The blanket on my bed is very old and very worn. In some areas, the fabric is so frayed that it’s practically non-existent. It had to be mended so I started covering the worn areas with fabric scraps. Once I got started patching, I couldn’t stop until I’d covered the blanket’s entire surface.

Mending the blanket had made it beautiful because mending is a form of aesthetics.

I now call the blanket My Birthday Blanket because, while working on it the day of my birthday, an idea moved into my head—growing old is not the problem as much as it is how one grows old.

Sometimes, for life to be beautiful, you have to do your own embellishing.

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