Sometimes it is best to just start over

I knit my husband a pair of socks for Father's Day 2009.  Ok, to be honest, I gave him the wool on Father's Day 2009 - He got the socks four months later in October.

I digress.

He loved those socks and wore them all the time. 

I darned the heels at least twice - but still - there they were in the darning pile again - and it just wasn't going to work.

Hmmmm. 
Maybe I could just cut out the heel and knit an afterthought heel?

Snip.  Snip.

The snips got bigger and the wool wouldn't unravel.

I thought about just throwing them out.  I curled them up ready for the garbage. 

But?

He really likes those socks.

And I hate throwing out things I have spent time and love on.

So I cut open the toe and started to unravel.  I unraveled all the way back to the start of the heel. 

I picked up the 72 stitches, and figured out where I was in the pattern. 

That took a couple of hours. 

This is what knitting has taught me.

Sometimes you can fix something that is broken. 

Sometimes you can throw it away.

But, sometimes?

Sometimes you have to start over.

Maybe not all the way over, but go back to before the mistake was made.

And start to knit it up again. 

I really did do this tonight with this pair of socks.

But?

But, this post isn't really about socks at all.

Tiny

Tiny

As in those nagging thoughts that bounce against my astral body

Annoying mosquitoes

Trying to get in

Trying to taste blood

Sometimes succeeding

Tiny thoughts requiring vigilance and resolve.

Tiny

As in those moments of pure bliss

Eating warm apple pie

In the sun

A good book on my lap

Tiny moments of gratitude

Tiny

As in the little people

That hide things just out of sight

Or tease me with their fleeting shadows

Reminding me that all that there is

Is not all visible

Tiny people creating magic and mischief.

Tiny

As in me

Alone in this big sky

This universe

This dust mote of an existence

Tiny for this briefest of lives.



To view other bloggers/artists who have been inspired by the word tiny go here.

Just don't lie to me

I can take a lot.

The thought that people lie.

That is a hard one.

Sure, you will say.  Everyone lies.

True, I guess.  but there are lies, and there are Lies.

It is hard when someone claims to lie to spare my feelings.  Or to spare their's.

It was hard the first time I realized my children could lie to me.

It was hard to acknowledge that I lie.

To myself.

To others.

To make a story better.

To make a conversation less painful.

But I have a spidey sense about lying

I sense that things don't add up.  Or the time line is wrong.  Or someone is trying too hard.  Or looking uncomfortable.

I don't want to ask in those situations.

Is this true?

Are you lying to me?

Are you lying to yourself?

I heard something many years ago that has stuck with me.

There is your truth.  There is my truth.  And there is God's truth.

Sometimes it isn't about lying.  Sometimes it is about seeing a situation from a different perspective.  A personal perspective.  An uncomfortable perspective.

Would I want to live in a world where everyone told their truth all the time?

No.

I am too sensitive and melancholic for that.

But if I ask you for the truth?

Respect me enough to know that I am wanting the truth.  And it is ok to tell me that it is none of my business, or that you don't want to tell me the truth.

I can live with that.

Just don't lie to me.

Deep down, I know.

Deep down.  I am keeping count.

Deep down.  I can't forget a lie.

Deep down I am afraid it can't be forgiven.

Socks from one hemisphere to another

I met Wendy of the Rock while doing the NaBloMo blogging challenge last November.

Even though I am enjoying the hottest, driest summer on my back porch, of course she is 'enjoying' winter in her neck of the woods.

I offered to knit her a pair of socks. I have knit this particular pattern at least a dozen times - Cat Bordhi's Tibetan Socks.

Here's hers:


I had enough yarn left over to knit another pair for me.

Here's mine:



See?

We are twins.

Both bloggers.

Both mothers.

Friends through the blogosphere, and now connected by two pairs of socks from the same skein of yarn.

I wore mine on Monday for the first time - it was dark and rainy and I had a difficult errand to do - a new pair of comfy socks seemed  a good way to get through a hard morning.

She messaged me today that her socks had arrived in the mail (two and one half weeks via Canada Post).

She has hers on.

So do I.

There is something satisfying about this connection.

I don't feel so alone.

I have many good friends.

I am happy to have another one.

I hope one day we will meet.

And then our socks can reunite.

Knitting and blogging and friendships.

It doesn't get much better than this.

Keeping them safe

When my children were little I did my best to keep them safe and to be there when they needed me.

I put aloe on their sunburns, and made oatmeal baths when they had chicken pox.

I gave them cool baths when their fevers were too high, and ran the steamer all through the night when they had croup.

I walked them to school, kept in contact with their friends' parents, and made sure they didn't swing too high or climb too far.

Yes, they had their share of bumps and bruises, and trips to emergency. I was there - holding the bowl while they vomited, or listening to their delirium while under the effects of morphine.

They are both adults now.

They are both nursing broken hearts.

Not for the first time, and likely not for the last.

I don't know of a way to cool that anger, or steam away that sadness, or sooth that wounded heart. Nor should I if I did.

I remember reading a book called The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel.

The author talked about how, by removing all the obstacles in our children's lives we do them a disservice.

For who among us have not had a broken heart, a lost job, money troubles, career crises or consequences from life decisions.

No-one I think.

And as we get older we bear the scars of old wounds that in fact can make us stronger, and wiser, and although we may look more world weary, we become more resilient, perhaps a little more cautious, and more accepting of ourselves and others.

At least that is what I like to believe.

I don't want to believe that the things life can throw at us will make us hard, and inflexible, and bitter.

That would be wrong - to not learn and grow and realize that we can handle it.

Whatever IT is.

This doesn't mean I do nothing. I can make tea and listen, and help, if help is asked for and within my ability to give.

I can pray.

I can believe that it will all be alright in the end.

If it isn't alright.

It isn't the end.

I have to believe that.

I have to.

Work in Progress Wednesday

This week has been a work in progress - as all weeks are.

I am working on:

1) swimming three times a week (the easiest work of the week).

2) moving through anxiety when I have social engagements (six this past week - and I enjoyed them all!)

3) Being a thermostat rather than a thermometer. (Making good progress this week)

4) Saying yes more often than saying no to doing something out of my routine.

5) Stopping when something I am doing is causing me stress. (Yes, even that stupid math problem I was working on).

6) Reaching out more - physically and metaphorically.

And of course I have three projects on the needles which I already blogged about a couple of weeks back - not too much forward motion on these cause a couple of pairs of socks got in the way.



Every day I do the dishes, sweep the floor, and make the bed. That routine keeps me grounded and moving forward with my day.

Always moving forward.

Do you have any works in progress?

50 Shades of Breathing Life

Lily Pups Life posted her 50 Shades and it sounded like an interesting idea, so here are mine.


1) I love Mexican Coca Cola. It tastes more cinnamony to me than the regular stuff.

2) I had a border collie, Maggie, for sixteen years. She was the best dog ever.

3) I have three sisters and two brothers.

4) I have lived in the same house for thirty-two years.

5) I hate mangoes, papayas and any melon except watermelon.

6) I was an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and I practiced for ten years.

7) I was a computer programmer for ten years (not the same ten years as number 6).

8) I am five feet, five and one half inches tall.

9) I broke my back when I was twenty-three in a car accident and spent six weeks in hospital.

10) I love manx cats. I have owned two, and there is likely a third in my future.

11) I use to be a runner, and trained for a marathon, but every time I got over ten miles my knee would give out.

12) I walked twenty-five miles when I was thirteen in a fundraiser called 'Miles for Millions'. It took me eight hours and I could barely walk the next day.

13) I got married when I was twenty-one and have been married to the same guy for thirty-eight years (now you know how old I am).

14) My father died when I was seventeen.

15) I went to my first Pride Parade yesterday. (It was awesome.)

16) I will be teaching Grade Nine English this fall.

17) I have never read, or watched the movie, Fifty Shades of Grey, and I likely never will.

18) I finished two triathlons in my late twenties.

19) I am gluten intolerant. (I know, too much information).

20) I had emergency abdominal surgery when I was twenty that saved my life.

21) The first time my now husband kissed me was in the elevator of the hospital where I was recovering from number 20.

22) I taught grade one in a small northern town for two years.

23) I had braces on my teeth for one year - my grade twelve year - and they came off one week before graduation.

24) I have hiked the Stawamus Chief twice and would like to do it one more time - at least.

25) I want to walk the Camino de Compostela by my 65th birthday.
-
26) My husband and I took our almost two year old son to Greece and travelled around for a month.

27) I wish I was fluent in a second language.

28) I consider myself an esoteric Christian, but I do not believe in the Devil, or Satan.

29) I once considered myself to be a Hindu.

30) I once considered myself an Atheist.

31) I have loved doing yoga since high school.

32) I love doing dishes by hand.

33) I love horseback riding. Especially long day rides.

34) I nude sunbathe on my porch as often as possible in the summer.

35) I passed my Grade Eight exam in Piano when I was forty.

36) I think I have a pretty respectable singing voice.

37) I consider myself an Anthroposophist.

38) One day I would like to do the English Coast to Coast walk with my son.

39) I have a large stamp collection.

40) I have a new favourite summer coffee drink - iced lattes.

41) I hate shopping in large stores - I get so overwhelmed in big box stores that I usually have to leave.

42) I admit it - I like disco music.

43) I love the Romantic Poets - Keats, Byron, Coleridge, Yeats, Blake.

44) I haven't yet read every book in the Bible, but I am working on it.

45) I am looking forward to my 60s.

46) I get anxious in social situations that I won't be able to leave when I want.

47) I don't like tomatoes in salads unless it is a greek salad.

48) I knit for hours and hours a day.

49) Granny Smith apples are my favourite apple.

50) Scotch, neat, is my favourite bar drink.

Whew! That's 50! It took me all day.

If you want to play along, put a link in the comment section to your blog.