Someone I was talking to sparked the memory of a would-be recipient of my knitting, a good while ago.

This was not long after I’d started spinning my own yarn but well before I figured out how to knit lace. I splurged on a closeout and spun up some angora, little bunny fibers flying all around me as the wheel turned.  Achoo!  (A side note: I was curious, having been taught that adding twist to create yarn means adding friction to the fiber to hold it together–and the answer is yes, you can spin enough twist into angora to make it feel as harsh as burlap.  Don’t.)

Other than the burlap bit, I spun it into a fine two-ply, enough to fill an Ashford bobbin to the max; then I knit it  into a simple triangle shawl.  Or rather, more a large scarf, done thus: cast on three, knit (or purl, as the case may be) into the front and back of the last stitch of each row till the thing is the size you want.  Use small yarn and big needles for a faux-lace look.  Tadaah.  Take a small hair elastic, crochet tightly all around it in the same yarn to completely cover the elastic, and run it up the long ends of the triangle to hold the thing on and in place in the front.

So. I was wearing it while we were out and about.  Fluffy, soft, simple, not fancy; I was quite proud of it.

And an old woman I barely knew saw it.  She announced I was going to make her one too. She was going to pay me. Twenty-five dollars. That was a lot of money, you know! When could I have it done by?

I managed to recover from my astonishment without bursting out laughing.  *I* knew it was handspun and the time involved, and knowing that pure angora at retail cost a dollar per GRAM in store-bought yarn…

She was adamant and would not be dissuaded. I offered to teach her how to knit.  She already knew how; didn’t want to.  Twenty-five dollars. That was a lot of money, you know.  When could I have it done by?

Waiiiit, waiiiiiiiiit, whoa…

We managed to progress to her offering me the (I could just picture old scratchy acrylic from the 60’s) aged gold yarn in her closet to knit it with. I reiterated my offer to help her knit it herself.

She did finally give up after she made it clear that I was impoverishing myself and really missing out. Twenty-five dollars. That was a lot of money, you know!

Part of me kind of wished–still wishes–that I had it in me to be generous enough to surprise her with her own scarf, and in angora, too; that was one person who I knew would like the thing if I did.  If only.  If only she’d shown the least humility. But she just didn’t have it in her.

And neither did I.

I’ve had the experience before of knitting something, giving it away, and then totally forgetting later that I’d made it.  I’ve found projects stashed away I’d forgotten starting, I’ve seen people wearing scarves that answered my inner question as to whether I’d knitted for them yet–oh, right, right, that yarn, I remember that.  Maybe not what I made with it or just who it went to, but the yarn, yes, I almost always remember working with whatever yarn when I see it.

But this one really threw me.  Some of the women at church were throwing a mystery-dinner party tonight, and Christina showed up wearing a gorgeous open-front circular shawl, borrowed from someone else for her costume. She didn’t know who’d knitted it and had just assumed I probably had.

I was stunned. There’s no way I could have made that in that colorway and not remember it, but that was definitely my pattern.

Turns out that someone I didn’t know was now a knitter and that I didn’t remember they’d bought my book, if I knew, had made a sweeping, gorgeous Julia shawl from it.  And I’d had no idea.

But I couldn’t be absolutely sure it wasn’t something from my own needles till I’d eyeballed its yarn up close: that sealed it. Nope, I’ve never knit with that one. That’s someone else’s knitting.

Christina was trying to wrap her mind around the fact that I had to see the yarn to know that, at the same time I was wrapping mine around the covert knitter who didn’t tell me she’d succombed to my addiction.  It was pretty funny.

Two trailers before we get to the main show: first, a thank you to Judy Sumner for the gorgeous yarn that had me catching my breath and going ooh, feel this! to Mom and Richard.  It’s 13.5 oz  (!) of silk/merino from Ellen’s Halfpint Farm in Evening Shadows, a colorway I particularly like.  Judy, I will try to knit this into something worthy of such generosity.  Or several somethings, at that yardage.

And a shoutout to Edgepark.com:  boy, could they teach my health insurance company something about customer satisfaction.   My supplies came. Already!

Now, on to the blog–

I had to laugh at Momo Fali’s comment, because I once did just a quick run to Costco for a couple of gallons of milk, it being all of a mile away, and the clerk stopped and stared at me: he had to give me change for my five.  “How did you DO that?!”

You build up a certain immunity.

Another Costco moment: I once went with my younger daughter pushing me in a wheelchair.  Never again on a Saturday; you’re lower down than the tops of the carts and people just don’t see you.   Bumper carts in the funhouse.  But the priceless moment was when Michelle parked me for a moment to run go look at something just as a young dad did likewise in front of us, and I suddenly found myself looking right up at a two-year-old boy carefully strapped in.

Who had the most befoozled look on his face as he stared down at me, trying to take it in: there’s a GROWNUP.  In a STROLLER.  Being pushed by a KID!!!

Utterly nonpsychodegradeable. Poor kid. I smiled and waved hi and he had no idea how he was supposed to react, it was just beyond him.

Scene three:  Costco again.  On a day when it was raining, when I still needed a chair at the time but no way did anyone in the family want to take the time standing in the heavy downpour to get it out of the car; Richard let the kids and me out in front of the entry to go use the store’s scooter instead, hoping there would be one not being used. There was.

Well, now, this was kind of cool: it had a horn (although calling it a horn is kind of like a chihuahua calling itself a Great Dane) that sounded like the RoadRunner for when people are barreling down on you. Meep meep!

The problem came, though, when we were at the far end of the store. The scooter died.  Totally. The gauge said the battery was fully charged, but it was as stubborn as an Iditarod dog in the hot Arizona summer: ain’t goin’ nowhere, dude.  After a few moments of trying, Richard gave up and went to go ask someone.

The manager came over, checked it out, and figured out the problem: “It’s thrown the deadman switch. It doesn’t think anybody’s there. You don’t weigh enough. Try putting your purse in your lap and a 25-lb bag of rice or something next to you on the seat.”

Not that I wanted any rice… We made do. And the thing roared back to life.

The first speaker at church today spoke of the love of God, how it took her awhile to find that He could so easily forgive the paths she’d taken in her teens–that He was just waiting for her to find that in His love, she could forgive herself and finally let go of any power those mistakes had had over her. She could move forward now.

The second spoke of forgiving others who had given offense. Then, tears springing to his eyes, he said he once felt he had offended God by his actions and had prayed for forgiveness; then he tried to describe the response he felt so strongly and for which he would forever be grateful, but for which there are no human words:  God loved him.

And I knew, listening to him, remembering, that an experience like that comes with the knowledge that we are required to go forth from there and love others absolutely, unconditionally, and with all our hearts as well.

But we are all still human. And it’s a challenge.

Forgiveness with an open heart is a willingness to let go of the parts of the past that you didn’t want to have had happen, in order to live the future you would give anything to be able to have.

We got a phone call tonight: my husband’s cousin.  A car accident.   Gone.

Richard then reminisced over dinner about someone he’d known in his high school back in the day, a kid who at 15 drank, stole his parents’ car, and then crashed it while fleeing the cops.  Not a smart move.

The judge could have taken away his possibility of getting a license till he hit 21, as is often done, but the judge wanted to change that boy’s behavior and make a difference to him.  So instead, he sentenced the kid to volunteering in his local ER.  During the midnight shift.  Where he got to see all the results of all the people making the same kind of mistake he’d made, or their victims, in all the reality of what that meant.

The kid never drank again.

Today I made it through all three hours of church meetings for the first time in three months.  (And then went home and slept three hours solid.)  Two weeks ago I’d gotten through the first meeting, last week not at all.

Today I got to see: that babe in arms was now walking, in that staggering “look at me!” way they do, with arms at stiff right angles as she toddled in glee at being able to. I laughed.  I could relate.

Those two newborns were now three months old and surprisingly bigger.  That baby over there in his daddy’s arms was now old enough to be smiling back at me and laughing at my peek-a-booing.

The woman who’d told me in great excitement that she was expecting her first, and I’d quietly thought, You are?  Where?, was now clearly quite pregnant.  Life continues onward.

Quite a few people made a big deal over my being back.

And I thought, as I did during Stitches and all the joy and all the greetings there, how, throughout January and the first part of February, I kept trying to remind myself that the day would come when I would be so glad to be alive.  It was something to try to convince myself of; I sure didn’t feel that way yet. But there was this sense of obligation to my family and to all the people praying their hearts out for me to keep on slogging through it all whatever may come, and to keep a sense of cheerfulness as much as possible.

The hardest thing I did physically and mentally during that time was to pull myself together enough to keep writing on my blog. To sound coherent. To type, at whatever angle I had to. To keep on being part of the great big world out there.  Grateful for each comment as I read them while utterly unable to muster the energy for giving back by responding.

It has been a weekend of much love and great joy.  I feel immersed in life again.  I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.  I owe much.  Thank you all for helping see me through.

Wind up the yarn into balls in celebration and forward knit!

Here’s the picture of Jasmin’s first gift of six. More pics later.  I’m throwing in one of the latest amaryllis to open up because it was a day that needed the distraction of pretty flowers.

One of the side effects of wearing hearing aids is it seems like the ears are always trying to flush these foreign objects out, so the wax tends to really build up. Which, when you’re deaf enough already, is a problem.  I’ve had the left ear plugged up for awhile, and I was astonished and delighted at the astuteness of one doctor (I think he was a resident), while I was at Stanford, who told a fellow surgeon to speak closer to my right side, that I could hear better there. I had told nobody, and here he’d figured it out! Good for him–that level of attentiveness on his part will serve him well as he goes forward.

My family practitioner has been off every time I’ve called for an appointment, but with Stitches so close, and given how noisy the packed convention center always is, I didn’t want to put it off any longer.  Today I simply went with whoever was available, thinking, it’s just earwax, I mean, c’mon.

The nurse I got had clearly only ever been given the most basic instructions. She didn’t prep the ear with softener and wait and then rinse, she simply took her squeegee bottle and proceeded to try to carve Mount Rushmore out of the inside of my face.  Not realizing that when the patient is in that much pain, you’re not doing it right.  I made her stop after I suddenly had what must have been blood going clear down my eustachian tube.

Well! Look! The wax is all gone now, sure, we can stop!

The doctor came in after the nurse left, was horrified when she looked, and gave me Cipro drops and told me emphatically to come back if that didn’t do the job. At home, I crashed and slept for hours.

I can’t wear that hearing aid till things heal up somewhat.  Friday, though, I will, regardless.

I’ve been debating endlessly with myself whether I should mention the episode to my own doctor, not wanting to scold someone who didn’t know her job better but definitely wanting her to know better how to do it for the sake of the next patient.  Who, I assure you, will not be me.

So.  Last night at bedtime I offered up a prayer, wondering if this surgery really would totally cure my Crohn’s forever and I’d never have to worry about it again.  What I felt in response!  An overwhelming sense of love and compassion from Above and at the same time: that God laughed.  Offering to me such joy as He did so so as to make me want to laugh for joy too.  I don’t know what the future holds, but, if and when it comes–we’ll handle that one together too.

And all felt right in the world.

(Ed. to add: surgery at noon tomorrow is the plan.  Operating room times vary in real life, but, it’s tomorrow about then.)

I was thinking about taking a shower this morning when the housekeeper came in to collect trash, scrub the sink etc and mop the floor. I watched her quietly, and as she mopped near the bed I told her thank you.  I added a moment later that I would love to be able mop floors again soon too, and she was making it safer for me so I could get healthier.

She mopped extra and with great care and a smile after that.  Her work is as important in its way as everybody else’s here, and I knew it must be meaningful to her for that. Having someone acknowledge that out loud and thank her–it was what I could offer her.

When we acknowledge the importance of what someone does for us, however mundane a thing it may be, we acknowledge the inherent service and kindness behind it.  I say this with a sense of wonder at the love I felt bloom in the room. I was not helpless no matter my condition, nor being helped; service is far greater than that.  Rather, we were equals on every level before God in that moment.

Out with the old.

In with the new.

Happy New Year’s!

And whatever you do, try not to rig the overstuffed fridge so that the person who’s allergic to dairy will get smacked with the falling milk jug,  ‘mkay?

You know your daughter loves you when she looks at her new pants and laughs and says, “Mom, you HAVE to take a picture of this!”

You can knit a whole lot faster when you already know the road ahead.

Hat #2: down a needle size.  Smaller keyboard (and thus faster to knit), more piano–I like this one.

Michelle pointed out that it needs to be a thicker yarn to be really warm, and I chuckled at my child who was only eleven months old when we moved to California: college has taught her to appreciate warm clothes.

I regret that my children never got to make a snowman in the front yard. I have memories from when I was a kid of my Dad helping our giant balls of snow walk the plank: there was no way we could lift that midsection, so Dad set up a board and with his help we rolled it on up. The head would be smaller and lighter, so Dad simply lifted those up for us, although I remember one big snowman in the yard in front of my parents’ bedroom where it was a challenge even for him and he went looking for a longer board.  Good times.

My kids growing up in California never got to ice skate on the driveway. Or on the Canal.  Or on the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument like we did, with the Park Service running a warming bonfire on the side.  The Reflecting Pool is something like a foot deep, so if you weren’t sure the water was frozen enough, you weren’t going to get anything but really cold if you fell through.

So. No snowmen.  Yesterday I got a surprise package in the mail, one that hadn’t made 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 yarn glued to his backside (I kid you not).  Who flies through the air in his red sleigh on New Year’s Eve, delivering yarn to all the procrastinating knitters who didn’t get their Christmas presents knitted in time this year!

And yeah, he waves that nail-needle perilously close to his carrot nose, and I love him all the more for it.  I played it over and over till Michelle put her hands over her ears and wailed, “Make it STOP!”

Ya gotta love a great snowman.

Tina, did you see this?! That video–wow.  (They’ve now edited out the part where the wire basket suspended by the helicopter kept getting tossed away by the waves, over and over, as the person inside the car tried to grab it–and it was 17 degrees F while all this was going on.  She did finally succeed in being rescued with her child.)  Thank you thank you thank you Montgomery County Maryland rescue personnel!

I can tell you the names of the families living at the cross street where this happened. If you look at the pictures, there’s a traffic light ahead at Seven Locks: turn left, go maybe half a mile, turn into the neighborhood and you’re at the house I grew up in. Turn right instead at Seven Locks, and you’re in Tina’s.  The teacher on her way to work who had a suddenly bursting wall of water and mud bury her car was going to the elementary school that Karen and Scott went to.

Everybody’s safe.  Cars and roads and 96-inch (the Post now says 66″) water mains can be replaced.

And the firemen marveled that they just happened to be heading out for breakfast right when it happened so that they saw it and they were right behind that teacher and were able to call out immediately for massive reinforcements as they pulled their truck from car to car, pulling people out.  The helicopter reached the ones they could not.

They were immediately at hand when they were so severely needed.  The choreography of God.  Wow.

(Edited to add this picture I took on River Road last year of the rock quarry that is halfway down the hill there where the water main broke–we were not allowed to play near the quarry growing up.   It was at the end of our street.)

I called my mom yesterday to wish her a happy birthday, and she told me that, reading my blog, it was clear to her that I’d been having a particularly happy week.

I answered that my flare had actually gotten worse during the week and that things were being pretty rough.

But you know? I got off that phone, thought about it, savored the tone that had been in her voice as she’d said that, re-read the week’s entries, and realized she was right. It *had* been a happy week!  No amount of Crohn’s could change all the things that were wonderful.  The surprise party and all the kind comments that flowed into the blog afterwards, Richard and Michelle being marvelously helpful, the two friends who came over during the week as well as the ones who came to the party, Mom’s silk blouse arriving in time for her birthday…

And in a rush of gratitude, I sat down and yesterday’s post just poured out of my fingertips.

So I have to offer one correction: Mom didn’t just teach me to see the best in others.  She taught me to look for the best in every situation as well.  She did it again.  Thanks, Mom!

I had a friend, growing up, who felt she was not supposed to come home with dirt on her clothes. A young lady was not to do that.

Which is how I learned early on to treasure my mother’s take on us after a good day down at the creek or in the woods in the back yard: she would give us an appraising look with a grin on her face and pronounce, “You must have had *fun* getting THAT dirty!”

She had this big bicycle horn she would raise high and honk to call us home from all over the neighborhood; all the other parents and children knew that sound and if we didn’t hear it would go, Hey, you, your mom’s calling you.

We would hold back and go one at a time, then run from our game of four-square or what have you on up the sloping street to Mom, especially in the summertime when the light continued for so long after dinner: run run running trying to pick up speed and at the end leaping up into her arms where she would swing us around and around and around on the grass next to the street, often till we were so dizzy we would fall down in delight when she let us down into the grass (or if that didn’t work, airplane our arms around and around till we made ourselves dizzy enough).  Just every now and then, she would fall down laughing too.

We learned we couldn’t be jealous and try to push ahead of the next kid–Mom couldn’t catch two at once.   She was perfectly capable of turning her back and chirping cheerfully as she walked away, “Nope! Lost your chance!”  Awww, MOooooommmmm…”  We had to take turns.

I wrote in my book about my friend Lisa, who 18 years ago volunteered to watch my preschoolers Monday through Friday mornings so I could go do swim therapy after my lupus diagnosis.  And like I did with my own kids, I used to swing her preschoolers around and around like my mom had done with me.

When Lisa’s family flew back to this area for her mother-in-law’s funeral, I swung her two little boys and their little sister around and around till we all fell down, for old times’ sake, even though they were beginning to be a bit big for it.  Arthritis shmitis.  I was not about to miss the opportunity. They’d been such a big part of my life for the three years we’d traded off watching each others’ kids, and I wanted them to remember the fun parts.

Lisa later had one more child, who of course had no connection to his older siblings’ California memories.

A few years ago, they decided to come vacation in Washington DC to coincide with when we were going to be there for our oldest’s Maryland wedding reception.  We had them over to my folks’ house and had a grand time.  And before they left, in my folks’ grassy front yard, to the delight of the youngest, I ditched my now-cane and picked him up and swung him around and around and around till we both fell down laughing. (There was no way I wasn’t going over too, nowadays.)

What delighted me was the instant reaction of the older siblings to their little brother: “NOW you’ve had the Sister Hyde experience!”  They still remembered being swung around! And they were glad for him that he got to have that!

My mom taught me how to do that.

My mom taught me to laugh when life makes you dizzy.

My mom taught me to see the best in others.

My mom (and Dad, too, I should add) taught me to go play in the woods and splash in the creek.  To admire the box turtles munching the mayapples but leave the snapping turtles be. To fill the birdfeeder without fail when it was cold and to laugh at the antics of the squirrels trying to get at it (and not to mind feeding them, too).

My mom taught this high-strung child how to chill out.  When my then-bachelor brother told her he could never have six kids like she had had, that he just didn’t have the patience, she stared at her older son a moment and then guffawed, “How do you think I *learned* it?!”  On the job training!

Happy birthday, Mom. Thank you.  I speak on behalf of all of us when I say, your six kids love you. Very much.  Wishing you a little bit of creek, a little bit of dirt on your new silk blouse, and go twirl till you’re dizzy!

This time of year, the UPS drivers around here all have an extra on the truck: someone to dash to the door with the boxes while the regular driver drives to try to speed up the process with all the extra deliveries going on.  So it was an unfamiliar face that rang the doorbell, and he was halfway back to the truck by the time I opened the door and called after him my standard, “Thank you!”

The guy looked startled.  It amused me.

The second time, a few days later, same guy running, he waved back with a smile.

The third time…

There was a woman I’d known whom I’d thought had moved away years ago after she’d been widowed. She kind of dropped out of sight.  Come to find out through mutual friends this week that  she did still live here, and I said how much I’d love to see her.  I didn’t have a phone number for her.

Monday my phone rang.  They had passed the word along, and she was just as glad to hear I wanted to see her as I was that she was still in the area.

Wednesday she came over, and had just gotten out of her car when the UPS truck pulled up alongside it.  She was parked right in front of my door and was on her way to it; I had heard her car pull up and was just then opening the door to come out to greet her.

The new guy handed her my package after she told him sure; meantime, I was on my way.

I hadn’t seen her in probably ten years.  She’d changed enough I probably wouldn’t have recognized her on the street had I not had any context, unless I heard her voice, and we threw our arms around each other in great joy at seeing each other, made all the more intense for wishing we hadn’t waited so long to look each other up.  Hugs!  With that package in her hand against my back as she held me, a cane in her other hand.

I glanced up to see both men in that truck.  They’d hesitated rather than revving up the engine to go, watching, not wanting to miss that moment.  Their eyes were big and their smiles as wide as ours.

As my former UPS guy once exclaimed to me, “I love my job this time of year!”