Puff is the name of my fabulous, fluffy, stained, light blue, tattered and torn American Eagle coat. Yes, you read correctly, I have a name for my coat. It almost has a personality of its own. If I can't easily locate the ratty garment you may hear me yell, "Wait, where's Puff?" or "Babe, have you seen Puff around anywhere?" If the temperature dips below 50, and in Northwestern PA it usually does, you can almost guarantee that you will not see me without my trusted companion, Puff.
I purchased Puff over 6 years ago, and she is surely showing her age. Sections of stitching are unraveling, the dingy fabric is faded and stained, and multiple holes sport flying down feathers, wrangling their way to the outside world.
Because Puff has a difficult fabric for patching and sewing, I chose to repair one of the larger holes with tape. Since then, countless well-wishers have approached me and removed the tape as a "favor." And if I had a nickle for each person who said, "Do you know you have tape on your coat?" I would easily be able to purchase three more Puffs.
What can we learn from Puff? One lesson is that things and people have value far beyond how they look or how much they would sell for on E-bay. This beloved coat is far too ratty to be sold and would even be pitched out by goodwill stores. Another lesson... people don't always want your help. Each time the tape is ripped off the wound of my precious Puff, the cut becomes larger and larger. Sometimes in life what we think is "helping" is actually quite hurtful.
Because of what Puff has taught me, I am going to try to look less at appearances, and I'm going to attempt to think a little more before I speak up too quickly and try to "fix " something.
One more thing, if you see me with Puff, please don't open the wound, just walk away from the tape....
I like the object lesson found in this post. And it was a two-for-one which is always nice. I do have an object I love. My baby, my car. . . Escape' (pronounced Es-cahp-Ay). She too has taught me to love despite appearances. Like me, she is aging and for every gray hair I have she has a broken knob. But she is good inside and has been the most faithful companion all these years and I will continue to love her and choose her above all others until the day she goes to that great junkyard in the sky. ~Dawn
ReplyDeleteGreat blog Jen, and I agree with you Dawn. There is something to be said about those special objects in your life. The really special ones are far and few between, but boy do they last and boy are they missed when they're gone. As girly as this may sound, I'm sort of like that with a good quality pair of shoes. I've had two pair of Kenneth Cole - New York shoes. One lasted me 7 1/2 years and the other lasted 8. It was very hard but they got to the point where I just had to let go. It's hard to find true quality these days. Hold onto it as long as you can. Hold on to puff and protect that tape if that's what it takes!
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how we can easily personify objects we love, and then actually have compassion for them. By the end, when you talked about people ripping the tape off, I was thinking, "Awe, Puff- ouch." lol! I love it. I've definitely had objects that only I could love- my '94 Taurus that I still talk about a lot- Mauve Storm- my dad taught me how to do body work on it. I miss that car as if it were a friend who moved away. I just finally threw out some pajama pants when we moved (I got them at my 16th birthday) because they were ridiculously see through and I had just ripped a big hole in them. Sigh. The best things are not perfect!!!
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