I agreed recently with another knitter that often, on a large project, there’s this sense of loss, almost grieving, as you finish the cast off, run the ends in, and put the thing aside. That that loss gets in the way, all too often, of starting in on the next project, no matter how much you feel you should get going and get a move on with it.

That got me to wondering why it should be so. Today, looking at the stitches on my rosewoods, I saw it: I have done so much work on this shawl that every minute I spend on it now tells me how much I’ve accomplished. Tells me how much the recipient is going to love it. Tells me how lovely this pattern is with this yarn and how much I love looking at it and seeing it all coming to be. How much I love anticipating the moment–even if I’m not going to be physically present–where its new owner exclaims over something dyed and envisioned and knitted up just for her.

The moment I put it aside I’ll be working on another one that is just as important to me to get done. But it’ll be a bare ball of yarn and sticks, possibilities rather than accomplishments, at the start.

I think I’ll go do the yoke on the next before I finish this one last repeat on the periwinkle.

This popped up and grew from under the neighbor’s side of the fence to come and chat with the flowers on mine.   Seemed appropriate for the holiday weekend.

I did the most mundane of tasks the other day: I called in a prescription refill on my meds.

One of them had expired, needed an okay from the doctor, and wasn’t ready when we picked up the rest. Nuts. It would need its own trip. It seemed kind of a waste.

And then, for no reason I could have told anyone, I didn’t get around to going all week. I just didn’t feel like it. Today I looked at the fact that it was Friday, that the clinic’s pharmacy closes for the weekend at 12:30 Saturday afternoons, that it was going to be closed Monday for the holiday, and, hey, I’d better get a move on already. I headed out the door.

And wondered, as I went along, if I would run into anybody I knew. It’s a big enough clinic that I fairly often do.

I go to the local lupus support group to try to show those struggling with a new diagnosis that life does go on, that you can be cheerful still, that you adjust and find you’re still yourself and still just as capable of being happy: I try to be who I needed someone to be for me 17 years ago.

There was one time, probably two years ago, that a woman showed up who just couldn’t hear a message like that, absolutely not, not yet and maybe not ever. She was sure she was too close to death to make any plans for any kind of a future, she despaired of having any chance of seeing her children grow up, and she was as depressed a person as I’ve met in a long time. This was no time for being chipper, this was a crying need for someone who understood–and every one of us there tried to be that for her. Every one of us had, on some level at some point, gone through that same uncertainty and struggle, if not as deep, still, enough to know. And several of us had gone through episodes where life was in the balance, and knew the power of knowing someone was there for us through the worst.

I have to say that for all the best intentions on my part, I think I was the person she least related to. Much though I would have wanted to do better than that. I was too successful at what I wanted out of my life.

As they were ringing up my prescription at the counter today, I happened to glance behind me and see who was waiting next for theirs. It took me a moment–it was her! I smiled; she seemed to have no idea who I was, and ignored me.

The next clerk motioned her over. She was waiting for them to get her meds when I finished; I walked behind her and softly called her name, not entirely sure I remembered it correctly. There was a moment’s hesitation on her part, and then she turned to see who on earth? I re-introduced myself as being from the lupus group, and now she remembered me: ah, yes. Okay. I asked her how she was doing; she sighed, gave a small smile, and said, well, she was here every Wednesday and Friday.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” I said sympathetically.

She looked me steadily in the eyes, and answered calmly, “Beats the alternative.” And then was clearly glad to see me laugh ruefully, gently–whereas once she might well have taken offense at that, might have thought it meant I didn’t really understand the depths of her pain.

Oh, I do.

I had hoped against hope back then that at that meeting she had simply let the worst of her fears vent, that it wasn’t really that bad, day-to-day, for her. But I didn’t know. I hoped we’d done some good in hearing her out. But I didn’t know. And then we didn’t see her again.

And I didn’t know.

And now I know. Whether we played any part or not, now I know that she did indeed begin to cope.

Today she got a chance to show a member of that group that had seen her at her lowest point that she, too, was continuing on now. That she, too, could smile now.

I don’t know if she’ll come back and give us another chance to befriend her.

I do know, today, she helped me. So few words were spoken, but so much was conveyed. She would be all right after all, come what may.

When I got home, I walked into the bathroom under the skylight and noticed that my amaryllis’s bud, which is still growing upwards, had started leaning to one side, so I turned the pot to even it out in its trajectory towards the light. And found, on the other side–I told you God is a poet!–what I never, ever would have guessed. Surprise!

A second bud.

When we first moved to California from New Hampshire, having three preschoolers, I decided one of the first things I had to learn was the most direct route to the nearest emergency room. You just never know. After all, I was the kid who ran through the glass storm door, got hit by a car on my bike, and took the bottom of my foot off in the spokes of my new bike… The receptionist in the ER in Washington, DC cheerfully greeted my mother by name when she showed up with my brother one time.

So here I am, the new kid on the WordPress block, and I’m trying to find my way around the various routes. Haven’t figured out the photo thing yet, but I’ll get there quickly, I imagine.

The amaryllis bud is still going up despite having start to split open; this is unusual. I’m quite curious to see how far it goes.

Biology lesson of the day: yes, that was (thank you Google) a black widow spider, and it can run faster than I can swing my tennis-racket bug zapper at it, even if that’s as close as I wanted to get to it. I am reminded of the time when I was a kid that I stepped on some leaves and startled a snake next to Cabin John Creek, and it threw itself away from me just as fast as it could go while I did the same in the opposite direction.

No, wait–having typed that, I went back in the bathroom, zapper in hand, and it had reappeared in the middle of the wall. Got it.

Wow. It really WAS a wedding ring shawl! From my Nov 30, Dec 2 and Dec 6 posts to here: http://kits-knit-spot.blogspot.com/2007/05/married.html

Congratulations Kit and Pete, and much happiness forever!

So life had other things going on, and I finally sat down and picked up my needles. At last.

Ever have one of those moments when you suddenly listen to the elevator music going on in your head, ie, what’s been humming along in the background noise of your brain that you haven’t really been paying attention to? It’s kind of like waking up in the dream process, where you try to figure out how you came up with that one.

But honestly. Pop Goes the Weasel? What on earth?

Maybe for colors that pop out at you? (We’ve been working in the background on overhauling the site and blog, getting ready to move off Blogger.) But still. My overblown sense of dignity is affronted, I tell you, just affronted. Bag the weasels. Turn on the music! Let the needles dance!

The measure of a true klutz: being able to fall backwards into an impossibly tight spot in such a graceful, semi-slow motion as to look choreographed. Your kid reaches down and gives his mom a hug, lets go, and then she does this dance.

John ran for the icepacks. Richard, from across the house, ran for the noise. And then stood there speechless, not daring to laugh till I gave him the huge silly fake grin that the situation so much needed.

That was last night, and icepacks notwithstanding, I’m typing gingerly. The knitting probably won’t go on strike, but it might stage a slowdown for a day or two to show management who’s boss.

And yes, it was very funny. And no, there are no photos. Thank goodness!

(Gee, how did we do visual puns before the ‘Net? And how many non-knitters are going, Huh?)

Sometimes, when an amaryllis bulb has been deprived of water too long, it’ll bloom, but instead of having the stalk towering two to three feet high, it will barely grow, the plant concentrating on opening up its flower rather than how high in the air it can put it on display. The leaves, however, will grow to a normal length to gather strength in the bulb, so that maybe it can really put on a full show the year after.

The bulb I found last week shot the tip of its bud up immediately, as I said–and then held its breath and held still while the leaves played catchup. Now the five leaves and the bud are coming up in tandem; but if you look closely, the bud is already beginning to break open.

I can really relate to this one. I have a lot of limitations it would be nice not to have, because of health issues: even a few minutes in full sun right now makes my lupus start attacking my eyes. (I’m okay, don’t worry, I have more sense than to risk that one.) So, thank you very much, I’ll stay indoors–but for the things I really want to do, reaching out to others, writing, knitting, making people feel cared about the best I know how–there’s no limitation there at all. The things that are most important to me, I can do just fine (the church Memorial Day picnic at Foothill Park that I have to miss notwithstanding… If anyone sees a coyote or herd of deer this year, I hope they snap a picture for me. Keep an eye out for the mountain lions. And don’t let the preschoolers pick up a baby rattler near the creek this year, okay?) It even serves as a reminder that those are the things I want to do, and not to let the time just slip by.

The “bloom where you are planted” cliche works just fine for me.

Lisa tagged me, and I’ll be lazy and refer over to the Dec. 16th post–but add one more item: spring break, 11 years ago, my brother-in-law was getting married near San Diego; we got tons of books to keep the four kids happy and headed on down the freeway. All is quiet on the west coast front. In the middle of the Central Valley, we passed a flock of obviously just-sheared sheep; I’m quietly looking at them, thinking, I bet you’re cold!, when this little voice from our youngest pipes up from the back seat: “We’re not STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPingggggggggggggg, Mommmmmmmmm………….”

Said in the perfect whiny voice of bored little kids everywhere. I thought his eight-year-old nose was totally in his book, but no. It so totally cracked us up that it’s been a family line ever since.

Meantime, it’s a bit darker so far in real life, but the periwinkling is on its way.

This is Chloe, aka C., one of the co-owners of Purlescence, where we had our knitting group meeting tonight (and where I was really, really, really hoping she’d show up. Funny, that.) One of the regulars was exclaiming, “She picked out the yarn last Friday?!” Well. Yeah. I didn’t offer her before that, so how was she going to do it sooner?

And this is tomorrow’s baby alpaca project in periwinkle.

You remember how I walked into the garage in April and found those amaryllis bulbs that should have died of neglect, having been dried out far too long, that were instead shooting up buds? And how I gave one to Nicholas and his family to celebrate his recovery from falling off the ski lift?

Yeah well. Our garage is fairly dark, and it doesn’t help that the lightbulbs are in places nearly impossible to reach when they burn out. So. Last night I was squinting in there, looking for–what else–the lightbulbs. And thought, nahhhh… But… I looked under a tarp that was folded up inside its package, and there…

…You guessed it. My friend C. is going in for that surgery, and I’ve been madly knitting her that shawl. There it was. I found one more pot buried under there. I laughed, marvelling at it, although a bit ruefully, and asked my son, “Do you think this one could bloom too?” I poked fingers from both sides at it: if they met in the middle, it was toast, toss it.

The outer edges were indeed soft, but the inner core was as solid as you could ask for under the circumstances. I soaked it in water to break the dormancy.

Four hours later this appeared. That’s not a leaf, that’s a bud. FOUR HOURS. Go C.!!!

Gotta be done by tonight if I don’t want to block it outside where… (See the bluejay shawl’s story, June 11 when the book comes out.) And I’m not going to put it in the oven to dry like Stephanie Pearl-McPhee did hers! Seventeen more rows, the bind-off, and a dentist appointment today. I think I can I think I can I think I can.

Twenty-eight rows yesterday: if that’s not a record for me, it’s real close. It felt a combination of, this is nuts, (as I applied ice mid-day), and, look at this! Why don’t I do this all the time?