Posted with permission.

There are times when no gesture you can think of is enough, but you have to
do something. Something.

And so it was that I sent off that copy of “Don’t Let the Turkeys Get You
Down,” along with a baby alpaca shawl. (What? You think I wouldn’t send
some knitting with it? Now hey, come on.) It seemed utterly inadequate,
especially the book, butttt… If there was any chance I could get her to
laugh…

Her group works on contract, and they were nearing the end of their contract year.
Her boss wanted everyone to put in the kind of workweek that medical
residents do, to try to make themselves valuable so they would get renewed.

Only one problem with that for her: Saturday a week ago, she was the victim
of a violent crime. Tuesday, she was out of the hospital to show up in court
so the judge would not grant bail. (He was going to; he saw her there
and changed his mind.) And Monday, got a restraining order, just in case.

Meantime, I had that package flying to her. A guy with a knife is a heck of
a lot more than a turkey, my stars, but it’s what I had.

Now, that thing should have arrived sooner for what I spent on postage,
but–somehow, things work out. Today, she got laid off and told to clean
out her desk. She had fully expected to be continuing there.

And came home, and there was that package at last. Don’t let the turkeys
get you down, hon. She told me she cried…and, somehow, through it all,
looking at those silly Sandra Boynton turkeys, she laughed. And cried some
more. And wrapped herself in a long-distance alpaca-knit hug from her friend and smiled.  (She added that last sentence.)

If you ever think the gesture you’re thinking of isn’t enough, know that
sometimes you’ll never know. But the message in the trying is important
enough to put yourself out there and offer the effort.

Meantime, the knitting continues with the occasional break.

Usually, I like to surprise someone, but in this case, my friend K needs to know right now that I’m thinking of her. So while this is in postal transit, here’s a photo and something for her to look forward to. From Sandra Boynton, of the “Hippo Birdies Two Ewes” famous birthday card. I would have sent Boynton’s “Chocolate: The Consuming Passion,” the funniest little book on the planet, but I think K already has it.

Because sometimes you just need a good laugh in the middle of… (Well, K knows.) And a friend’s arm around you. This is the fastest I could reach over there for right now.

A box? I didn’t order any… To “Author Alison Hyde.” Return address simply Mountain Valley Growers. Huh?

Opening it up, I found every variety of mint plant you ever thought of, plus marjoram and oregano, a little Italian seasoning on the side. It was from my daughter and son-in-law in Vermont as a congratulations on the success of my “Wrapped in Comfort” book–put these to grow under the skylights in the bathroom or out in the garden, and make a mint!

Okay, our husbands think we’re weird, but that daughter and I like to rinse mint leaves and dip them in sugar for a snack (do NOT tell my diabetic brother that–oh, wait, hi, Bryan, she whistled innocently…) I will definitely put these in pots, though, rather than letting them run around willy-nilly–mint plants take over every molecule of space they can reach, they’re like bamboo that way. I will concede that that is good if you keep enough sugar on hand, but when the mint might knock on the door to nicely but emphatically demand that you buy the house next door and tear it down so that it has enough room to spread out comfortably in, well, the neighbors might take exception to that. I watered them after opening the box, and even the one that looked dead was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed a few hours later.

Pop question, who was the political figure in DC who archly declared that they were “not a potted plant”? Did they really mint that the way it sounded?

And by the way, did I mention that one of these is a Chocolate Mint plant? Bring on the Green and Black’s. Very cool. Thank you, Jennie and Jonathan!

I’ve been trading off between the big-stitch project and the little-stitch project, trying to wrap up the big one fast and get it out of the way so I can really get into my mug-o’-cocoa Malabrigo shawl. Scharffenberger, Dagoba organic–only the best in those stitches. I can just picture it on Alice Medrich: those who have her gorgeous “Cocolat” or “Bittersweet” books or ever ate one of her truffles at her Bay Area Cocolat shops before a fire closed down the plant and undid her business would understand what I’m talking about. Malabrigo? Something this soft, and with the swirls of different chocolates so artfully displayed? Absolutely. Only the best would do to represent her.

Not that I happen to know her, so that’s a totally moot point. But I can just picture it on her, the woman who pronounced that one must never cook the raspberries to make the raspberry sauce to go with your chocolate torte, or “You will assassinate them!”

But meantime, back in real life, Johnna wanted red. Johnna’s the friend who overhauled and updated my website, and I’ve owed her bigtime for a goodly while now. Hmm. Not that shade of dark-ripe raspberry sauce that I’ve been working on, which was heavier than she wanted anyway–it pleased me, but it wasn’t quite right. Not that finished Bigfoot shawl in a handpaint. Too variegated, too casual. Something vivid and splashy and formal and gorgeous. I had her come over yesterday to look, telling her, I’ve looked in all these yarn stores I’ve been doing booksignings in, and I just haven’t found something that quite declared itself to me as being the right yarn for you. But I’ve been looking!

She immediately asked me, Something I would like that you could stand to knit?

Alright, now, don’t put me on the spot like that… 😉

I showed her my Lisa Souza fine silk done in St. Valentine’s red; beautiful and bright, and I’d thought that one would do well on her, but so thin I would want to run it with another strand. I knew Johnna didn’t like the fuzzies; Kidsilk was out. (I showed her some. She wrinkled her nose.)

And then–I realized later I’d always kept it in a separate place from the silk, and somehow I had just never pulled the two out at the same time together: I showed her some 50/50 cashmere/lambswool I’d dyed, telling her I hadn’t found something to run with this one, either.

And she offered the absolutely obvious solution of, why don’t you just put those two together?

It was one of those stunning moments when you realize something so blatantly right there in front of your face, how on earth had you not thought of that yourself? I had never pulled them out together at the same time before, I’d never seen what could be. We twisted the strands together to see how they played off each other. Exquisite. And she was thrilled at the idea that her shawl would be hand dyed by me and by Lisa–not just something bought from some random shop (not that there’s anything wrong with that.) More personal than that.

So now I am about to go sit down and launch into the last four silly rows of that dark red to get it out of my way so I can wind up the 1000 yards of St Valentine’s so I can finally go make Johnna’s shawl so I can finish the Malabrigo after that so I can work on the… Carry on! Johnna’s project has totally changed for me: it’s no longer the angst of, this yarn or this? This pattern or this? Will I like it? Will she like it? Will this work? I will trade off with the Malabrigo when my hands need different needle sizes for a break, because it feels like it’s going to be hard to stop knitting either one–I’m too excited about both these. And just look at those reds! I love it. Johnna loves it. It will look fabulous on her–definitely just right. Yay!

I’m debating adding to this post… I’ve started fighting a cold, which has started my lupus and dysautonomia flaring. Last night I couldn’t breathe if I tried to sleep on my right side, a Bad Old Days symptom I emphatically do not want back. But I kept thinking, I refuse to get sick now. I refuse to give in. Johnna’s got her red shawl coming at last. I finally know just what to make her. I rolled onto my left side before my blood pressure dropped too low, deciding, so be it…

…And somehow, with all that happy anticipation to buoy me up, slept a good night’s sleep just the same.

If you could package knitting to make others happy into a pill, the drug companies would make a fortune. But it’s a whole lot more fun to be handing the medication money to people like Lisa Souza.

Today I dragged my 19-year-old Sherpa and guided him down the highway to Kings Mountain Art Fair, one of the best art and craft fairs in California. You go up the mountain and then along the crest of it, with breaks in the trees showing you the fog and the ocean way below you to one side, and the reservoir and then Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay to the other. From up there, it looks like you’re perched on the spine of the state.

Half an hour, I told the kid, I’m just asking for a half hour to visit with Kris and Mel. Which is why we chatted for–well, I tell you, it wasn’t just a half hour, definitely, and it was way too much sun, but sometimes, as I once told a friend a little more passionately than I had intended to say it, when it comes to taking risks re the UV, you just have to live!

Mel and Kris are potters; their website is mkwares.net, and I wish they did mail order, but last time I asked, they didn’t. Gorgeous work. Just gorgeous. I’ve been adding pieces gradually for several years, and now I finally have enough plates to serve dinner when everybody’s home.

But more than that: they are friends. I knitted Kris a scarf a year ago that helped keep her warm when she flew into Oakland airport; she stepped out into the foggy weather there and was shiveringly cold and wrapped it around her. My knitting… They were afraid to ask…and then thrilled to find out my book was not only out, but doing well. Yeah, well. So, guess who now has an inscribed copy?

And guess who gave me some pottery as a thank you?

If you live in the Bay Area, Kings Mountain runs through Monday. They rent old San Francisco cable cars converted into buses for ferrying people to parking points further out from the park. Go see!  And tell the Kunihiros hi for me.

The rest of the story:

So, there was the vice principal knocking on my window, thinking he recognized me but asking to be sure, “Are you Mrs. Hyde?” Yes. Can’t I just park? I mean, look at this jam! “No, I don’t think he can walk that far.”

MY kid??

Those 20 minutes it took me to get all those parents out of my frantic way so that I could drive around to the back of the high school gave me enough time to calm down and figure out what likely had happened, although, I only guessed the half of it. I finally got back there, pulling up alongside the firetruck, and saw someone gesturing dramatically with both arms, “In there!” Walked into the classroom to see my son half-lying half-propped-up on the floor, a cup of glucose solution in his hands, and asked him wryly, “So. You didn’t pack your lunch?”

“I TOLD YOU! I *TOLD* you!!” he exclaimed at the paramedics in total protest. My goodness, not one single ounce of sympathy from his mother, huh?!

It had been a beastly hot day, and he’d skipped breakfast. Hadn’t made a lunch. Didn’t want to drink out of the fountains, “They’re gross, Mom.” Got a real workout in gym. And then, the last class of the day, not feeling too well, he suddenly fainted as he stood to hand his test in to the teacher, and smacked his head hard on the desk on the way down. Out cold. The teacher called 911, the bell rang, I can just picture the other kids stunned, hesitating, and then stepping around him–and then the rumor went around the whole school that they’d watched this kid die in their class.

“They made me drink this really gross stuff, Mom.” Yeah, I know–I’ve done the glucose tolerance test, Type 2 diabetes is genetically dominant in my family.

And he was fine. And guess what? I didn’t have to nag him about making his lunch anymore.

But the next day, he watched jaws dropping all day long, time after time after time, every time he walked into the next classroom or across the Quad.  “But–you’re dead!”  Right, dude, do I look dead?

Make your own lunch. And for heaven’s sake, kid, don’t forget the water.

Here’s Sonya pulling another post out of me. I was thinking especially doctors, she mentioned teachers, although of course everybody could use a good thank you now and then.

Here in California, Proposition 13 in the 70’s did away with school buses, pretty much. Which means each family has to figure out on their own how they’re going to get their kids to school, and the school dropoffs, which were not designed at all to be used by parents in individual cars, get pretty crowded. (There’s a story about the vice principal knocking on my window to tell me to drive over to the back of the school to meet the paramedics, and it taking me 20 minutes to maneuver my way through the parking lot, pulling my hair out that he’d told me not to just ditch the car and run, but that’s a post for another day.)

So. I often drove other people’s kids as well as my own. My oldest, in high school, had a friend whom I frequently gave a lift home, and one day the two girls were very late showing up at the car. Thirty-five, forty minutes of sitting there after the bell with the three younger kids, cooling our heels. Now, there were often music lessons to be dashed off to or various other things on the schedule, but this particular day, there was no immediate rush, it was a beautiful day, and we just sat back, wondering where they were, but figuring, well, hey, they had to show up sometime.

They came to the car with Jennie trying to motion behind Jo’s back to me to be calm. She didn’t need to worry. I think that was the same day that I handed Jo a small Trader Joe’s box with three chocolate truffles in it, something that had cost me all of a buck and that I’d seen in the store and thought, I bet that would make Jo’s day; I’d bought it. Jo went, “Wow. Is this a Random Act of Kindness?”

I laughed, not having thought of it that way, but, yeah, I guess you could say so.

Cool!

It was after we dropped Jo off at her house that Jennie told me Jo had been having a really hard time, and that Mr. Hodges, the math teacher, had taken the time after school to really listen to her and hear her out. That’s why they were so late. Jo had needed that.

I thought of some of my own high school experiences, and mentally thanked Mr. Hodges for being there for our kids, glad that all of mine now knew they could go to him, too.

And then, as I kept thinking how much that meant to me, the next day I made a batch of cinnamon rolls. Now, I make really good cinnamon rolls, more a pastry than a bread. I timed them just so, and when it was time to pick up the kids, I found Jennie and Jo and asked them to lead me to Mr. Hodges’ classroom, quick, before he left for the day. The rolls were still warm.

What he said in response absolutely dumbfounded me: he was totally blown away, which was great fun, but then he said he had never had a parent seek him out in person to say thank you. He’d had a few send a basket of fruit from time to time, and once, some bubbly. But not once in his years of teaching had he had a parent show up in person to tell him thank you for looking out for their children.

My stars. And this in a school district that is justifiably famous for how involved the parents are. Well, it was about time, then!

And to think that to me it had almost felt like cheating, because I’d made something that had taken me only a few hours of work and would be eaten and gone in no time, rather than something knitted.

Technical stuff first: Jellybeanz colorway, Lisa Souza’s baby alpaca laceweight, my friend Tim’s new wife’s wedding shawl pattern, not yet published, this one just finished and not yet blocked. Lace looks like crumpled tin foil till you add a bit of water, and then, suddenly, the stitches settle into their natural places and you see what it was meant to be all along.

Saturday I got a note from someone I have occasionally emailed with for years via the Knitlist; she had started reading a bit of my blog, and had gone, Hey. Wait. I remember that park… She emailed me, saying, I went to Cabin John Jr. High, I used to live in that area.

That brought me up short real fast. When? (!)

She told me. I was on the edge of my seat, silently begging her to answer immediately: What was your maiden name?

She told me. I echoed it back to her with her name in capital letters. You’re !!??!!

Yeah, and what was your… And then, YOU’RE ALISON JEPPSON??!

So now she knows that Karen of the Water Turtle shawl fame in my book is her old buddy Karen, too. All these years, we had no idea we were talking to childhood chums when we talked about knitting to each other. All these years.

And the stitches settle into their natural places.

Reading Sonya’s comment got me thinking that she’s right, but there’s a flip side to it: the medical personnel who take care of us are, by and large, people who were drawn to the profession wanting to spend their days helping others. But in real life, that translates to their being immersed in the problems and troubles and pains of their fellow men, day in and day out, and that’s got to be hard at times. It about broke my heart to read one doctor’s lamenting to Dr. Rachel Remen in one of her books, that, if they make a difference to their patients, “The patients never tell you.”

Think what a difference a thank you can make.

I have a close friend I grew up with who was hospitalized for awhile, who felt his doctor had gone well above and beyond for him. He wrote the attending a note telling him that, and how grateful he was for it. He was quite surprised to get a long letter back, thanking *him*.

When I was in Stanford Hospital four years ago in critical condition, there was one resident whose comings and goings I mostly slept through, but I did see him a few times. We never had any kind of a real conversation, it was mostly just him reciting the list of meds I’d be transfused with that day. One of which was experimental, after the normal ones didn’t work; I guess that helped make me a little more memorable.  Surgery wasn’t really an option–I had too many other things wrong.

So. Quite a few months later, I was at a concert of the Harvard Glee Club, and the director, at the end, invited all former members of the Club to come up and join them for a rousing final number.

And I saw a suddenly-familiar face stepping forward out of the audience a little ways back. Hey!

I found him in the crowd afterwards, and thanked him for taking good care of me. He couldn’t quite place me… And then suddenly it hit him. “OH! YOU’RE the CROHN’S patient!!!” Yes. He looked at me, standing there, just looked in amazement: I was well, I was standing on my own two feet, hair brushed, wearing something infinitely nicer than a hospital gown and enjoying a night out at a concert, something that, the day he’d met me, there seemed no hope could ever happen again.

And there I was. With a big smile on my face, then laughing as he recited that last list of meds again from memory, and telling him thank you for looking out for me.

That young doctor went home with a spring in his step and all being right in his world. This was why he did this. This is why he put up with the hassles of it all. This was what it was all about. Seeing people becoming well again and rejoining day-to-day life, if he had any possible say in the matter. And I’d remembered him! He was absolutely radiant. I watched him heading off, beaming, and I know I was, too.

Tell’em thank you. Make a difference to them, too.

And that will make a difference to all the patients who come after you.

I finally finished it!

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been in this longterm lupus study for awhile now. July marked the first time I actually had to go to San Francisco in person, and I got to meet some of the people that have been behind the names and the phone voices for so long.

One of whom was exactly the right person to get that green shawl. And she got it, and loved it, and I am absolutely thrilled.

So. A few weeks later, I got a thank you card for my participation from the fellow I’d spent most of that day with. Bryan.

The thing I like least about this multiple-major-illness thing is how it sometimes smacks you hard in the face when the subject of a longterm plan of any sort comes up. As we finished up that day, Bryan told me warmly that he looked forward to the follow-up session two years out. That hit me. I made myself ask him the question I’d been having: in this new part of the study, if I’m not here to do the rounds at the follow-up, would the results of July be tossed? Would they be of any value, still? He assured me with a smile from the heart that they would. Good. That was a relief.

But somehow his being somebody I could open up to and ask that question of, and the comfort of the warmth in his response, left me looking forward to that next round. I will be there. Just try to stop me.

Bryan sent me this note recently. Not on official UCSF stationary, it was something he’d apparently picked out himself. Opening it up, it wowed me: I am the daughter of an art dealer. I was taught to look for the patterns in things, to observe. My grandfather was a US Senator, I grew up next to DC, and the ornate patterning in the old government buildings downtown seemed all over this card. My other grandmother, long widowed, had lived not far from San Francisco, and I remember Golden Gate Park and its art museum from my childhood–again, ornate and grand, as are some of the other older buildings in that city–which I live 45 minutes from myself, now. (The De Young was destroyed in our ’89 earthquake, though, and rebuilt in a far more modern style.)

The card from Bryan, then, seemed an instant visual connection between my youth, my life here, and somehow on into the future. Amazing the sense of continuity one artist’s creativity can make, while that artist, whoever designed this thing, will never know.

Inside, Bryan thanked me for taking part in the study, not mentioning anything about his colleague’s shawl; I don’t doubt that it would have seemed to him too much like angling for me to knit him something, too. But he wanted to wish me well, and he then took the time to take it over to the phlebotomist who had waited for me to put down my knitting so she could draw my blood, and as she did so, had mentioned to me that she was a knitter, too. Cool! She’d signed her name after his. I wasn’t just the blood draw at 1 pm; I was someone who, weeks later, still mattered to her. That group has just incredible people in it.

How could I not answer this. Bryan, this is me saying thank you the way I know how. Patricia, that Zinnia scarf–the one with the story in my book, singing, “If you go to San Francisco…” These are for you guys. Check your mail. Cheers.

This is the first year we’ve had a good crop of apples on our Fuji tree I planted awhile ago: I crumbled egg shell bits around the base of the trunk in the spring, and the snails couldn’t climb it at night to eat the blossoms. The next thing to watch out for is the squirrels, who like to arrive just before the apples are ripe and pick one, eat one bite, throw it down, and try out the next one till they’ve gone through and stripped the whole tree, looking for that one perfect Fuji. Everybody’s a gourmet in northern California. They get the hormonal twitch to eat big, thinking winter’s coming, in a climate that doesn’t get cold enough for them to ever hibernate, and in the feasting process some of them grow to the size of small cats. It can be amusing to watch the telephone lines sway under their weight.

There’s a metaphor here to Stephanie’s worries about a “wool blight,” and how one must gather up all the wool yarn one can jam into one’s closets, under one’s bed, and down the arms of whatever jackets the kids have grown out of/haven’t grown into yet for storing it. I plead guilty, at least to the closets part.  But then, that means I had just the right shade of green for Erin to choose from when I offered her her choice out of four or five giant balls of the green baby alpaca I had, to get her started knitting; I like to call it my yarn library in there.

Lisa Souza’s new yarn, Hardtwist Petite in superwash merino wool, two balls, my Bigfoot pattern. It’s sproingy, a yarn with good tensile strength, and practical for a new mom who doesn’t have time to worry about the fragility of laceweight.  The little overall splashes of color–well, once she starts feeding her baby in a highchair, she’ll understand why that belongs in her shawl.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a new exhibit, and I’d like someone to explain to me why the young African River Otter, after zooming past an obstacle in the water, stopped and head-butted the sandy floor. I think it was one of the male twins they said had been born in the past year. Meantime, a larger one on land above him stood on its hind legs, eyed the crowd with his white whiskers making him look like an aging champion, and pumped his paws high in the air, Rocky Balboa style, twice. We were totally charmed.

And watching them cavort, it hit me: water ferrets. My brother once mentioned to me that he hadn’t been emailing much lately because his new pet ferret was entranced at his typing, and would scramble onto his shoulder every time and take a flying leap onto the keyboard.

I could just see these doing that, just pleading with you, type me a river. Water ferrets.

Judy, I found this: http://carderock.net/carderock.html which has one very badly-worded sentence about 2/3 of the way down on the first page about the naming of Cabin John, although, the history on that page is fascinating: for instance, the first settler who stayed and farmed in the area was the great-grandson of a man who arrived in Virginia Colony as a Scottish prisoner of war of the Cromwell government. I did not know that any of the colonists were POWs.

The site does explain something I never knew about the rock quarries on River Road: they were used for building the canal! Makes perfect sense, but I never knew that nor that they were so old. When I was a kid, we were strictly forbidden to get near them; those steep rock faces dove straight down.

I believe the stone entryway of the house I grew up in came from there… (Dad?)

Here’s another, from cabinjohn.org, giving the various theories–the folklore about a hermit was the story I grew up with–saying that Captain John Smith was the first to explore that part of the Potomac, and that Cabin is probably a corruption of Captain. It says, “The following is a description of the Cabin John area as recorded by Captain Smith in 1608: ‘The river … maketh his passage downe a low pleasant valley overshadowed in manie places with high rocky mountain from whence distill innumerable sweet and pleasant springs … Having gone so high as we could with the bote, we met divers savages in canowes well loaden with flesh of beares, deere, and other beasts whereof we had part. Here we found mighty rocks growing in some places above the ground as high as the shrubby tree .’ ”

I went looking for the CD of photos my friend Karen (of water turtle fame) took, to add to this post, but haven’t found it yet. I now know one place I want to point my camera when I go home to Maryland for Stitches East: I want a shot of that quarry. And the tiny stone house, the old innkeeper’s lodge at Seven Locks Road, that is the oldest building in Maryland, next to that quarry.

I can’t wait to go home. I’m so glad I have Stitches East in nearby Baltimore as an excuse.

“Do NOT call into a disaster zone. Email them.”

Yes, dear, I know. We live in California: it’s a given that you’re supposed to have one out-of-state person that everybody knows to call to hear the news. Things happen here. But Minnesota? Who makes plans like that in Minnesota?

My husband’s aunt’s house was a half mile from the epicenter of the ’89 Loma Prieta quake. His grandmother called and woke me up at 4 am, trying to get word on her daughter. I groaned to him, hours later, “Your grandmother got the time zone differences backwards!” I was later told she’d been dialing the phone all night. She kept saying to me, over and over, “I couldn’t get through! I couldn’t get through!”

I’d had nothing I could offer by way of comfort; we hadn’t heard either. Turns out that, although the house was trashed, her daughter and her family were okay. There were even funny stories: like the electric shaver, attached to its cord, that bounced across the bathroom, down the hall, down the stairs, into another bathroom, and the wall landed on the cord. Great. Now, just how do you lift it off it to get it out again? Um…

My husband got his ham license and his Disaster Services Red Cross certification after that. Next time the lines were down, he would be able to help get the word out.

New York. My brother was able to call the folks. My cousin, at work a half block from the Towers, got the word out the next day about seeing the planes hit and walking miles home. Leigh Witchell from the Knitlist and I spent two weeks trying to track down any word on Madlove Gina; turns out she’d just quit her job in the Towers and gotten a new one in Jersey. Hated it. Wanted to go back. When 911 happened, she did go back–as a volunteer, to help, knowing that people she loved were in there. Anything she could do.

There were New York shopkeepers who stayed put as the endless streams of people walked past them out of there, handing out water to strangers in need, over and over. Heroes. They didn’t decide it was too many people for them to be able to make a difference; they made a difference.

Email. Do not overload the local phone lines, let the people who need them most immediately, the ones who are right there, have them. Wait. I waited.

Dave was away on a business trip. Wanda was feeding the kids dinner. I don’t know if that trip had anything to do with it, but they did not cross that bridge a few exits down the highway to go to the Twins game. There is a guilty relief that the people I love are fine, but it doesn’t lessen my compassion for the ones who can’t say that. My heart goes out to Minnesotans.

I went to the computer this morning and found myself growling, “The Internet connection is down *again*?”

My husband’s first job out of grad school was with Digital Equipment Corp in New Hampshire. Merrimack was a boom town; when we wanted to buy a house, we had to pick a lot and wait for it to be built. One benefit of that is that everybody else in the neighborhood was as new as we were and curious about meeting everybody else.

One couple, a few doors down and across the street, had, it turned out, been friends with my sister Carolyn and her husband in Indiana when they were in grad school together in married student housing. Small world. The kids directly across the street, when they got locked out of their house, came over to mine and knew they’d be welcome. I used to walk several brisk miles every morning, waving hi at people on their way to work before I headed back in to take care of my little ones. We all knew each other, at least by face.

But after a few years, people became more settled into their own routines, and that initial openness kind of faded. Until the day: a construction crew with a backhoe accidentally sliced through the major phone cable servicing half the town. Thousands of wires gone. This was going to take awhile. We were all cut off from the outside world for a week unless we got in our cars and drove away.

And you know? The weather was beautiful. People started strolling around the neighborhood, taking in the day. Chatting with their neighbors. Actual face time and in person; it was delightful. A bit scary, on one level, knowing you couldn’t call for help if something happened, but for everyday life, it was wonderful.

And then after a week, the phone service finally came back, people disappeared back into their houses, and that was that. The difference was startling. One couldn’t help but wish for just a little service outage from time to time, just a little.