The talk was amazing. Being able to hear it and read the captions when I knew they normally don’t have that set up there was a vivid example of exactly the things he was saying.

That the things that matter in this life are our relationships. The choices we make. And how we treat others.

And he talked about plants. How watering them allows the roots to access the minerals in the soil and support all that shows above ground; the water offers more than just water, it makes everything the plant needs down there accessible.

While I remembered neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks’ observation that if you kneel in the dirt with a dementia patient, no matter how far gone their brain is, and hand them a little seedling, they will always, always plant it roots-side down. Never roots up leaves down. It is built into our very beings to know how plants grow.

It is built into our very souls to want to love and be loved.

Our church building is in the middle of its annual five-day creche exhibit, with the whole place turned into a temporary museum, every piece on loan. The people who run it are gifted designers and creatives and the place is always gorgeous. There are concerts every night, a hands-on children’s area, and everything is a gift to the community. They wouldn’t accept payment if you tried. If you’re at all local, I highly recommend a visit.

Which means that for actual church services we double up with another ward in another building.

A friend offered to carpool. I said I’d love to but we’re sick. She said just so you know there’s no Zoom option there.

And then there was a ward email from another friend, proud of his identical twin who was going to be a speaker Sunday, not to miss it!

Oh, I wouldn’t for anything… But there’s no way I’m knowingly exposing anybody else to this.

I told him my dilemma yesterday. He got back to me today. Someone in the background, he didn’t say how much of it was him or his brother or who, managed to work things out so that yes, he then announced to the whole ward, there will indeed be Zoom available for those who are ill or otherwise in need of it.

I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful a Christmas gift it felt to be looked out for and included. Someone chose to go out of their way to do the inconvenient thing and set things up differently for that day so that we wouldn’t have to miss it.

It had not gone out this week (neither of us was bending nor lifting anything Tuesday.) It had to be done. It was piling up. We discussed who felt most up to the task and he was sure he should do it but he might need help with the lifting, he said; we could manage it together.

And then I remembered that probably the only thing actually in that silly trash can was plastic packaging material, since we’d left town on pickup day last week, and went across the house to confirm that hunch.

Getting the new liner on afterward was the hard part and that did create the sharpest twinge I’d felt since, I dunno, yesterday, so back to the stretching exercises pronto.

At long last there was a task where the fear had been the hardest part. We can deal with that. Progress!

Barbecue tongs for getting the laundry out, a hairband scooted under the bridge of my glasses so I can rescue them from the floor. Pushing your back flat if possible when you cough.

And stay upright as long as you can to keep the crud out of your chest (having just spent three and a half days essentially asleep.)

Four days down, ten to go?

We had a great trip. More later. It wasn’t till the drive back to their airport that we suddenly started to feel the germ they’d been getting over when we came (knowing full well and deciding to come anyway.)

We wore masks while traveling. Would have anyway.

Mix that with waking up with my back giving way on me this morning if I tried to stand up, it was a bit of a day and not what I want to be writing about. Lots of back stretches on the floor. Managed to sit up for the first time for half of my Zoom knitting meeting. Finally got some soft food down at 6 pm and that seems to have helped everything.

But we were fine while we were there and got to love on everybody and that’s what I care about.

Wishing everybody a very Happy Thanksgiving.

A year ago, we were delayed after boarding, it was raining, there were accidents on the freeway coming from the airport, and we finally pulled off at an exit and went looking for a food establishment, any food establishment.

We found an ice cream shop. Richard hesitated a moment and I said, Calories. I didn’t care what kind at that point, just, we needed to get something in us fast and get back out on the road. The app said that under current conditions we had an hour to go.

There was a young couple waiting while our order was coned up trying to manage two small children, and the usual finger puppets came out for a happy distraction.

I mentioned that other than airline pretzels we hadn’t eaten since 11:00 a.m.

The dad’s eyes went big: nine hours, if I remember correctly. I could just picture him imagining trying to get through that with his kids as he went, Oh wow.

So. Not doing that again.

It’s easy to find small packages of junk food, but I was hoping for at least some protein. There’s a brand of Korean barbecue jerky that doesn’t use nitrates or nitrites nor is it tough (usually). Costco sells it in mega-packages. I wanted single serving.

There they are, they do exist!

It came today. Amazon said so, with a picture as proof.

I picked up the small package that had USA added to my address, wondering, what on earth? Who is this from? Why?

I just hope the person who ordered the zipped hardshell book holder wristlet with an inner compartment for a wallet substitute (that’s all I can figure this thing is) isn’t being a horrified vegetarian right now.

Baked my own answer to the dilemma. Now I just have to figure out how to get my cranberry/orange/almond flour muffins onboard (like I have enough space for that?) without having them fall apart. Probably way healthier anyway.

And the answer: not cancer. No worries.

And then I got so caught up in looking at my children’s Christmas wish lists that I forgot to post this last night. ‘Tis the season. Happy Thanksgiving!

The New York Times had an article on how to talk at Thanksgiving to people that you want to get to know better–basically, that you want to hear something positive from. Mercifully, it did not directly reference Nov. 5th.

One could ask things like, Who is someone you only ever saw once who made a difference?

It was a year ago, wasn’t it? We were flying into Seattle. The woman next to me was studying my hands as I knit, every motion–affirming when I caught her eye that she had long wanted to learn how.

She lived in San Diego. Her son, an adult now, lived in Seattle. She was so proud of him; she missed him so much.

She admitted late in the flight that he had offered to take her the next day to shop for a hat. It was going to be quite cold and she simply didn’t own one. She’d gotten the jacket in time at least.

Which matched the hat on my needles. I scrambled to finish it and work the ends in before we landed and I did it. I did it. They could enjoy their time together without having to work through crowds and cashiers and all that if they didn’t want to.

She is the one who made so much of a difference to me.

Every time I see the Mecha skeins in the store now, I think of her deep appreciation and want the next person to be that thrilled. With the colors, with the soft wool, with being thought of and found knitworthy.

I want to ask her if she ever took those knitting lessons, to revel in her successes. I hope that she gets to experience from someone else how she had blessed me.

A week ago, needing a new carry-around project now that the baby blanket was too big for that, what landed on my needles was yet another boring old plain washable wool Mecha hat. It’s like type O- blood: the universal donor.

I finished knitting it a few minutes ago and I’m about to start another. Even around here, a warm hat on a cold day can make all the difference to someone.

Maybe she’ll fly to see her son this year, too.

We saw the truck a few days ago: not the classic moving van, but bigger than, say, an Amazon truck, so who knows if it was a washing machine or a household.

Their cars arrived and the lights came on. Hey.

You don’t get in someone’s way on moving day. Or the day after, or after, but, but… A few minutes the Saturday after that might do?

The husband opened the door. I was certainly not expecting blond, and I don’t know what he was expecting but it clearly wasn’t a white-haired woman holding out a bag, but we got past that quickly.

I’d misheard in that brief moment meeting his wife in the dark on the sidewalk last month: the baby is actually two now, and he is adorable. There is no smile that melts a person like a toddler’s who is running towards you.

I told the little guy’s mom that if she’d prefer a shawl I had two more skeins and the dye lot was almostalmostalmost a total match to the baby blanket.

The husband grew up about 150 miles from where we did.

And she’s a knitter! Oh my heart. We DID get the most perfect neighbors!

Appointment: Monday. Yay.

Meantime, I was thumbing through the city’s Adult Ed class brochure they sent everybody today. Knitting classes! Meant for beginners and the more advanced alike, the latter being asked to bring their projects to work on. Fee: $160.

Now that’s called paying for a compliment.

Cooking classes. Learn to make Belgian chocolates? How to temper on a slab of marble? Sounds like fun, but I could fund a lot of trips to Dandelion in San Francisco for that much, and I already make my own actual chocolate bars. Sometimes. (Flips page.)

Python cooking.

Staggered doubletake.

Python CODING.

While Richard is already grinning, Yeah, you have to fillet it yourself.

Where could you even lay out 18 feet of such a thing. I know! You could wrap it around the kitchen. Avoid Florida-ted water. Don’t forget the Everglaze.

I remember as a kid being warned to put sunscreen on or I’d get skin cancer–at a time when nobody I knew actually wore it and getting a tan, which I could never have pulled off even if my freckles had decided to unionize, was something of a social requirement.

Sunblock was not even the word yet.

Whatever anyone said to me about sun exposure hazards at the time, I remember a mixture of inability to believe in it because being actually old enough for that to happen was beyond my imagination, and of feeling a little bit indignant at this vision of a future me I’d never met who was old. Which I most emphatically was not.

But who would want to hold me accountable for what I was doing as a kid, ie, running around and playing outside. As one does. How could I ever be her? And who was she to boss me around? Or to make me feel guilty?

Granted, Sandy down the street liked to sunbathe on that vinyl chaise-lounge by her mom’s rose patch and I knew all I would do is fry and hurt if I tried that. Not to mention I was not one to hold still. Hiking in the woods was my favorite thing.

I wonder if this would have worked better: laughing at pictures of how funny future me could look like. Still with my hair below my shoulders (go me!) but with this scar at the top of my scalp, imprinted like a baby’s fontanelle. (Here, feel that. Like a thumbprint!) And what it does is, any remaining hair there starting a new round of growing shoots straight up into the sky. Which looks really weird while the rest is mildly curly. Finally, months later, it gets long enough to flop over but it still wants to go left instead of right.

I happen to be sporting the hedgehog look just now, conditioner additions notwithstanding.

The photos of me holding Parker as a newborn nearly 14 years ago show that that basal-cell was present nine months before I finally let Richard talk me into taking seriously this spot that wasn’t going away, and got it looked at. I’d thought it was discoid lupus. I lost a fair amount of hair to that procrastination.

Two weeks ago, I found myself scratching at night at maybe a mosquito bite on the side of my head.

Today I finally asked Richard to look at it for me and take a picture (nah, you don’t want to see it.)

I’m sure the thing my dermatologist most wanted to do during the countdown to T-day was squeeze in one more patient appointment and a surgery when she just saw me last month.

Last time it rained as much as it’s supposed to tomorrow, a year ago, I had an appointment with her but the roads were closed and the floods were high and there was no way to get there.

I’m getting ahead of myself. She has to see the message first.

All I can do is wait. (As my brother waits for his melanoma recovery to attain five-year status. One of my children had it at 29 and is fine. Nah, mine’s just going to be basal again if anything. Looks the same as last time.)

She was tired. She is maybe three by now. She was on the floor, arms wide, making herself as big as she could. The dinner part of the potluck last night was over and her daddy had her baby brother in his stroller quiet and content, while he sat at a little round table with a small group away from most of the crowd getting some adult in-person time.

Since she was lying there quietly and in view he wasn’t paying the least attention to her, or as far as she was concerned, and I could see her watching him with his face turned half away and her wheels turning and the meltdown that was just about to start. If she was going to be tired enough to lie down it was going to be in her own bed with her own nighttime rituals and this would not do!

I had a new baby and a two year old three times in a row. I remember.

I apologized to her mom this afternoon, saying, I broke my own rule. I always give to the parents, not the child, but I handed that tiger directly to her.

She laughed and said it was great and thank you and that they had several of those finger puppets by now.

Their little girl had LEAPED up in excitement holding it high, running to show it to her daddy.

I love how easily and instantly little kids can cheer up. She helped me be a bit of a one too last night.

Just slow, steady progress on that bright red.

I told him in the course of the conversation, I have enough yarn now that I could actually do three more repeats and make it beyond a baby blanket to a real throw. But would they want that, I mean who needs their neighbor decorating their house for them and if I leave it baby size does that obligate me to make another if they have another child so I’m not creating jealousy and yeah I don’t expect they’re going to have half a dozen more or anything but this could get expensive. And this other neighbor didn’t get any when her kids were born because she was having hers at the same time our kids were having some of theirs and what about hers being left out. But oh well.

He was smiling at this point: “You’re overthinking this.”

He told me just do what you planned to do, let life play out however it’s going to and take it from there when it does.

Of course.

I guess all I really was asking was did I have permission from myself to cast off now, which looks like it would leave it an inch or two wider than it is long (as far as I can tell pre-blocking), or do one more set.

That shape bugs me. The number six bugs me–the eye is pleased with odd numbers. Request denied. One more set. Because I’m the boss of my knitting (my stash just guffawed) and I said so.

I wonder how her life turned out. She would have been able to reach people nobody else could have.

When I was at the end of my first semester of college in 1977 at BYU, facing my first finals, my dad surprised me with an amaryllis bulb kit in the mail for my birthday.

He had given one to my mom every year for hers. To be included in that celebration felt like my dad telling me quietly that I was an adult now in his eyes. And that because of his faith in me, I was. Finals? I could do this!

One of the girls on my floor in the dorm asked me about that box with the pretty flower picture on it and was so taken with the idea that my dad would do that that we got to talking.

And talking.

We found ourselves walking the campus. Around town. Walking, walking, till hours past our bodies ached to be sound asleep. There was no way to stop.

I was her first witness. She had to tell someone.

When she was younger, her parents had lost a child in a house fire.

Her father, well regarded in their community which had rallied around the family, at home was someone who beat her mother. Often.

The day came when Becca stood between them to make him stop. He knocked her out.

And again.

At one point, and I don’t know how she met him, some older man told her he loved her and would protect her and brought her home to his place, where she was his plaything for a week. I think she was 17.

At the end of that week, though, she considered all the Sunday School lessons about waiting for marriage and knew she hadn’t done that and the ones about loving your family and she knew her father hadn’t lived up to that–but that this wasn’t how she wanted to live, either. She went home. College was coming soon anyway.

My father had sent me a flower bulb, simply to surprise me and make my day, and because he believed in me. There were actually people out there who loved their kids and lived that way. That, that was what she wanted ahead of her in her life. Love. Kindness.

She confessed to me then that a few nights earlier it had all become too much and she had sat in a tub with a knife in her hand, looking at her wrists, prepared to do the deed.

But something had made her hesitate. She felt an intense empathy reaching out for her personally, with a question, and I will never forget her saying these words describing how it felt: Yes. This life *will* be hard. Do you want to continue it?

She felt a promise holding her in its loving arms that she was not alone, that it would be so hard, but worth it, worth it, worth it, if she did. And so she lived.

Then she saw my amaryllis box.

And knew that good, loving people were out there, that they were more than just a Sunday School wish, that they were trying to live up to what they profess about following the teachings of Jesus to love one another. They were real. That could be her. She could want others to feel that same sense of being offered rescue that she had.

Yesterday morning, surely from the stress of what last week’s election means for the whole world and worried sick over my friends in Ukraine, I woke up from a nightmare. In it I had relived the pain of her telling me what had been done to her.

Becca–her parents had called her Rebecca when they were mad at her, which had never made sense to her because they had in fact actually named her simply Becca–had, shortly after our long nighttime walk, gone home at Christmas break to her folks in the South and she never came back. She told me just before she left that she had decided to go home, trying to reassure me that it was okay to now.

I never heard from her again.

I have never known if she was okay, and all my adult life I have wanted her to be, wherever she is out there.

She could be there for others going through what she had had to in a way I could never know how to. We opened up each other’s worlds. If we saw each other now we would be throwing our arms around each other and telling how this whole life thing had all turned out for us.

I told Richard the gist of that long walk.

It was a hard story for him to hear on top of the overwhelming grieving going on re the election outcome, wherein half the nation had returned to its abuser.

I had a thought–and went and pulled out the Nautilus puzzle of a sunrise at the Grand Canyon.

Pouring out the pieces. Getting out the cookie sheets to sort them into. Heads bowed together, turning each one over to see its true colors, searching for the edges, finding where it turns its corners, slowly, slowly over two evenings going from setting up the boundaries to filling in the center, the rocks and the sky and the river coming to be, slowly and painstakingly at first and then faster and faster towards the end till the picture was complete.

The laser-broken pieces now a glory of a view.