So it was knitting group night at Purlescence, and some people I hadn’t seen in awhile were there along with the regulars. Having talked on end there about the antics of the falcons over at City Hall, I brought Hilary’s falcon carefully tucked away in a box for safety–not even thinking till just now as I write this that wow, just like the elevator rides for the misfledged fledglings!
A woman walked in wearing a “Not that kind of doctor” t-shirt; another stood up and they threw their arms around each other. Something was mentioned about not having had a good conversation since 1994; they were old buddies.
I wasn’t following their conversation, not wanting to be in the way, but the one I didn’t know was working on the most incredible beaded glove in a deep sapphire blue with beads, both sparkly and plainer, and just the slightest brush of lighter shades mixed into the blue. The Milky Way? There was fine embroidery and I thought, the Big Dipper!
Turns out I got that one right. She was an astrophysicist PhD and she was knitting the galaxies into her gloves. Wow. I wanted to stare at the one in her hands and study its emerging skies. For me, the daughter of a contemporary art dealer, if I were doing a starry starry night, it would look like a Vincent Van Gogh–backgrounds are funny things.
She was visiting from Boston, if I heard right; as their conversation went on, there was a fellow, one of the regulars, who was spinning away at his wheel next to the pair. He’s been quietly working away at that green wool roving for a goodly number of weeks.
And at some point that I missed but got told about afterwards, he interjected, Oh, you must know my mother!
His mother, it turns out, had been the woman’s thesis advisor.
Look at all those stars. Ours IS a small world!