Wednesday, May 13, 2015

This will warm your heart

What I think I'd say if I was asked to address a room of people on the issue of feeling cold in your home but at the last minute told 'oh, and please don't offend anyone'. 

Hi everyone. One way I've found in my life that I can deal with coldness, or the issue of coldness is to put a quilt on myself. I have a nice warm quilt on my bed, but I'll pull it into the living room from time to time, if the weather demands it, and say I want to watch a film, so I know I'll be there for a while. Yes quilts can be nice and warm. 

Not that quilts are your only option. There are things you can use as a quilt if you don't have access to a quilt, which would be sad. Because quilts are awesome. Especially if it's cold. So I'm not denying that sadness. I never would. Nor am I saying there definitely is sadness. It might not be cold where you are. Or you may also have a quilt. All I'm saying is that if you currently wish you had access to a quilt but you don't there are alternatives available to you. Well maybe they're not available to you. I don't know everything you have available to you. Just that there are options. 

Also some people call them Doonas, or Duvets. And reserve the word quilt for a traditional patchwork creation which may be ceremonial or artistic and potentially have community or family connections, and possibly even sentimental value. And I'm not saying you should pull one of those down from the wall, or out of your safety deposit locker at the bank, just cause you're a tad cold. Or a lot cold for that matter. Nor am I saying that your current feelings of coldness do not warrant this type of drastic action. Not that it necessarily is a drastic action. I am sure your grandmother would prefer your family quilt handed down through the generations to keep you warm than to be locked away while you freeze. But I don't know your grandma. Perhaps she values lasting tradition more than anything. Perhaps sacrifice matters to her. Her section of that quilt may represent life going on after she lost your grandfather in one of the world wars. Perhaps being cold and looking at that may be a way of remembering the past. I don't know your family history. Maybe your ancestors were on 'the other side'. I don't know. Then again there is something to be said for the beauty in past war enemies being friends and allies only a generation or two later. Not that there is ANY beauty in war. Well there is. A soldiers hand reaching out to save a lost child and reunite her with her parents she thought had perished. But then that isn't necessarily actually part of the war. Just cause something is happening in the same place and time as a war doesn't mean that it's part of that war. And maybe those parents are assholes. There are bad parents out there. That's just a fact. So if you were once estranged from your parents and no soldier reunited you I'm not saying that that was necessarily a horrible thing. It may have been. Maybe neither option was good. There isn't always a good or better alternative. Sometimes we have to choose between two or more bad options. And I'm not saying there are always options or alternatives. Sometimes it's ok to face something hard just by dealing with it. There is pride in that. Not that being proud is all there is. Some people don't have anything to be proud of right now. That's sad. But it's true. And if that's your case it doesn't make you less of a person. It's just the situation you're currently in. That's all we ever have. Now and this. It's not any of our duties to judge or commentate on other peoples here and nows. Or our own. Some people have mental illness. They don't choose it. These are just realities. Not that this means you should just give into them. They can be fought, they can be managed, they can be helped. Not that you are any less of a person if you face these battles and have not yet found the will needed for the fight. It's not your fault. Maybe it's hereditary. It could be your parents fault. Or they may have done all they can. Parenthood is not a science, nor is it an art. Not that if you take an artistic or scientific approach to parenthood that you're doing it wrong.

Look, blankets! Fucking blankets. That's an alternative to quilts. Fucking blankets. Although technically a quilt lives in the umbrella of the blanket genre of bedding and linen-ware. Not that I'm an expert. 

Ok, look, I don't fucking know why I was asked to give this speech. Confession - I have a space heater in my apartment. That's how I deal with the cold. And if you don't have one then it's not my fucking fault, stop fucking expecting other people to solve YOUR fucking problems. You fucking assholes.