Epiphany, revelation, something like that

The days just go along, and I'm doing the same things I always do--get up, go to work, eat lunch, go home, eat dinner, go to bed. Listen to a little war news in the car on the way home before I get too disheartened and turn on the current book-on-tape (right now, Anne Tyler's "Back When We Were Grownups," a wonderful escape into the totally ordinary--I'm going to listen to "Ladder of Years" next, for either the third or fourth time; I could probably recite it myself now, from memory, which is exactly what I need).

I know I've said it before, that I have no interest in writing about the war, that I don't feel I have an informed-enough opinion to discuss it in public, and that I have no interest in getting into any kind of political discussion with anyone. But also, that writing about anything else seems frivolous, as though I'm ignoring everything else that's going on in the world. So I don't write. Several people emailed me last week and told me that they look to me for stability and normalcy, and that I should continue to detail my days, but still, it's difficult.

Then, tonight, I read Anne Lamott's latest column (you may have to register to read that, I have a Salon Premium subscription), where she talks about going out to buy socks, and felt tip pens, and walking to the library and enjoying the springtime weather, and I suddenly had a revelation.

And that is: that it is obscene to ignore the small life in contrast to the big picture, that it is an affront to God to ignore the beauty of the world around me as if there can only be either/or--I can't do anything about the war right now except pray about it, and my being sad doesn't help anyone, and hurts me. There can be springtime, and beauty, and love, and hope, even if across the world there is death and pain and fear. There is always death and pain and fear somewhere, it's the nature of the world, and sometimes that pain and fear is here, with me, with my family.

Life doesn't stop. It goes on. The sun comes up, and spring arrives, and the flowers bloom. The flowering pear trees on my street are in full flower this week, and I walked down to the mailbox this morning and admired them as if I'd never seen them before. They obviously must have bloomed days ago, but I hadn't even noticed them.

Lamott's article says:

I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees. I am going to close my eyes and listen. Last Sunday during the children's sermon, my pastor asked the kids to close their eyes for a moment -- to give themselves a timeout -- and after a while, asked them what they heard. They heard birds, and radios, dogs barking, cars, and then one small boy said, "I hear the water at the edge of things." I am going to listen for the water at the edge of things.

It's a terrible time to have the house painted, to have workmen around--I found the water hose had been taken off the reel one night last week--obviously, they had to take it off to scrape and caulk the wall behind it, but then someone had, also obviously, run water (they'd removed the sprinkler attachment for some reason, probably to fill a bucket or something), and then stood on the hose so that when I went out to water my flowers I actually had to dig the hose end out of the mud. This makes me fear for my newly sprouted flowers--I have so few of them, and they're so . . . tentative, at best. The poppies bloom about once every two or three years, and the sod all died and I'm trying to get the yard to fill in with violets and ivy and Virginia Creeper (what my dad calls "Creeping Virginia"), and we planted some grass seed that has yet to take hold. I'm trying to be accepting of the fact that anything up against the house is going to get stepped on and killed, and there isn't much point in planting more grass seed until they're finished.

Even though I'd made a determined vow to make the yard presentable again this year. Even though. And we just finished the second week of the painting project and they have yet to put the first brushful of paint on. It may be June before they're finished. I'm beginning to panic about planting things, and it isn't even time yet to plant anything. I try to take deep breaths.

Bob's gone this weekend, and things are always weird when he's gone. Pyewacket's grumpy and Dinah's weird, and I feel sad and unsettled.

I started a new sock:

I know the sock thing is hard to understand; Bob asked me the other day, "Why socks?"

I tried to explain it. It's partly because a sock is a small thing. I can make one in a few days or week, and it's finished. It's a small investment in yarn, too. I've never wanted to make the large investment, both in money and in time, that a sweater would take, because how can you ever know whether you'll even like it when it's finished, or whether it will fit? The only sweater I ever finished was a lovely coral cotton polo that, when it was finished, was too small for me, and which I gave away to a friend.

If a sock doesn't fit, well, knit another one. They're small enough to practice on. They're portable, easy to carry around and small enough to knit on at odd moments. They're easy to adapt--foot length, leg length, ankle circumference--get a few measurements, and it's pretty easy to figure out a pattern.

I have to admit that I'm inordinately proud of myself for learning how to do it. I'd always be intrigued by pretty handknit socks, but be completely intimidated by the tiny needles and fine yard. Any time I'd read a pattern that required doublepointed needles, I'd just pass it by, telling myself that I could never figure it out, that it would just be an exercise in frustration.

But I finally was intrigued enough that I sat myself down and figured it out. This is my fifth sock (third pair), and each time I've moved down a needle size, until I'm knitting this on Size 1 needles.

And the yarn! This particular yarn is Fortissima Colori in a colorway called "Mexiko." Opal is a similar brand. The yarn is called "self patterning," or "self striping," and is died so that as you knit, it creates the pattern. And even though I know what it's going to look like, it's still a surprise as it evolves.

I ordered some yarn last week, and it came in the mail this morning--a ball of Opal "Bumblebee," kind of the holy grail of sock yarn, just because it's somewhat rare. The Opal yarn--made in Germany and imported to the United States by only one importer, who then sells it to retailers--is usually a limited edition, or limited run--if you see something you want, you want to grab it, because it may not be around long. "Bumblebee" makes a pattern of golden yellow stripes alternating with bands of white with black speckles.

I suppose, in the interest of normalcy, I should tell my retail debacle of the day.

I went to the beauty supply store to buy conditioner. I use Biolage stuff on my hair, only because that's what they use at my salon, and when I bought it they were having a sale, and I have enough shampoo to last the rest of my life, I think, but I have to keep buying conditioner . . . Anyway, this store keeps track of purchases, and in this case I don't mind giving my name and address because they give me something for it: when I've spent $100, I get $10 free, or 10% off, or something like that. $10 free, I think.

Unlike the Aveda store, which requires a name and address in order to sell you anything, and doesn't give you anything in return. But I digress.

I got up to the counter, and the girl asked my name. "Cline," I said. "With a C." She said, "E-I-N?" and I said, "Cline," and spelled it: "C-L-I-N-E." She asked my first name, then frowned at the computer screen and said she couldn't find me. She asked if I was sure I was in the system, and I said yes, that I knew I was. She asked how long ago I'd been in, and I said maybe a month or two. She said, "Well, all I can do is put you in again."

I said, "So everything I've bought up 'til now would just be lost?" She said she didn't know what else to do, that I wasn't in there, and I said, "Are you sure you're spelling it right? C-L-I-N-E?" and she said, "Oh! C. There you are!" and giggled, and said something about all the customers that come through in a day, and all those names.

And it wasn't helped by the fact that, as she had informed the customer in front of me, she'd given herself a manicure on her break, and it wasn't dry yet, so she had to do everything using only the pads of her fingers, which made putting my conditioner in a bag and handing it to me something of an ordeal. I didn't help her, though. I figure some things you just have to learn by yourself.