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| After a struggle, the quilt is finally inside the duvet cover. |
Corners define shapes. They are
guides when inserting one similar shape into another. Grabbing and holding on
to matching adjacent and diagonal corners is most important in some
tasks.
Last week, after washing our quilt
and duvet cover, David and I attempted once again to put the former inside the
latter. The procedure involves a series of steps. First I turn the cover inside
out so I can get a firm hold on the top two corners. While I hold tightly to
the quilt corners through the cover, it is David’s job to slide the duvet top
down to the bottom right-side out and over the quilt. Then the final step
is for me to hold tightly to the top cover and quilt corners while David
does the same at the bottom, at which point we both shake the quilt vigorously
to help everything align correctly.
It shouldn’t be too difficult — unless
I hold two diagonally-wrong corners, as I did this time. Because we have a
small bedroom, I usually stand on the bed while we maneuver this feat together.
Since the last time we did our duvet
dance, we had purchased memory foam for the top of our mattress. I discovered
the new surface makes balance difficult when grabbing and shaking. In the
confusion of mismatched corners and foam that remembered steps I didn’t want it
to remember, I lost my balance and rolled around on the bed.
Instead of tossing out a few
four-letter words, giggles erupted. And, since they are contagious, giggles
reached out to David and tickled him, too. Help — hahaha — I've fallen on my
bed —hahaha — and I can't — hahaha — get up! There we were with a confused mass
of quilt and duvet cover, laughing our heads off.
Being adults, however, and
recognizing that we had a chore to complete, we went about correcting our
mistakes — with some extra giggles thrown in — and finally got the cover on.
With a few shakes as we firmly held our correct corners, this time everything
fell into place and I remained standing tall on the bed.
Our mistakes leading to
uncontrollable laughter felt so good. This was a simple release in an everyday
moment, an example of making mistakes together, losing balance, losing control
and then discovering everything works out okay, especially if some laughter is
tossed into the recipe.
David and I will soon celebrate our
37th wedding anniversary. During these years together, we’ve mixed
up diagonals and lost balance but sometimes the tumbles are fun and ultimately
laughter balances the equation.
Note: If you prefer a more tame
experience, this video shows how one person can make this a boring chore
without the comedy: https://youtu.be/DRPfudNNd8Y
