I was 31. They did tell me cerebral vasculitis. Nothing at all to compare to what this woman went through, but at the same time so many parts of her story sound so familiar.

I was someone who never forgot a face. Suddenly I wasn’t remembering them instead, even having trouble, when I was tired, recognizing my own husband’s. I suddenly couldn’t spell anymore, my short-term memory was gone, and I remember the time I ordered something over the phone and had to have the sales clerk read the numbers back to me to make sure I’d read those squiggly things correctly: Tell me the name of the item back to me, too, just to be sure. Letters were far easier. Still, I could tell which numbers they were just fine if she told me first what they were, kinda hard for her to do, y’know, so we did our best. (Online ordering didn’t exist yet.)

It helped clinch my lupus diagnosis.

Read what Christine Hyung-Oak Lee can write now. She’s amazing.

Today is my sister’s birthday, and what she wanted was a photo of the house we grew up in.

Took me a long time to find the file and then I just spent an hour emailing her the roll. (Does anyone still call a photo sequence a roll?)

Hey Marian, there’s one here I missed, of looking down the street from the house, and further down in that post, one of the back yard.

And just for fun here’s a memory of the DMV in Maryland.

The photo here is of the C&O Canal, early November ’08. I used to walk there with my friends all the time, growing up; when Richard wanted to take me there for a walk and a picnic on our second date I knew he was a keeper.

A side note. Alaska went through a 9.1 earthquake in 1964, the second highest magnitude ever recorded and that lasted about a minute. So did today’s 6.2 near Anchorage, and I’m guessing that’s a good part of why my daughter’s building at work was on rollers. She gave me a quick heads-up that everybody there was fine, even if being on the seventh floor was…entertaining?

My thanks to people who build’em right.

“It’s a little wispy here. Do you mind if I cut this?”

It looked fabulous when Gwyn was done, and, having caught up a bit–I’ve known her since she was born–we gave each other a hug and I asked her to please never ever move away.

She laughed. No immediate plans to, thanks.

No longer does my hair pin me for that nanosecond while I quickly (oh right, here you go) lean forward in the driver’s seat to release it so that I can look in my side view mirror. That’s where I tend to say okay, we’re done here: cut!

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings I was not home to do my usual watering but for just long enough to keep the pots of tomato plants going and I was off.

There was a one-plant surprise party for me Monday way across the yard over next to the cherry tree: having weeded there last Wednesday, I know it wasn’t there then.

Okay, then, squirrels do bury food for the winter, but squirrels don’t even like tomatoes–they just steal the juices out and toss the rest.

Curious little mystery. It’s a vigorous little grower, maybe we’ll even get a harvest out of it.

Meantime, thinking about yesterday’s post some more, I realized that I have no idea what time my car actually got done and my showing up to ask might have been right as they finished. In my hurry to finish the post and call it a night I neglected to mention that the mechanic had asked me for my cell number so he could tell me when it was done.

I explained the hearing impairment (I’d forgotten my bluetooth pendant to my Iphone) and that in that noisy store, I would never hear it ring; I asked if it would be possible to text instead?

He thought about that for a nanosecond and decided, with no question in his voice, a firm Yes. He added quickly that it would be from his personal phone, not the store’s (I’m sure so that I would get it despite its being an unfamiliar number.)

Now, we have a cell plan with unlimited free texting, which they don’t offer anymore; we’re grandfathered in, along with two of our kids and my parents. This guy probably pays by the text and he was willing to offer that out of his own personal pocket to a customer. He didn’t have to do that–and in the moment that he did, there was a certain joy in his face in the offering.

They’ve got a good guy there.

I got two notes back from Costco customer service this evening. The first was an automated, we don’t answer after hours but we will get back to you tomorrow.

The second, sent soon after by someone who had read it anyway and clearly had felt compelled to answer, was a note thanking me and saying they would forward my email to the manager so that Luis could get the recognition he deserved.

And now I was the one who was smiling. May that little moment he created not be buried but come to full fruition for him.

It is supposed to rain come Thursday, a whole .12 of an inch, but still, actually measurable rain as opposed to last week’s random scattered few drops that couldn’t even clean a skylight.

The first of the season in California always brings a string of accidents from all the months of accumulated oil on the roads as the surfaces all go slick in a way they will not after a good washing-away, an annual phenomenon I’d never heard of till we moved here.

It was time. The new tires went on today.

The mechanics forgot to tell me my car was done. I was in no hurry to walk outside and risk the UV exposure, so having commandeered a padded chair I found inside next to the photo lab I simply sat. And knit. And watched the reactions of passersby to the randomness of a woman knitting at Costco.

The photolab guy kind of sneered and silently but clearly wished me out of there. One woman made up for that when she stopped midstep at the sight of my needles: she looked thrilled, and almost, almost struck up a conversation. I would have myself but I let her decide at her own comfort level, wondering if there was a language barrier–but I would have told her that really, there was not. Her face lighting up like that had said what I’d needed and I wanted to tell her thank you. So I smiled greatly in return.

I knitted on. That purple scarf for my cousin I’d been meaning to really get going on? Now I have. I really like how it’s coming out, which is when a project about knits itself, y’know?

When my hands needed a break after two and a half hours I finally did get up and go back outside and in the other door to ask after that car.

Oh, right, here’s your key!

And so one sense of satisfaction at a needed job getting done became closer to two.

(Edited to add the next day: when it got past 5:00 I saw my chance at redeeming the interaction between me and the photo lab guy. I asked him what time the tire center closed up for the night, I mean, y’know, I hadn’t missed…?

He said he was pretty sure they had the same hours as the rest of the store and that everything was okay. And in that moment, he got a chance to help and he did so gladly and we both came away better off for it. Good for him.)

Saw yesterday’s cowl recipient at church and stopped her a moment, just to make sure: would she prefer some other color? Because if so I had a ton of yarn and I…

She stopped me right there: No no she LOVED the bluegreen in the one she got, it was perfect! It could *never* be better than that one.

And the enthusiasm in her voice said this: it wasn’t just about the color. It was about the moment in which she’d received the thing from my hands. Never take it away or diminish it, it was the only one with that memory and so it was the best there could possibly be. (And she truly did love that color.)

She has no idea how much she gave me. Again.

An impromptu get-together of cousins at Richard’s aunt’s this afternoon up in the redwoods in the mountains. I think that’s her cherry tree in front on the right, for perspective on size.

And then back downhill for a brief stop and then back up into the mountains going in the opposite direction to celebrate a friend’s milestone birthday.

Where we ran into friends we hadn’t seen in years, properly celebrated the birthday boy, and a grand time was had by all.

One of those, wow, we squeezed a whole lot of living into one single day and wow is it late.

Oh and: I tucked a cowl I’d knitted into my purse, having felt that I should be ready to give–someone, no idea who–something from my needles tonight. Okay, then; I was ready for whoever it should turn out to be, since I was definitely going to see a lot of people. Madeline Tosh blue/green handdyed softness, my Ft. Worth yarn bought from the MadTosh owner herself.

It just didn’t… I wondered at first and then I simply forgot about it.  Didn’t even think of it. It stayed tucked away. Which is fine, but, huh.

We had to stop at the grocery store on the way home, one last thing to do today because we’re having company over for dinner tomorrow, and there we ran into a friend. She and her family are new in the area, here on Sabbatical from one university to another; we had hit it off with them right away and they’ve borrowed a few items they didn’t have in their temporary place. You need to know what the temperature of something is, here, use our laser thermometer, glad we could help. Your son needs to weigh things by the gram for a school project, so do I because of my knitting–here, use my scale, c’mon over.

Guess who loves that shade of bluegreen?

Well then.

She was so absolutely thrilled, the kind of reaction that makes it so many many more projects will get made in happy anticipation of the next moment like that.

And a new and strange town got a little more like home.

I always thought having a hyperactive immune system with no sense of direction ought to be useful for fighting off cells that actually shouldn’t be there. Say, cancer.

Looks like I was right.

I needed a stuff-in-my-purse project. So to my cousin Wendy, should she happen to see this, I finally finally got the right yarn and got started: purple she wanted, purple it is!

Still wishing for Malabrigo Rios in that colorway.

…Besides, it wasn’t up against the fence like the others were.

You know what I was thinking yesterday? I was thinking I needed a good hawk sighting. It had been awhile and I just really needed one.

Well, so do something about it.  And so I filled the second feeder, which I haven’t done much lately; seed in the summer can add up. But it does bring the birds closer in towards the house.

Three finches made a wild scramble off that thing this afternoon and I looked up.

Coopernicus wasn’t trying to chase them. He was simply showing up. He settled down on the nearest tree branch where he could get a good view of that now-prey-free feeder–but also of me.

I communed, he perhaps tolerated, but he was there, watching, considering me and my presence below. I wondered if it was even the same male I had known across these years or if it was his offspring. Hard to know from the distance, but by the behavior, I would say it was him and by the size, definitely male. I radiated all the love I could in thanks, hoping it would somehow make him want to visit more often, and he stayed there looking back at me for several wonderful minutes.

If it was Coopernicus I could have swiveled my gaze to a spot where a finch was hiding in the elephant ear leaves and he would have understood and followed and gone to it if he was hungry–he’s done that before–but there was none; they’d all gotten away safely, and if he’d been hungry he would have followed them in the first place rather than coming to me.

And yet he came.

I felt like all I’d done was give him a half-reason to.

And then having done what I’d asked for, he showed great finery of tail and wing at last and was off to his own matters.

I sent off a card to Cliff, Don’s son, several weeks ago. He took such good care of his dad; we should all be so well loved in our old age. I knew that Don had lived in a senior community and I wondered how that works when a not-yet-55-year-0ld inherits the place.

I also know that sometimes when you’re grieving a loss, often people tend to assume a few months later that life has gone back to normal and that they shouldn’t remind you of your missing loved one and reignite any pain.

As if you could forget. As if you didn’t remember every day.

And so, me, I try to send out an ‘I’m thinking of you’ later on as well.

Today it came back to me weeks after I’d sent it, stamped unforwardable.

He had snailmailed me letters in his dad’s final illness, giving me updates, letting me know. Very much appreciated.

And now, who else would remember that day my doorbell rang and Cliff was standing there with Don grinning like crazy from the passenger side of the car out front as his son held out new pans for me to make them chocolate tortes in? Surprise! After I had complained in this space that my old pans had leaked and smoked up my oven.

Or how they saved up produce clamshells to keep my fruit trees from the squirrels. It is halfway through September and I still have a few last Fuji apples ripening, safe.

Cliff, if you read this, I baked tortes tonight because I was thinking of you both–grinning, remembering that day, thinking how much fun Don would have had with Sunday’s post.

Thank you, and may all be well with you, wherever you are now.

Today had its fair share of concerns. It’s hard when someone we love is going through a tough time.

And yet there was more than that to the day.

Hangpans, or, handpans, if you haven’t heard of them: they look like inverted abelskivver pans or conjoined-twin woks that got hit by meteors. Or something. But the music they make! The article says if you want one you have to write a letter by hand explaining why they should consider making one for you and then you must pick it up in person. In Europe. I can just see them wanting to meet their recipients in person after all their work.

The inventors refuse to mass produce because the quality could never be matched by a machine and they refuse to charge what the market would bear–they simply want those who love music to be able to afford to make music.

Knitters understand.

And.

I went to the dentist and there on the wall was a large new-to-me photo of him and his grown son surrounded by a lot of very young faces in an environment that was definitely not typically American. So I asked.

He glowed with pride: his son’s work was to create schools in Africa. The picture was taken at an orphanage there.

The children all looked well loved and cared for, and I do not doubt that they got dental work done if they needed it, although the man was not one to pat himself on the back.

But the Ebola epidemic has kept them out since. They look forward to when they can go back, and as he told me that, there was no fear in his face.

The love simply mattered more.

This has nothing to do with the story, but, the pews in the building where the stake conference meetings are held always hit my back just exactly wrong. There was another meeting there this morning and this time I remembered to grab a small pillow off the couch and stuff it in my large purse.

And as I was getting dressed this morning, what I’d planned to wear simply felt wrong: it felt too fragile, too easily damaged. This made no sense whatsoever. Wear something indestructible. Why? I argued with myself, I wasn’t going camping, I was going to church. Wear the boring black polyester skirt, came the insistence yet again: can’t hurt that one. What a weird thought, I thought, but, I did.

So. The story. Somewhere in my brain, all morning church meetings start at nine and when you have some percentage of 1800 people in that stake converging on one building, however large, parking is going to be intense. If I didn’t want a long autoimmune-risking walk in the sun we were going to have to get there early, so we headed out the door at about 8:15.

Only… There was a smattering of people, maybe a dozen if even that, but certainly not the number usually gathered by the half hour before the start. Huh.

(In a small voice, oh. right. duh.)

And so we had an hour and a half to wait in. My good-natured husband said, Well, he thought that had been a little early but he wanted to get good seats and parking for me, so, *shrug*. No biggy.

I got to talk to an old friend for awhile.

My glasses were bugging me. I’d been going to clean them before leaving but had forgotten but I certainly had plenty of time to spare now, so, off I went to take care of that.

One of the things about having an ileostomy is that one has to use the facilities quite often. I was there, so, whatever.

The door refused to unlock to let me back out of the stall.

Wait. I tried again. This is not rocket science.  You just unturn it.

Not that way either. It was jammed hard. Richard later said, well, you could always have called me and I’d have sent someone in, to which I reminded him I’d left my purse with him.

There was simply nobody around. Give it an hour and there would be a steady stream of people but not right now. I gave it my best as good as my hands could do but the thing just would not budge. Likely nobody would hear me. I could stay there.

Or not.

The floor, thankfully, was clean as far as I could tell. In the utter epitome of grace I got down on my hands and knees and scrambled low underneath the door, got out, reached back under, grabbed my cane, and washed up.

Then I went looking for help. I found Randy. Randy knew everyone and he had keys to everything.

Because so very few people were there yet, we were in no one’s way as I minded the bathroom doors while he went in there and tried to fix that lock. Having gotten tools from a supply closet, he got the thing open–but he could not keep it from re-jamming and the next person was going to have the same problem. Not cool. Not when there are I think four women’s stalls in the entire building and there were about to be that many people present. He thought a moment, walked across the building while I stood guard, came back, and handed me a piece of paper and scotch tape. He handed me a thick pen.

“Door lock jams. Do not lock this door.” (I needed to be able to write it in Spanish, Samoan, Tongan, Vietnamese, and Chinese, too, but at least it was clearly going to be a warning, and most of those members did speak enough English.)

“Looks good,” he affirmed, it being what we could do for now, and waited a moment as I went around the corner past the rest-and-chair area to put it where it needed to go.

It happened when no one was around to be embarrassed. And I’m old enough not to bother to be embarrassed, it just simply was.

It didn’t happen to, say, an 85-year-old with mobility issues as the building emptied out leaving nobody to know. It didn’t happen to a small child who would then simply leave the door locked for everybody and long lines after her.

It was a small thing, and leaving the door unlocked would be a pain–but it surely also inspired multiple moments of, hey, could you hold this closed for me and then I’ll hold it for you? Acts of kindness imposed by randomness, in all locklihood.

I got home glad I’d worn that sturdy skirt, put the small pillow back on the couch on top of the old afghan I’d taken it off of…

…And only then did I finally notice that the thing seemed a tad lumpy. Huh? I pulled it back.

There, underneath, was the long-missing baby blanket I’d started for my granddaughter on the way. The white one I’d begun for her christening day. Right there at my knitting perch. The Rios yarn I ordered yesterday in replacement? That was pink and much thicker, so as to be an everyday blankie like her brothers’.

It’s all good. It’s all very good.

1977. I don’t think we’ve crossed paths since then.

He did not recognize me.

Twice a year we in the Mormon Church have a local conference meeting on a Saturday evening and tonight was it.

One of the speakers was new to the area and when I saw the program as we came in I knew exactly who that was before I even laid eyes on him.

He gave a wonderful talk of love and faith and inclusiveness and how life had shown him how small acts of loving God right now by serving others in His name, those small moments had multiplied on themselves across his lifetime to bless others in ways and to three generations now that he could never really have understood when he was younger.  Listening to him, one could only go wow, this is a good man.

Just like his dad.

I went up afterwards to reintroduce myself to him, and while someone else was talking to him told his wife that Glen and my brother had waited for their mission calls together back in the day.

And then I was next. I said to him, “You were on your mission and I was at BYU when the call went out that all of Potomac Ward was asked to fast and pray for your dad. We did–and then the doctors could no longer find the liver cancer they thought he had.”

“Kidney cancer,” he corrected for me–I’d had it wrong all these years, but the wonderment in his face as he shook my hand, silently pleading a help me out here, then, “What is your name?”

“I’m Morgan’s little sister. I’m Alison.”

And with that Glen knew at last who I was and we rejoiced in each other’s long-lost presence as his wife thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. Here, already in this new place, was someone from home. Or rather, his, anyway.

He asked after my parents, since he and they had both moved away; “Are they still alive?”

“Yes, they’re doing great! And your dad? Is he still with us?”

“Yes!” And not only here, but doing well, he added.

The flash of understanding between us in that moment…

And then someone else in the crowd needed his attention and with regret he turned to answer them and I took my leave. We’ll have more chances to catch up.

I worked on the baby sweater and would have finished it, wanted to finish it, but my hands needed a break from knitting tight and small. One more day (again), I guess.

The baby blankie, which had maybe a foot done, is still not found. Ah well, there will always be a baby who’ll need that UFO come the day. And I still had questions about cashmere, especially after googling for Rios in the colors I was interested in and getting nowhere.

It finally dawned on me: if I had questions about machine washing cashmere, of course I knew whom to ask and where to find the best. Lisa Souza! Shot off a note just now, admiring the color in that upper right corner there. Nobody else I’d rather have dye it for me, for that matter; she and I go back twenty-odd years, to when I first met her spinning in her redwood-ring faerie eyrie at Kings Mountain Art Fair.

Yes it would be very expensive.

You only get born once.

Waiting to hear back. Not setting my heart on it. Yet.

——–

Editing to add the next day: Lisa says that her friend Holly makes lap blankets of that 8-ply Lhasa cashmere for the elderly, very lovely. It could certainly be done–but the scruffication that would come with the use and laundering a baby would require of it is something that just would be a reality.

I hemmed, hawed, and at last went with (I found some!) the superwash Rios that I’m much more familiar with. Three blanket-years in, it’s fulled without being too fuzzy, no pills, so soft, and  the blankie is still the same size.