There is a hole in my favorite vintage wool car coat.
Not a huge one, but noticeable nevertheless. I noticed it on my sleeve when I lifted my cup in the coffeeshop downtown after yet another random shuffle of a schedule which has gone all to hell now, and what was going to be my therapy day yesterday with Christian playing chauffeur became a Tuesday visit with Jacob by my side. Jacob, who always tempts me with a suggestion of a late breakfast stop at the coffee shop around that corner from the office building that holds so many of my secrets it's become like a second home. Or at least a diary made of columns and cornerstones only I don't have the key.
So there I sit, depleted and exhausted and somewhat satisfied with how the day went as I chattered and listened with Jacob while we sipped good coffee and he ate a cinnamon bun the size of my head and I picked at a butter tart and he pointed to my sleeve and said I needed a new coat.
This coat was purchased at a terrific little vintage store in Vancouver and made it through four decades intact, I wear it for a few winters and it disintegrates right off my bones.
I do that. I ruin things. Just by being near them.
But sometimes things are fixable. Even people. They're sometimes fixable too.
I agree to Jacob's offer and then I sit and study him while he describes something he is working on and I notice the lines around his eyes, what we call squint lines from living in the sun for so long that are very noticeable now. I see also a few strands of white in the strawberry blonde beard he is growing back and his hands, his huge hands which have always shown his age first. Their rough, battered covering of skin stretched tight and strong over his big bones. Capable and knowledgeable, his hands show that he hasn't forged a life of leisure. He could build a house or end a life with those hands and yet he is able to fasten the most delicate bracelet around my wrist or pick up seed beads from the cracks between the boards of the floor, or to trace my flesh and make me tremble with the softest touch ever.
What are you doing, princess?
Just looking at you.
Then why do you look so sad? I thought you said I was okay-looking?
I shook my head and spoke softly, No, I actually find you incredibly beautiful, Jacob.
Then why the long face?
I've made you look tired.
I think everyone looks tired. It's been a long winter, princess.
Yes it has.
He smiled at me with love brimming in his eyes, sometimes we don't have to say a whole lot to understand each other.
So how about the new coat now?
No, I think I'd like to just wear this one for a bit longer.
He looked at me a little funny but he didn't say any more on the subject, and being as tiny as I am, the sleeves were long enough on me to turn under and re-hem in order to hide the hole.
If only I could re-hem Bridget. You know, to hide the places that show the most wear.
