Blueberry flowers always remind me of the ruffly petticoats and jumpsuits of early childhood.

As usual, the August Pride has the earliest peach flowers. (It did not get the second round of copper spray yesterday with the others since it is no longer dormant.)

I took a box of lemons to church labeled “Meyers: Take one.”

After texting and getting delighted responses I delivered some to my neighbors to either side. There is nothing like pulling one off a tree and inhaling that immediate rich perfume in the air.

Eagerly waiting for more things to wake up out there.

I knew nothing of his background when we first met, and I’m glad of that; I got to know him a little with no preconceptions. His Scottish last name matched my great-grandmother’s and we figured we were cousins way back there somewhere.

Gradually, some of his stories seemed farfetched enough that I wasn’t sure I believed them.

Today I found out how true the one I questioned the most was. I was not expecting that.

His close friend from high school played a flamenco tune that James had taught him to play on his guitar all those years ago, and talked about James’s stage name and how he’d come by it and the travels and lessons and performances.

So that was real. That wasn’t the imaginings of a hard-core homeless man who once threw a major tantrum at me when I emailed him of an apartment opening for those who wanted to come off the street. I’m sure he saw it as me looking down on him, but it was pure naivet’e. He was where he felt comfortable being. In the end, just before his kidneys finished giving out, he did in fact accept moving into a place built to help people like him. That was his offer of comfort to the rest of us.

James was a gifted artist of a gardener. He was hired by someone I vaguely knew who was building a mansion up in the hills who described James as working on his own time and in his own way and you can’t rush him; all you can do is know that it will be glorious when he’s done. Glorious is a direct quote.

During a slow patch for him, I tried to hire him to come copper-spray my peaches against leaf curl disease.

I thought of him this morning as I did that task myself.

I walked into the church this afternoon; I’d met his mom, but surely this was his sister next to her. It was.

While their mom was talking to someone else, I told his sister–who made sure afterwards that Mom heard it, too–that James had refused to allow me to pay him that day when he was done. Said it was his gift to G_d today, that he likes to pick someone to just serve the Lord to and that was that.

Knowing his strong faith, I said, But the Bible says wo to those who oppress the hireling in their wages!

Didn’t budge him. He had done it for love. Always would. Please let him know next year when to come. (I confess I did not. I like to pay people for their work.)

And so I had knit him a soft wool blue cabled hat in thanks. James gasped at it: “I will treasure it the rest of my life!”

His sister said, “Oh, THAT’s where…” and trailed off. She’d wondered…

I did not dare ask how rare it was for her late brother to own and to keep something nice.

There have been two visiting nurses since last summer (plus two substitutes we never saw again) making sure Richard’s bone infection in his foot doesn’t get worse.

The one who comes most often got a hat last week.

The other, the head honcho, comes much less frequently so I was delighted today when it was her. She’s the one who read one of his doctors the riot act over the phone from our kitchen when he was refusing to acknowledge that the infection was still there and still needing to be treated–when in fact it was spreading.

Got that tamped back down just in time. Let’s not do the sepsis thing, okay?

While she worked, I was in the other room going through the the finished-hat stash, wondering why I hadn’t run in the ends on that blue one, and so that got done.

But the one in the Indiecita colorway: that was the one. I was so sure of it. I moved it to the top of the stack and then admired all those pretty colors in the sunlight, both the brights and the quiets in those hats, before getting back to the afghan at hand.

She finished up and the front door opened.

Wait! I ran to her. Teal Feather, Blue Jean, Volcan, Piedras, and the Indiecita, I held them out: Pick a color.

Oh there was no question that one on top it’s gorgeous! She laughed for surprise and joy and put it on her head and gave me a hug and about skipped down the walkway, so happy! She got to have something I made! She got to have colors she loved! It’s so soft and warm!

I tell you: she’d earned that. She had so much earned that.

Dannette stopped by today, one of my old Purlescence friends. That shop’s been gone about ten years now.

An Anya apricot seedling got us to finally reconnect in person. I had two up for grabs: a 42″ one in a big pot that was going to be a handful to transport and a 24″ one in a one gallon pot. Both were started last year and I’m sure the one will catch up quickly to the other once its roots have some space.

The big one had clearly sounded good beforehand because it’s a nice-sized tree but in person, the small one was so much easier to just pick up and put in her car that it was an easy call.

We caught up a bit. The cute baby that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee bounced in her arms after a book signing that we carpooled for to San Francisco is somehow 12 now, with her oldest in high school.

I reminisced about being at knit night at Purlescence when I excused myself and walked outside to take a call and then walked back in and announced to the crowd, This is my son. He’s calling to say he’s engaged! The whole room roared congratulations and huzzahs as I held the phone out for him to be able to hear.

His oldest is in high school too, now.

Times change around us, we get older, but with friends you just pick up right where we left off.

She’s finally going to have her apricot tree!

I found myself in the back yard yesterday looking at two Anya apricot seedlings to the right: they were small, but only because the pots they were in weren’t very big. There was a third one in a big pot to the left and it’s twice the height even though the same age. Those littler roots need some space!

Someone would love one if they only knew.

I found myself saying a prayer, going, If there’s someone who would really want one, please help me find them. Please make it so obvious that I won’t second-guess myself over it–because with Andy’s closing there aren’t going to be any do-overs after this year.

The phone rang today. It was Dave. We’ve known him since he was a teenager in our ward in New Hampshire; his kids are teens now. He was thinking he’d like to stop by and catch up a bit? See how we were doing? (He knows about Richard’s foot.)

Absolutely!

He was at one point asking questions about taking care of his young pluot tree.

I asked him if he liked apricots.

Dave, with intensity: I LOVE apricots!

He was certainly not expecting what happened next. To carry home an apricot tree, much less a specialty one–but he was very very glad to. Cool! Given a choice between little and easily carried or big he chose little. It’ll make up the difference quickly once it’s in the ground.

Just like that. Done.

And, selfishly, I’m delighted that I’ll get to see that tree growing up and becoming all that it’s meant to be.

I made myself take a good hard look at it. It wasn’t doing it for me, and spending more time on it was just going to make me avoid wasting more time on it in an endless loop of not getting it done. Out!

Doing that much had clarified what I didn’t want and what I did.

Thus the new baby afghan is 3″ long and I’m really happy with it this time. And just in time: next thing you know, I got a text.

There is another new baby on the way.

My father had an aunt who married late and had time for one pregnancy and got identical twins whom I still couldn’t tell apart when they were in their 80’s, but in this case it will just be the one. Long longed for and at long last, and she’ll have the best parents one could possibly hope for. I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I am for them.

I had an OB years ago who had a poster in his office with a caption that read, A baby is G_d’s opinion that the world should go on.

He’s somehow three now. He needed to show me his dinosaur.

I told him, Look! It has a great big smile just like you do!

It’s put your bins at the curb night and I had stepped outside to throw one last thing in there when, it turned out, daddy and toddler were out taking a meander.

So now I know that the baby on the way is a boy. Since I haven’t gone very far with the plain generic white yet, let me think whether that changes anything.

He worked at Trader Joe’s. He’s a little bit shy and yet has the most outgoing heart. He had a kid in college when we had kids in college and we occasionally talked parenting when the store was quiet. He liked connecting with people and asking their stories and went out of his way to make clear he was glad you were there, not some store-policy fixed smile but his genuine own. He might not start a conversation, but he’d be glad you did.

Then I didn’t see John for a long time. When I finally did again he explained and I exclaimed and I was so glad he was back.

His heart had nearly done him in. I’m not sure he’d even hit 50 yet. He’d been out for months. He was moving a little slowly and carefully now but he was back and working again.

Carefully.

There were some slower times when I’d see people huff and get in a different line and I wanted to tell them what they were missing. Their loss.

My times and his have somehow not overlapped for awhile now, which is a shame because he’s the biggest draw for that particular store. I figured his health had finally required retirement.

There were errands to run today and I really wanted to get them done because that rain was promising to get bad. (No flooding yet. Yay.) Pharmacy, grocery… Logically, it made sense to go to the Whole Foods with the underground parking and stay dry.

Something in me strongly urged me not to. Huh. Okay, whatever. I headed to TJ’S instead.

Look who was there!

Been a long time, he nodded with a warm smile as he started to check my stuff out. Old times all over again, man, it was great as we caught up a bit. Where’s your other? he asked.

Working. At home, I said, which answered any question about Richard’s retiring yet for him and his being there answered that question for me about him so we were even.

The next line over went faster but the guy behind me was in no hurry; his wife made a sudden appearance, put something new in his cart, and went off to find something else. He watched her go.

Then, seeing a lull in our conversation, he spoke up and said something to John and made him laugh. Watching them, it was clear they felt a longtime kinship, too, so I said to John, You make friends wherever you go!

He looked a little bashful and as if trying to explain to himself how that could be he smiled and said, in a tone of wonderment, I just show up.

That you do, I told him. Thank you.

And pulled my cart out the door and into the rain that looked a lot sunnier than a few minutes before.

He’s in college and home for the holidays. His mother was one of the speakers in the main meeting in church and so his grandmother, whom I know a little bit, was there, too.

After the second meeting I went up to the two women: the younger one, to thank her for her remarks.

She had gone through multiple surgeries, she’d said, and was trying to sleep one night while fighting fierce, unrelenting pain. She’d finally prayed, I just want to sleep!

And felt the answer, Be willing to feel the pain. Acknowledge it. Live with it. Give away the fear of it to Me.

That was a reset, for sure, but as she tried to do that, knowing her Savior had felt all our pain for us, she was able to find peace at last and slept.

I thanked her for that because I knew that scenario well and that her words would be remembered and offer guidance to those who will find themselves there someday. It was a powerful talk.

But I had one other thing I wanted to tell her and her mom:

I explained losing my balance 25 years ago–and that with my foot in a boot, the tactile half of the visual/tactile feedback that realigns my up vs down was thrown off. I was trying to walk out of the chapel with a lot of people moving around me and nearly falling over at every step, holding onto the back of each pew carefully step by step. (Richard was in a conversation and didn’t see.)

Her son noticed. He stepped forward and asked if he could do anything to help. I explained my little weirdness to him and he asked, a little hesitatingly not sure he was reading this right if I needed an arm?

It took me a split second, but yes that’s exactly what I needed. I didn’t need to hang off his arm or anything and didn’t, I just needed to lightly touch it as we walked steadily together across the building. Piece of cake. I flashed back to the brain rehab of long ago.

He saw, he noticed, he offered, he meant it, and he made all the difference and I wanted to be sure his mother and grandmother knew that.

They were so proud of him.

Rightfully so.

Do you remember how, at the very end of high school, everybody felt so close to each other because we saw now how much even our more casual friendships meant to us and knew that we would never see some of those friends again, maybe even the closer ones, we just couldn’t yet know who those would turn out to be across the future?

Like that.

Post-Christmas gifting I looked at my boxes of apricot slabs, did the math on how fast I go through those, and knew they wouldn’t hold me till Andy’s Orchard opens again in May. And nobody sells apricots like his dried-while-dead-ripe slabs. Plus I wanted to pick up something someone else wanted who was going to have a hard time getting there.

Three years ago there was a cherry orchard next to Andy’s. The new houses are big. They kept the name of that farmer on the development but I don’t think they left a single fruit tree in place.

On the other side of his farm, driving down that newly widened and piped road, the open field to the right was rapidly turning into apartment buildings and closely spaced houses. So much change in a month. I turned the corner to the left around the end of Andy’s towards his store and thought, That cannot be good. That’s too many gone.

Stumps…

As I filled up my basket, the guy on duty laughed when I said, These are for my cousin-in-law’s mother-in-law… I laughed too and said, But she’s a really nice person, I love her! She’s flying today from Germany to her son’s house an hour away and is hoping to be able to get here before you close next week. I’m not sure she’ll make it in time, so I’m making sure she’ll be able to get what she wants.

One of I believe Andy’s crew had come into the little store in the middle of the conversation; the two men clearly meant the world to each other, and in those moments they included me in that palpable love, too.

Together they told me.

The closing isn’t just next week.

Andy will do one more season.

And then that’s it. The land is in the process of being sold. The neighbors who complained about being next to a farm, well…

But they bought houses next to a farm! I exclaimed.

They appreciated that I appreciated the absurdity of that. I mean, fruit trees! How intrusive is that!

I had had a feeling this entire year that this was coming, and soon.

I just didn’t want it to be ‘soon’ as in ‘it’s actually happening now’.

I’m just grateful we get to have one last year.

Christmas party, dinner served, chocolate tortes consumed, an announcement made, a young friend unexpectedly grieved, stories shared of good friends and good memories, it ran late because it suddenly had to. G’night.

Sepsis.

Love your loved ones. Love your loved ones. Please, please, love your loved ones.

It was time post-op to see where things stood.

Got a new glasses prescription today from the optometrist I’ve been going to since our kids were little.

It has always amazed me how eyes are not a static thing: that they can change just a little bit from one year to the next, and then the changes change as you get older, from ever a little more nearsighted to noticeably less so but take off the glasses if you want to see to knit or read.

And then of course the recent surgery after two years of one retina being damaged but stable till suddenly it wasn’t.

Knowing how much I would enjoy it, at the end the guy said, Oh by the way, this is how you see this line now…and this is how it’ll look with your new glasses.

OHMYGOSH!!

He laughed for joy. That sense of discovery, of recovery, of you mean it not only gets even better yet but it gets that much better?! all packed into one word, and he totally got that. And it made him so happy.

—

(Title inspired by Jackson Browne’s Doctor My Eyes and his participation in Playing for Change with artists across the world.)

I saw the guy ever so briefly past the window. I went outside.

It was a mailman I’ve never seen before–tis the season for extras–and he looked to be in his 80s, a stooped old guy. That was a surprise. I picked up the mail he’d just left and hearing me, he turned around to offer one more thing.

Because you cannot risk leaving a to-be-cherished Christmas present out where someone could just walk off with it, is all I can guess, and maybe those last steps to ring the doorbell at the end of the day at the end of the route felt like a bit too much? He was clearly relieved to be able to hand it directly. He loved my, Oh cool! when I saw who it was from.

It held a single skein of hand-dyed yarn from Karida Collins of Neighborhood Fiber Co in Baltimore. She had taken a break and dealt with health and when she re-opened her business I’d ordered that one little bit just to cheer her on.

Clearly, whatever was in there was too valuable in the old mailman’s eyes to be left unguarded. Neighborhood. Fiber. Good things!

Karida’s going to love that.

I haven’t opened it yet. That mailman’s smile convinced me it’s for Christmas.

They sang happy birthday at church. They offered me (and other December babies) a (Safeway?) cupcake with a huge swirl of frosting decorated with sprinkles.

Topped, inexplicably, with a bright red plastic ring with a cartoon hero on it. Captain America? Something like that, anyway. And thus the text with this photo to the good folks next door: the cupcake had sadly met its fate (Richard and I had split it) but the good Captain lives on. I asked if there was any chance they’d like to let their three-year-old play with it?

She laughed and said sure.

And that is how I ended up next door when they had good news to share and were ready to share it, with someone they knew would be excited along with them.

So I need to finish the baby blanket that kind of went on the back burner so that I can launch into their new one.

That definitely worked out!

There was one more thing I’d been wanting to do since late summer. Michelle and I drove to Andy’s last week and this was one of the reasons why I’d wanted to go.

A Christmas card. A pretty little bag.

Inside, two small half-pound boxes of figs stuffed with dried peaches plumped up with honey, candied orange peel, and nuts. I look forward to these every December. They were so popular last year that I entirely missed getting any and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

But also, since that surgeon had become an instant Andy’s fan with that first peach he’d shared with his wife, I wanted to make sure he knew what else that farm can do.

The second box was for his nurse.

The card read, One last thing…

He’d told me with great love, “I never want to see you again! For your sake” after finding no cancer and not having to do surgery.

I didn’t see him. Nor his nurse. That’s okay. The receptionist asked me if I was there for an appointment? and then took that bag with so much joy for them at someone coming back to say thank you. At her wonderful boss being recognized, and the nurse, too. She had no idea what was in there, but it was the being there that mattered. She made sure my name was in there for them before she let me go.

Her love on their behalf will carry me forward through so much. Just like theirs still does.