Preface To Blankets: Blankets In My Childhood

(Here are some blankets.  I found them at this site.)

Thinking about blankets, I remember two blankets I had - not as a child, but maybe as a tween - but also into my teen years.  One of them was blue, the other was kinda orange.

My memory suggests that they were supposed to be blankets for me & my little brother.  Which is to say, one of them (I think the orange one) was supposed to be mine, & the other one (the blue one?) was supposed to be his.  My mother is no longer with us, but I wish I could ask her if she remembered the blankets.  It seems entirely like something she might remember.

For reasons too complicated to explain here, my little brother spent a great deal of his time while in high school living at my oldest sister's house.  This meant that his blanket - which might have been the blue one - was often on his bed - we shared a room - & left unattended.  I loved blankets, I loved being covered & smothered by blankets, it made perfect sense I would take his blanket & make it my own.

This is not something I am ready to talk too much about, but I did give the blankets names, & even though I was a teenager who shouldn't have invented fantasy scenarios before he fell asleep, I did involve my blankets in stories that I invented as I dozed off.  I will not share the names I gave these blankets nor their role in my imaginings.  Just please don't think they were incredible flights of fancy - at best, they were echoes of things I consumed in the comic books & sci-fi novels I was reading at the time.

What became of these blankets?  I do not know.  There is a very good chance I brought at least one of them with me to college.  But I have no proof.  What I do recall is that there were two pillows - my mother told me they "came from Germany," which might have meant they were gifts from my grandparents - which my brother & I slept on throughout our childhood.  Because my brother was never at our place, I took both of them to me to Austin in 1986 when I moved there.  I knew I was taking my little brother's pillow.  I don't know if he ever noticed.

The life trajectory of those pillows was kind of incredible.  They stayed with me for years & years.  At some point - I think this was in Kentucky, so somewhere between 2010 & 2016 - my wife told me that the pillows had degraded to the point they were a health hazard.  I had to say goodbye.  & I did.

The pillows had names, too, & no, I will not share that.

As for my blankets - I don't know when that orange & that blue blanket left me.  I'd hate to think it was an afterthought.  Almost certainly, if I brought them with me to Austin, they were rejected by the first woman with whom I shared a bed.  & that was that.