

So here I am, lying on my bed reminiscing over the collection of running T-shirts my mother-in-law made into the quilt which hangs on the wall across from me, when my hand is yanked to the side again. The signal. I give an answering yank. No resistance. The yarn is limp in my grasp. I begin reeling it in, like a fisherman. A fisherman who's lost the big one. Which would suit me just fine, I wouldn't be caught dead fishing. Except for compliments.

The yarn accumulates beside me in a blue pool, and then something catches on the top stair. I give a pull, and there it is. Attached with a blue bow to the other end, a tiny Beanie. A tiny turtle Beanie with its eyes closed, thumb in mouth. Come to think of it, do turtles have thumbs? But never mind that. I gather the yarn, collect my thoughts (gather my thoughts, collect the yarn), and head for the second story.