There’s good news…

…for those of us who have occasional pangs of insecurity.  A group of distinguished psychoanalysts announced that keeping “security blankets” throughout your whole life can be beneficial to your health-better, even, than that aspirin regimen.  Normally I shrug off such august pronouncements with skepticism, but this one got me:  I’d been a secret blanket user for years.

The good doctors listed ten “most popular security blankets,” including such calming and reassuring things as “talking to oneself”, watching TV, eating, reading, listening to music, a favorite walk, a memory, someone special, and a prayer, and suggested that you make a list of your own. 

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My list had not only well-worn blankets in the top ten categories but drawers full of new ones.  If one’s insecurities are in proportion to one’s blankets, this was revealing.

A drive. With (almost) anybody.

A car. 

A walk.  Rome.  The nirvana of walks, a mystery story of time revealed with every step.  You can walk from Sabine and Oscan times to today in a couple of hours.

A memory.  Bittersweet: all those heady years I was driven.  Sweet: All those times I learned I had made the cut.

Music.  This is intensely personal.  I hanker for the conventionally dull and numbingly dreary and I am besotted with Mr. B.  But lest you think I suffer from necrophilia, take heart I do venture into the 20 and 21^st centuries.

Eating. 

Spirits. The drinkable kind.

Reading (big blanket).

Art. An afternoon alone at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.  Comforting.

Bed.  (How could the psychoanalysts miss that one?) My Simmons - after all these years, still perfect.

Architecture.  Drop me into the Pantheon when it’s snowing.  Of course, the pyramids at 2:00 A.M. under a full moon don’t exactly jangle the nerves. 

Landscapes. The “American West”.

Pet. “Ditto”, a few pounds of unpredictable cat fur.

Expert opinion.  Jack Lenor Larsen, best “eye” in America; Felix Rohatyn, “king of candor”;  Gore Vidal, “republican”; and, of course, my bullheaded, infallible self.

Garden.  The Huntington, in San Marino. Soothing.

Place. California.

Movie(s).

Low, middle & high technology. My Swiss army knife-‘comes to the “big one”, I’m prepared.

Someone special.

Basic.  A cool, pure glass of water.  One of the most calming and comforting natural things I can think of.

Fast food. An apple.

Prayer.  That my “security blankets” will comfort me for a long time.

I wish you a “comforting” weekend.