If your not familiar with the term, a bobbin is a cylindrical item that thread, cord, wire etc. are wound upon. Think of it as a tiny spool. In various shapes, materials, and forms they are used for lace making, tatting, spinning, machine sewing, etc. It’s the sewing machine bobbin that I make reference to. Those who are familiar with them will understand just how elusive they can be, and on occasion those who love us and our obsessions are forced into an awareness as well.
Recently ,one Saturday morning as I was sleeping in, my husband was transferring the laundry from the washer to the dryer.
Yes, my husband actually lets me sleep in on Saturdays and sometimes even does the laundry!
As he pulled out the wet clothes, he noticed a thread loosely tangled amongst them. He attempted to remove the thread by pulling it. As he did, it cinched tight around the wet clothes. He struggled to untangle it only to find that once the clothing was free, the thread kept coming and coming until it snagged on another wet article. This process was repeated several times until sufficient clothes and thread were removed from the washer to locate the source of his misfortune. A small shiny sewing machine bobbin still wound half full of thread sat at the bottom of the tub.
Since then, I’ve had a bit of time to reflect just how symbolic that little bobbin is. We wind it up with our best intentions. Put it in a safe place and everything is fine until we loose sight of it. The next thing you know, we’re trying to make sense of the chaos.
Or better still, what about all those bobbins that accidentally roll off the table and just out of reach. They leave that one daunting tail of a string and even though you should know better, you still grasp at it thinking you can pull it toward you. In reality, all you succeed at is unraveling more thread and sending the bobbin rolling across the floor in the opposite direction.
This happens to me every day in a cognitive sense. I loose my train of thought (easy to do with 3 kids) and while I’m grasping at threads to find it, it just rolls away. Before my third child, this drove me crazy. Now, I‘m more relaxed for better or worse. I tell myself that if something is important, it will resurface, or perhaps someone else might find it (hopefully not in the wash). Sadly, the truth is that sometimes you just have to take a moment, get up off your tush, and go find your lost bobbin yourself.
Recently ,one Saturday morning as I was sleeping in, my husband was transferring the laundry from the washer to the dryer.
Yes, my husband actually lets me sleep in on Saturdays and sometimes even does the laundry!
As he pulled out the wet clothes, he noticed a thread loosely tangled amongst them. He attempted to remove the thread by pulling it. As he did, it cinched tight around the wet clothes. He struggled to untangle it only to find that once the clothing was free, the thread kept coming and coming until it snagged on another wet article. This process was repeated several times until sufficient clothes and thread were removed from the washer to locate the source of his misfortune. A small shiny sewing machine bobbin still wound half full of thread sat at the bottom of the tub.
Since then, I’ve had a bit of time to reflect just how symbolic that little bobbin is. We wind it up with our best intentions. Put it in a safe place and everything is fine until we loose sight of it. The next thing you know, we’re trying to make sense of the chaos.
Or better still, what about all those bobbins that accidentally roll off the table and just out of reach. They leave that one daunting tail of a string and even though you should know better, you still grasp at it thinking you can pull it toward you. In reality, all you succeed at is unraveling more thread and sending the bobbin rolling across the floor in the opposite direction.
This happens to me every day in a cognitive sense. I loose my train of thought (easy to do with 3 kids) and while I’m grasping at threads to find it, it just rolls away. Before my third child, this drove me crazy. Now, I‘m more relaxed for better or worse. I tell myself that if something is important, it will resurface, or perhaps someone else might find it (hopefully not in the wash). Sadly, the truth is that sometimes you just have to take a moment, get up off your tush, and go find your lost bobbin yourself.
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- Amy