Nothing quite like brand new sheets, especially if you can afford them. I don't mind buying them used but one time in my life it seemed important, no, more than that, seemed like a matter of life and death to a dream to secure new ones. That I should happen upon the "scene of the crime", the place where I bought them, years later, was a wonder and a delight, even a touch bittersweet.
I went to Old Towne Silverdale the other night to take in Mi Novia's Art Walk showing and on the way over stopped at the new Goodwill on Mickleson. It's right across the street from Costco, which is a funny thing in itself, and right down the block from a major regional mall and all it's satellite stores. I have to wonder if all that commerce somehow feeds the second hand in an after-the-fact kind of way. I can see it would be very easy, if you lived close by and shopped retail regularly, to drop unwanted things off on your way to another shopping experience at the mall in order to make room for all the incoming and eagerly anticipated new things you hope to find and buy.
One thing for sure, and that's no matter how hard times are folks still like to buy new stuff. The stigma attached to used goods strikes fear into the hearts of a lot of people. Me? I'm thankful for that bit of a freakout about used merchandise. Means that the more new things they buy the less room they have in their homes for the old stuff and in order to make more room for all that new loot they have to unload that somewhat worn or barely used stuff to places like Goodwill. Grand! Keep on shopping! Shop till you drop!
The new store occupies the site of the former Linens-n-Things, a place I shopped at some four years ago in the vain attempt to change the course of our history. As you know I normally don't buy new but seek out quality used stuff at bargain prices. Why not? But there was one thing that I wanted to have more than anything else and that was new sheets. We had talked about thread count and ironing the wrinkles out of Egyptian cotton and the crispness of quality linen. All that talk made me a bit envious, and then curious, and then finally dedicated to the quest of finding some new sheets for my bed. All the sheets in my linen closet were old, had followed me around for quite awhile. Hell, some of them were leftover from my earlier marriages and I was tired of knowing that we frolicked on the threadbare weaves of leftover dreams. I wanted something better, something new, something white for us. So a trip to the linen store was planned and carried out.
I knew even then that I didn't buy top flight linen, but still, fifty-nine bucks for a couple sheets and a couple pillow cases was almost more than I could bear. I still remember telling you about it, the result being this sort of "I really don't want to hear about this" look on your face combined with one that spoke volumes of tenderness to my desire, to my thoughtfulness, to my dream. I think by that time the window to our mutual desires had since closed, that the opportunities that presented themselves early on were quashed and that that dream of blissful slumber on fresh sheets was long gone.
So I put them on my bed anyhow, a while past your first Coda, long enough for the Estranged One to find the sheets, see the receipt and question the need for fresh sheets when old ones always worked fine for us before. I had nothing to say about it, as a matter of fact, I ended up spilling a glass full of red wine on the bottom sheet and had, by doing so, as far as I was concerned, destroyed them both.
I stripped down my bed this morning for it's weekly change. As I rooted through my linen drawer I came across the lone pillow case leftover from that set. It doesn't seem like much now, but when it was new it had the power of dreams and had an energy force behind that could have altered the laws of physics. Those sheets could have taken us to the moon, past the stars, to some place in some faraway land that exists in a dimenson past all time and space. We could have rocked the world, Jane, but instead, the world as we knew it rocked us and those sheets just became some empty cotton vessel for me to stuff my dreams into .
Yeah, I came across an old pillow case this morning while I was getting ready to make my bed and it reminded me of you. And yes, my dear, I've made my bed and for the rest of my life I'll have to sleep in it. Just know that I have no problems sleeping these days, Jane, as the love we shared was the love of the just. It was our love, our dream and if I'm lucky maybe I'll find a bit more of that sweet kind of loving again someday, but, in the meantime I'll just close my eyes and dream sweet dreams of what could have been and send some of that sweet stuff on to you, another dreamer who has never stop believing in the power of fresh, brand new sheets.
Always your WHMB
I went to Old Towne Silverdale the other night to take in Mi Novia's Art Walk showing and on the way over stopped at the new Goodwill on Mickleson. It's right across the street from Costco, which is a funny thing in itself, and right down the block from a major regional mall and all it's satellite stores. I have to wonder if all that commerce somehow feeds the second hand in an after-the-fact kind of way. I can see it would be very easy, if you lived close by and shopped retail regularly, to drop unwanted things off on your way to another shopping experience at the mall in order to make room for all the incoming and eagerly anticipated new things you hope to find and buy.
One thing for sure, and that's no matter how hard times are folks still like to buy new stuff. The stigma attached to used goods strikes fear into the hearts of a lot of people. Me? I'm thankful for that bit of a freakout about used merchandise. Means that the more new things they buy the less room they have in their homes for the old stuff and in order to make more room for all that new loot they have to unload that somewhat worn or barely used stuff to places like Goodwill. Grand! Keep on shopping! Shop till you drop!
The new store occupies the site of the former Linens-n-Things, a place I shopped at some four years ago in the vain attempt to change the course of our history. As you know I normally don't buy new but seek out quality used stuff at bargain prices. Why not? But there was one thing that I wanted to have more than anything else and that was new sheets. We had talked about thread count and ironing the wrinkles out of Egyptian cotton and the crispness of quality linen. All that talk made me a bit envious, and then curious, and then finally dedicated to the quest of finding some new sheets for my bed. All the sheets in my linen closet were old, had followed me around for quite awhile. Hell, some of them were leftover from my earlier marriages and I was tired of knowing that we frolicked on the threadbare weaves of leftover dreams. I wanted something better, something new, something white for us. So a trip to the linen store was planned and carried out.
I knew even then that I didn't buy top flight linen, but still, fifty-nine bucks for a couple sheets and a couple pillow cases was almost more than I could bear. I still remember telling you about it, the result being this sort of "I really don't want to hear about this" look on your face combined with one that spoke volumes of tenderness to my desire, to my thoughtfulness, to my dream. I think by that time the window to our mutual desires had since closed, that the opportunities that presented themselves early on were quashed and that that dream of blissful slumber on fresh sheets was long gone.
So I put them on my bed anyhow, a while past your first Coda, long enough for the Estranged One to find the sheets, see the receipt and question the need for fresh sheets when old ones always worked fine for us before. I had nothing to say about it, as a matter of fact, I ended up spilling a glass full of red wine on the bottom sheet and had, by doing so, as far as I was concerned, destroyed them both.
I stripped down my bed this morning for it's weekly change. As I rooted through my linen drawer I came across the lone pillow case leftover from that set. It doesn't seem like much now, but when it was new it had the power of dreams and had an energy force behind that could have altered the laws of physics. Those sheets could have taken us to the moon, past the stars, to some place in some faraway land that exists in a dimenson past all time and space. We could have rocked the world, Jane, but instead, the world as we knew it rocked us and those sheets just became some empty cotton vessel for me to stuff my dreams into .
Yeah, I came across an old pillow case this morning while I was getting ready to make my bed and it reminded me of you. And yes, my dear, I've made my bed and for the rest of my life I'll have to sleep in it. Just know that I have no problems sleeping these days, Jane, as the love we shared was the love of the just. It was our love, our dream and if I'm lucky maybe I'll find a bit more of that sweet kind of loving again someday, but, in the meantime I'll just close my eyes and dream sweet dreams of what could have been and send some of that sweet stuff on to you, another dreamer who has never stop believing in the power of fresh, brand new sheets.
Always your WHMB
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