I am re-reading Barbara Pym's hilarious book, No Fond Return of Love. Parts of it are like looking into a mirror. I was once agonizingly in love with someone who essentially bore me no ill will. I couldn't do enough for him. I made him a quilt which (since I am not a very good seamstress) took a very long time to make. I made him a shirt which unfortunately opened the wrong way. But the worst folly was when I made him, at his request, a nylon cover for his kayak.
Dealing with tent-weight fabric and thread was enough of a challenge, not to mention trying to deal with something eight or nine feet long on a small sewing machine in a cramped space. The design, made after taking many measurements, was something like a banana peel.
When at long last I had finished the kayak cover, I found that there was no way to get the kayak into it. It was a kind of metaphor for the love affair (which is what he called it) itself. I don't mind writing about this now because my husband, who truly DOES love me, never reads anything I write.
As for the kayak owner, Bob Dylan said it best: "You just wasted my precious time. Don't think twice; it's all right."
2 comments:
i think we've all had that kind of love affair in one way or another... some of us realize it much sooner than others (i fall into the camp of it taking much longer...). love you!
PS-- my husband who i know really loves me too doesn't read anything that i write either! :)
Oh Golly...the ill fitting kayak cover is a perfect metaphor for something that passed for love...ain't we all been at that sewing machine at least once in our lives? :-)
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