Photographing Unicorns 3/7/2021

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

It is the kind of room where even simple tasks become impossibly complicated.  You’ll be certain that the undertaking ahead of you should be easily accomplished and somehow developments appear out of nowhere.  It’s such a pleasant little unassuming place too.  It doesn’t look like it would lend anything other than pleasantry to any circumstance with its flowy pink curtains and décor accented with glitter.  It always catches you unawares when the booby traps appear.  You really would think I would have learned my lesson and know what to expect since I frequent this place very often but no.  It’s secret snares are constantly pulling me in.  I’ll tell you a bit about this place and the intriguing expedition that it becomes upon every visit.

This time all I was trying to do was remove the bed clothes for washing and then once I had done so, return them to their place.  Seems easy enough right?  Yes, you would think.  The first challenge is to actually get down to the bed and to do so there is the matter of getting beyond a fantastical menagerie that lives comfortably upon its surface.  It starts with the removal of not one, not two, not even three but no less than seven stuffed unicorns varying in size and stature yet frequently sporting various shades of pink.  I suppose it is appropriate since unicorns feature prominently in the theming of the décor of this room.  It even says right there on the wall that “unicorns make me happy” so I don’t suppose a full glory (which of course is the perfect collective noun) of unicorns should be surprising.  Then of course there is the guardian of the bed the singular lion. Oh, and I almost forgot the fawn.  It mingles amongst the other creatures as well.  Once I have removed the contents of a fantasy zoological park off the bed don’t think that the covers will just be easily removed. This is the point that a whole new development comes into play.

When I am finally down to bed and have cleared away all the four legged magical beings, then a four legged being of a less magical sort springs into action.  The resident feline can apparently sense when any bed is being made or unmade.  At any rustling of the linens there is immediately a black furry bullet that shoots into the room and plants himself upon the bed in full sprawl.  He has also somehow devised how to suddenly turn from your average sized, if not slightly pleasantly plump, domestic short hair into a concrete filled ball of lead.  He is magically immovable. Well, that is until you decide to ignore him and carry on working around him, then he decides he is more than happy to be a ninja and all limbs nearby the bed are at risk of a sneak attack of claw and fang.  He is rather uninterested in beds until the time I least need his assistance and then he is attached to the covers. Literally. 

Eventually, I get the sheets removed from the bed.  True, there was a large purring lump that was carted off in the fitted sheet as it left the room but…technicalities. Of course, there is the matter of during this entire process from start to finish I must monitor every footstep as if my life depended on it because, in a way, it does.  If you have never stepped on a plastic figurine of a lovable snowman then count yourself lucky. I do not recommend it.  It is painful and will cause you to look at said snowman despite his lovable nature with narrowed eyes full of far more suspicion than he truly deserves.  It’s not just him you have to look out for either.  Because the owner of said room has varied interests you are as likely to tread upon a small excavator or well known British pig.   There are countless landmines that I must be vigilant for.  But, then there are also little nuggets of sentimentality that tend to make up for whatever puncture wounds one merits in one’s foot.

On the dresser there is a music box with two unicorns on it.  This was mine from my childhood when the apparently genetic love of unicorns began and was then passed down.  In a pile in the corner there are clothes to be sent to consignment that haven’t been able to keep up with a quickly lengthening pair of legs and torso.  There is a pure white dress of eyelet lace that was photographed on sands of just the same shade.  I remember the intense blue of the gulf waters was mimicked in those eyes.  Over on a toybox there is a little stuffed lamb.  That lamb was a gift from someone who is no longer on this earth given before this room’s resident ever made her appearance. Accordingly, this little lamb is priceless.   But then, if I am being brutally honest, there are so many things in this room that are. Yes, I have just talked for this entire blog about my daughter’s bedroom.  While I was changing the sheets that I had discovered to be annoyingly and mysteriously somehow speckled with peanut butter I just took a long glance around the room filled with the happy juxtaposition of trucks and glitter and mermaids and tools.  The scattered figurines and magic wands that are the epitome of everyday I know are not going to be everyday forever.  All these little rather insignificant things that get underfoot or make messes will one day be only shadows in memory and most certainly no longer little things.  I want to take a mental picture of the tutus and the toys so that when they are a thing of the past I can flip through the mental album and know that though little girls don’t always stay little that perhaps with a little conscious effort, the memories can stay big.