Why this blog is called Pocket Lint

It just occurred to me that Pocket Lint is a rather obtuse blog name.

Four years ago I started Pocket Lint at Word press. I picked the name partly because Elaina and Zoya referred to Polly mostly as Polly Pocket, which worked because she was so little it seemed she could fit in your pocket. Mostly, though, I picked Pocket Lint because at the time, when I started the blog, I didn't feel I had much to offer. There wasn't much left over from the grief I experienced in having a child with Down syndrome. But I am a writer by nature, and so I wrote about it, both on the blog and in journals at home and it felt like what I had to offer on paper amounted to the lint you could find in the bottom of an empty pocket.

Tonight at dinner, Polly arrived with her hair all done up in bobby pins and bows. She had spent the afternoon playing hair salon with her sisters and came to the table when called, sat up like a big girl and had chicken like the rest of us. She laughed at her sisters and contributed to the conversation.

It hits me once in a while: I was so sad and scared when she was born. I remember reading an email from a fellow parent of a child with an extra chromosome. He said, "hold on, the sun will rise again." At the time I didn't believe him. I thought I had taken a turn in life that would never work itself out. I truly believed I would be living in gray from then on out.

I'm happy to say I was wrong.

It took a long time. I had to fall in love with Polly. And it was a slow coming love, kind of like a crock pot set on low, cooking for that much longer than other meals. But once done, once that love kicked in, let me tell you, it's been like nothing I've tasted before.

I still disagree with that father's email. The sun didn't rise again. The sun actually became Polly.

Now days my pocket overflows. I've thought about changing the name of my blog. I know strategically it's hard for people to locate. But every time I seriously consider a different name I realize I need this blog to be pocket lint. That was my beginning. That is my story. And the magnanimity of the fact that there is so much to fill my pocket now is only felt when I think back to the days when there was only a little lint between my thumb and fore finger.

Pocket Lint it is.