Unraveling

There He Goes Again

I took the Boyo to the airport today. We've had a great visit, full of many wonderful moments, which I'll tell you about in a day or two.

The good news is, he's coming back this summer. But right now the thought that he's somewhere over the Atlantic makes me a little sad. I already miss him.

Speaking of Hugs

I made one.

It's for K, of course, and was delivered yesterday. But the Girlie took some photos before it left the house.

 

I modified the pattern because my yarn (Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande Tweed - color 2028) got three, not two, stitches per inch. I cast on eleven stitches and made a deeper thumb and 3-stitch fingers. The yarn is soft and warm. Just what you want in a hug.

K was holding its hand when I left.

The Superhighway of Life

I started out calling this post "Strolling Down Memory Lane," but really it's about life as a superhighway and it hasn't been a stroll. Really, when you're in it and you're living it it seems like it will never end and when you're looking back it seems like only yesterday. Presto change-o! Our kids are A.D.U.L.T.S. Whoosh! All that baby stuff almost seems like another life.  

We were looking for early photos of K's daughter. So we hauled up the photo boxes from the basement and spent much of the weekend (when we weren't at memorial services) with the past thirty years spread out on the dining room table.

 Oh! we have found some cute photos! Here we are at the Statue of Liberty in 1987:

 

Or how about the Girlie on the front porch in 1984?

 

Or you could jump in the Way-Way-Back Machine to Celia and sister Hanndmade on the front porch and all matchy-matchy in 1963:

 

The kids at FAO Schwartz in 1987: 

The four of us in 1988:

   

Or how about the baby Boyo, lookin' like a Sumo wrestler?

 What I come away with is the feeling that our life together has been well-lived.  We've had fun and Mr. Celia and I have done everything we could to make it a rich and full life, even in the "dark ages"  - the period of their life from which our kids would not appreciate us sharing photos. Life happens. And folks, in a flash you're looking back at it and marveling at the babies-who-used-to-be and all their little milestones. 

This weekend, we said goodbye to someone who's been a fixture in our life and watched her noble, tragic mother and dad send her off to heaven.  We said goodbye to someone else: a "fun" guy whose robust lifestyle took him a bit sooner than expected.  Life is a superhighway, my friends. It's not always kind to us. But we should all spend some time enjoying each other for who we are and what we mean to each other. That's what we can do.

Go hug someone now.

Post Stitches

I haven't been sleeping well. The death of K's daughter hit me hard and I have spent most of the past week wrestling with death-as-a-part-of-life.  I feel lucky that I haven't lost either of my parents and I don't anticipate the loss of anyone in my family in the near future (knocking wood HARD right now), but I have learned of the death of a friend, the child of a friend, and the parents of two friends, all of whom I have spent significant time with, in less than a month's time. So it's hard not to obsess. Finding a way to accept death is good in the abstract and in the light of day but harder in the dark when it seems like everyone else is asleep.

By Thursday, I needed something positive to focus on so I called my darling Pamela (whose father is one of the parents who died recently), and suggested a trip to Stitches West over the weekend. I had not been to the Santa Clara location yet. In fact, this post from 2007 pretty much sums up why couldn't bring myself to go.  Perhaps I've come to terms with that by now. Somehow it didn't seem that far, and if I gave myself a budget and didn't plan to spend too much time there, maybe it wasn't so big a deal.

There is something so restorative about all that fiber and fiber accoutrements in one place. We touched  our way through the marketplace. Ooo! Cashmere! Oooo! Alpaca! Ooooo! Qiviut! And buttons! beads! and blocking wires! We ran into many  familiar faces and spotted others. The people at the Blue Moon booth remembered me by name(Thank goodness they were all wearing name tags)! I went with a set amount of money and completely cleaned out my wallet, but didn't charge anything on the credit card. I feel so virtuous.

It doesn't make sleeping or soul searching about death any easier, but it does represent life going on and I had a good time with Pamela. I guess that's progress.