Soft as silk
And is silk soft ? This is what i didnot know till i was a teen , for i had not touched silk or even seen it earlier . Mama used to say all the time this expression about softness , she would remember all the good times with the company of silkworms in the neighborhood of Ras Beirut . we believed her, for her relatives used to work in the silk business ,they would arrange the boughs and blackberry leaves for the silkworms to sway back and forth, then they weave the cocoons which applique the boughs just like stars sprinkled against a green sky .Next, thebutterflies find their way out to give birth to new eggs and death to themselves; later, the empty cocoons are immersed in boiling water to take off the silky threads without being tangled , and last they collect all the eggs and keep them in an old sock in the closet till the next year ! a life cycle completed! The silky thread that sums up the production of a hard going life. The silky thread that is so strong even though it is superfine and supersoft ! The silky thread that is desired by all to be worn for comfort , and luxury !
As a Mom, I have raised silkworms for kids sake and felt how soft is their skin , early every spring we get the eggs out of the closet where we used to keep them , then we nestle them carefully in berryleaves snuggled in a shoebox .Daily, my kids gaze and check on the blooming silkworms ; we used to hunt in Ras Beirut for berry leaves so the silkworms would survive. The girls enjoyed watching them and many times experimented on them , as for me the science lesson was not boring anymore plus it was well understood .
Many slogans appeared "soft as baby's skin" , " soft as baby's bottoms", "soft as satin", and " soft as velvet" and the list runs , but for me the most original and the most truthful idiom that keeps ringing in my ear is " soft as silk "
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