If you hear hoof beats, think horses
Monday October 01st 2007, 5:10 pm
Filed under: Friends,Knit,Life

Down to the last few inches on that first ball of Zephyr, time to attach the second.

In elementary school, it seems like the girls divided off into the horsey set and the making-fun-of-the-horsey set. I was one of the ones who loved them and learned everything I could about them. I practiced till I could even draw a halfway decent one (and not much else.) I told my mom I was going to live on a farm when I grew up, where nobody could tell me I couldn’t have a horse if I wanted a horse. It was going to be a palomino, with long, flowing blond mane and tail. Mom smiled and said, Well, if that’s what you want to do when you’re a grown up, then, you will.

KC was also one of the horse lovers. She got riding lessons while I got music lessons. She even took me along on a ride once, in high school. Heh. That horse knew I was all nervous eagerness and no sense–it tried to scrape me off on an overhanging branch to ditch me, and I was so bow-leggedly stiff trying to keep it from killing me (with KC shouting encouragements and directions) I could hardly walk straight for a week afterwards. That left me with a new respect for what I’d wished for when I’d been little.

After high school KC bought a horse. She actually bought a horse. She kept him all the way to his old age, and now, finally, he’s gone.

I’m knitting her the Water Turtles pattern, but I wanted to make it a little different; the original was for Karen, and she and Karen were close friends from childhood on up, but she deserved something more individually her own. Okay, so I changed the k1 yo k1 yo k1 rows to yo k3 yo. There’s a little personalizing there. I got to the end of the yoke, and then went flipping through my Barbara Walkers. Nothing grabbed me. I sighed, went back to the first volume, and started in again, a little bored. I need a 10+1, or maybe a 20+1 pattern here, maybe I should go grab the Barbara Abby volume or something, c’mon universe, help me out here a little.

Got to page 209–and burst out laughing.

Sometimes something becomes so ordinary that we don’t really even see it for what it is. That second time through, I happened to truly notice the name of that pattern that I knew so well that I’d just dismissed it without a blink.

Horseshoes.

Horseshoes!

I mean, come on, how could anything have been more perfect. And now, as I’m knitting along, the variegations in the colors make the horseshoes less overtlyhorseshoes for Kathleen obvious; they’re there, and you can see them, but at the same time they become one with the trees and the sunlight shining through and the blue of the water and sky splashing down.

Like the memory of riding her beloved gelding through the woods on a glorious fall day.


5 Comments so far
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Beautiful! And perfect.

Comment by Sunflowerfairy 10.01.07 @ 5:30 pm

Perfect! And lucky too. On many levels….

Comment by Carol 10.01.07 @ 6:24 pm

Lovely, as always.

It was Morgans for me.

And I decided what kind of apple trees *I* want when I grow up; have you tried Honey Crisps?

Much love.

Comment by kristine 10.02.07 @ 2:29 am

Aww so beautiful, and perfect! I’m still horse crazy, I own one and teach for my second (fun) job. Can’t imagine my life without them…

Comment by Alicia 10.02.07 @ 10:12 am

[…] it in time for Christmas, but all the better for that.  Totally unexpected.  What… From KC?  And it’s a snowman! Who knits! And sings! And waves his knitterly arms, with his ball of […]

Pingback by SpinDyeKnit 12.31.08 @ 1:59 pm



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