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.

For the record: yesterday was the day that for the first time ever, a Red-tailed hawk swooped around our patio coming right close to the window with me on the other side, wings spread wide and deep orange tail outstretched, to the pomegranate tree and then to complete the circle away to the bay laurel, to look around and check out the digs here. In my yard.

I have seen them up in the hills many times but never here much less right! Here! Glorious!

And for the record, yesterday was the day my friend Heather L utterly blew me away. She was half-afraid they wouldn’t fit or that their stitches might be too uneven or or or.

Oh honey. Wow. Wow. Wow. They could not possibly have been a more perfect gift of love and skill and talent. Wow. And the colors! And trees to welcome that new hawk to perch and observe from: may it forever feel at home here. Wow.

A night of very little sleep (too much dark chocolate pie last night but it was good), a morning that started earlier than it had any right to even though it was our usual time, so so tired but it was time to get up.

A few minutes later I saw it before he did.

He had stepped on who knows what, but since he couldn’t feel it he didn’t notice it. It was even a whole new toe to worry about, not the old one. I followed the blood across the hall, across the carpeting, so much on the carpeting, and then where it had obviously started. It was bad.

I’m tired of collecting Southwest future travel do-overs.

He cleaned up his foot while I tried my best to clean the carpet. It was too early to be having to work that hard and that much. I did not succeed in getting it all. It was time to go, and we made it to church on time. Breathe. The meeting hadn’t started yet so I pulled out wool and needle and started casting on a hat because boy did I need my hands to switch to the language of happy anticipation.

He tried to tell me I should be setting up my phone for the Zoom caption. I told him I was doing this (waving the needle) for me. Which was nicespeak for (and we did talk it out over lunch later), I am just barely holding it together right now worrying about you and being frustrated with you and this is how I am not bursting into tears out of sheer fatigue and worry and yes you are right and I don’t want to hear it while I have these thirty more seconds to do this so zip it buddy.

Just then someone dropped a little notecard in his lap and smiled and continued walking on past.

I put my yarn away the moment it looked like the meeting was about to start and, for the sake of the both of us,  just immersed myself in the good spirit that others had brought to the moment. It was there, waiting for me to find myself in it again. And what a story one woman told of the power of Love and the redemption wrought in her life!

After the meeting, we finally opened that envelope.

It was a handwritten note. From a single dad.

Saying how much he enjoyed and admired Richard for this, me for that, and that he had just felt moved to say so out loud.

I sought him out afterwards and thanked him. I told him, You could not have known. You had no way to know. But that was the day we most needed what you took the time to give us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

A pie potluck, 4-5 pm, dinner was not being served, just pie. Anyone who wanted to could grab the mic and say something they were grateful for.

Which is how one woman who’d invited her friend found out that her friend was my neighbor across the street. We all had a great time catching each other up.

I wonder how many others walked in the door at home afterwards and said, Do you still want dinner?

Not really, I’m good. You?

Nah. It was all I needed.

I got to meet Bethany and Nick!

My big sister said her friend was moving to the area and we both told the friend that I’d love to meet her.

Today was the day.

I had no idea what to expect but still, I was kind of picturing someone about Marian’s age.

They looked younger than our kids, and came here for the same reason we did years ago: the tech jobs. They arrived with a gift of ripe lemons from the tree next to their ADU.

The four of us swapped stories for a bit, older Silicon Valley meeting new.

Looking out our window, Bethany was exclaiming over the trees and I offered a tour.

Yes please!

Blueberries, mandarin, pomegranate, sour cherry, apricot, orange, mango, sweet cherry, peach peach peach later-ripening lemon peach peach plum apple apple fig and tucked way over in the far corner over there, a pear.

Did you plant all these? they asked,

All but the lemon and that apple that died and the rootstock is starting to come back up. (For the second time. The Yellow Transparent is my zombie that refuses to stay dead.)

We had completely lucked out in getting a big (.2 acre) yard with a southwestern exposure for all this; it was a for sale by owner, a bit of a fixer-upper and well under market. If only I could replicate that affordability-plus-yard for them!

There was clearly some serious desire to dig in the dirt, and they offered to come help in the garden any time.

I’m looking at my sweet cherry and thinking, biennial crop because I didn’t thin two years ago? Is that why there was so little fruit this year? How about you do a big burst again next spring? One needing some thinning, and then help harvesting? I want an excuse to see them again and to let them come have all they’d like.

Meantime, I sent them off with some pomegranates, and they were as delighted at that as I was at being surprised with their lemons.

I could see why Marian spoke so highly of them. I liked them from the moment we opened that door.

Many many moons ago, there was the annual December Birthday Club party (we unwrap a present we got ourselves and sing Happy Birthday To Us) where Virginia, who always got something funny, gave herself a hand mirror.

Only, when you picked it up it activated two things: a light sensor and a laugh track. (This is the closest I could find to it.)

Put it down flat, it’s silent. Pick it up to check out that wisp of hair out of place and it guffaws at your vanity. Loudly. Busted.

It was hilarious and I had to know where she’d gotten it. Alright then. So I ran down there and bought one for my dad for Christmas, because there was no one who could laugh like my dad.

How to ship it across the country, though, between the glass and the electronics.

An arriving package solved that problem: it was full of those (hated) styrofoam peanuts.

I took a plastic grocery store bag and filled it full of those peanuts and slipped the box inside and tied the top, then put that inside a larger box with other stuff for the folks with the bag safe at the center of it all.

I got comments from my folks Christmas day about how that was such a good use of those peanuts: they didn’t go flying all over the room when they opened the box, they cushioned everything while at the same time they were contained. Nice. They talked about the other stuff we’d gotten them.

But what about…? I had to know and finally asked, That bag. Did you look inside it?!

No, why would we?

Dad…

It had been tossed. It got retrieved.

And that is how I later got told that Mom and Dad threw a party and Dad snuck that mirror onto the long low (mid-century modern and all that) side cabinet to see who it would catch. Which of course it did. Thankfully the victim had a great sense of humor, and the friends of my parents I knew growing up all found out where that had come from. Busted right back.

Virginia loved that story.

And I mention all this because I got my Aftober Prize of No Particular Worth ™ from Afton today: the ever-changing annual item in celebration of having finished a project in October that everybody in our online knitting group looks forward to every year.

I opened the envelope and went oh that’s cool, I like that. Put it down and walked out of the room.

A few minutes later I walked back–and spotted what was now half-hidden in the rug. Oh wow, look at that!

I’m not going to describe it because others haven’t gotten theirs yet, but, it had been well packaged and hiding inside that envelope and then flipped out without my seeing. I almost never knew it was there.

And I laughed and laughed and missed my dad and thought of my mom (I can just picture her going Oh you didn’t at Dad when she heard that laugh track going) and of Virginia too, gone about 25 years now. Look what she started.

Thank you, Afton!

Eighty stitches, 1×1 ribbing throughout, Malabrigo Rios, US size 5 needles.

Last week, I was sitting in the waiting room at my cardiologist’s working on this when who should come out but my rheumatologist.

He wasn’t expecting me and didn’t see me with my mask on so I called out his name as he went by.

He spun around in delight. I introduced him to my daughter. He looked at the knitting in my hands and exclaimed, “Oh, that’s pretty! Who’s it for?”

“The doctor who operated on my retina two weeks ago,” I told him, realizing as I said it that, wait, in all these years, I’d never knit anything for *him* and I’d known him a whole lot longer.

If it occurred to him he never let on. He cheerfully said to Michelle, “If you live long enough you’re going to need two things: a cardiologist and a rheumatologist.” And then he laughed at his own joke.

But it WAS funny, because the last time I’d seen him, a year ago, he’d sent a message afterwards marveling that “After all these years, for the first time, the ANA is negative.”

ANA being antibodies to the nuclei of one’s own cells, ie the single most definitive marker for lupus.

So I’d lived long enough to, in fact, not need him–assuming that holds.

“The system is fluid,” he told me years ago when I asked if an allergic reaction now meant one forever because I had seemed to have had less of a one on an exposure, and I’d thought it always went the other way, ie getting worse each time. Curious. I’ll take it!

Anyway. So today I finished all but weaving in the ends for this other guy.

Maybe there’ll have to be an appointment made, remission or not.

Or maybe I can just drop one off at the desk in his department with a thank you for looking out for me all these years.

I’ll have to actually, y’know, decide on yarn and colors and knit one before I can start debating delivery methods.

After several renditions of Are you sure, given that I wouldn’t hear it and he would and he’d be having to wake up just to wake me up when it went off, I set the alarm last night for 4:45 a.m.

My plan, discussed ahead of time, was that I would get up to say goodbye and to make sure her ride was coming and if there was any problem with it, I would wake her father up all the way and we would take her to the airport: him, to drive, me, to make sure he was safe coming back and not falling asleep.

At 4:42 a.m. I dreamed a bullhorn going off right in both ears and jump-startled awake. Oh. Right. Turned off the real noise before it could start.

Hugged my kid, who just glowed, and all was well. The 36-year impromptu wool stole for Rebecca is in Boston now.

I hope all who wanted to got to go to the No Kings day today. I so badly wanted to and we were going to, but I never did fall back asleep and by the time ours started at 1:00 p.m., I just couldn’t pull it off. I was with you all in spirit and onscreen (BBC video here) since I couldn’t pull off being on scene. I was so wiped.

So how was it in your town??

Doorbell.

First, the plumber, who looked at the installation below the wretched refuse of the teeming tides of the kitchen sink and shook his head at whoever had set it up like that.

Yeah, I told him, we spent $40k on repairing the mistakes the remodeler left behind (like the rain that had come into overhead light fixtures here and poured out an electric socket there, for starters. That was fun) but that we didn’t know about that one.

He shopvac’ed our attempt at Drano-ing the darn thing, poured it out at the toilet, and got to work on the rest. Those pipes had to go.

While he was under there making noise…

Doorbell.

Hi! I said brightly, Are you Dotty?

She looked at me like what the ??? No, I’m Sue, as she walked in, while I was like, ??? I moved the bin of yarn over to her. She looked at me like I was crazy and asked me to please get it out of her way.

Ohhhh. The home nurse who comes every two weeks to inspect the wound on his foot? (It wasn’t the nurse I remembered and they always came on Friday and this is Wednesday) so okay then sorry about that.

Because she had come sixteen minutes after Dotty had texted that she would be here in fifteen to twenty.

Right on cue:

Doorbell.

This time it WAS Dotty, and we introduced ourselves to each other. I’d been sure she couldn’t possibly want all those pounds of 2/28 merino (ie 1400 yards per meter) on cones, but she very much did and was thrilled with all of it. Alright then!

She’s a weaver but this was to be a gift for her cousin, who had looked at my photo and said, Yes please!

We got a good laugh out of each other when I tried to offer her the bin to take it home in and she groaned, I have..so..MANY, and I laughed that I did, too, that’s why I was trying to get rid of it. Fellow fiber enthusiasts: we were friends on the spot. We compromised on a trash bag and dumped it all in. She was walking down the street to her car (it was a little crowded around our driveway) and I started to run after her with one more lace weight left behind, she didn’t see me and it hadn’t been in the photo nor the list I’d sent her; I went, nah, she’s good, and went back inside.

The nurse needed cheering up.

I went out back and clipped two pomegranates off the tree. They do not give them up willingly–you have to show them who’s boss. I put a bright pink-red fruit by her, saying, That’s for you; she looked up in surprise and smiled for the first time.

The other one went to the plumber.

He finished up after several hours’ work and I asked, having waited for two days for when I could finally do this, if I could turn the dishwasher on now.

I already did, he smiled.

Good man.

Oooh. I replaced a hearing aid battery. They give a loud little tune at death but his machinery must have been louder.

The nurse stopped to say thank you for the pomegranate on her way out. I mentioned the face blindness and you could see her going, Ahh, now I get it. (It was her second time here.)

Meantime, while she and the plumber had been working, I finished the scarf rescue of the UFO. No side ribbing; my fashion consultant liked it with just the top and bottom done. Stop now.

Twist my arm.

I’ve been quietly thinking how glad I am that I dumped a large number of cinnamon sticks out by the pomegranate tree when the squirrels started showing up. It actually did keep them from stripping the fruit this year, or at least, so far. The plumber was happy for his but the nurse was the one it really made a difference to. I was sorry I hadn’t thought of it before Dotty left.

It feels so good to be able to run water in the kitchen again.