A ball of lint is a peculiar thing.

It’s essentially deemed worthless and “nothing,” but it always comes from something. We wear a prized article of clothing, and inevitably it yields a wad of lint.

We put our clothes in a dryer, and before you know it, there’s a plethora of soft fuzz that’s been pilfered from our garments. I’ve always wanted to try to donate the goods from my lint trap to a family of birds so that they could make a toasty nest for winter, but I imagine them seeing it drifting across pavement or concrete, then promptly scoffing at humanity for thinking they’d want our throw-away fluff.

I did three loads of laundry this weekend, and I decided to clean out my lint trap before putting clothing from the third load into the dryer. I figured it wasn’t really time yet, judging by the amount of stuff I’d previously dried, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to clean it out anyway.

Holy nest-liner!

I’ve never seen a blanket of lint as thick and massive as the one I pulled off the wire screen. Then I remembered I’d washed a new towel, and man, it was shedding up a storm. The lint was so thick that I almost couldn’t close my hand around it when I wadded it up to take to the trash; I wondered if the towel had been reduced to half its original size. And the lint must’ve been trying to escape my clutches, because I spotted tiny balls of fuzz covertly zooming around my kitchen floor earlier tonight.

Awesome.

So how does this resolve? Lint, if personified, is always up for adventure — it’s always on the move. Lint cannot be held down. Lint divides and conquers, and lint can be swayed by the slightest movement of air if it wants to be. Lint can be warm and fuzzy (especially when fraternizing with the warmth from a dryer), and lint likes to hang with its own kind. Sounds like us a little bit, yes?

Tonight I am thankful for my massive ball of lint that revealed little truths about us all. Here’s to more adventure, to finding a softness in our days and to going with the flow.