The Edge

I feel the magic of simple socks wending its way through me.  I feel much more energetic and full of life than I have the last few days.  I am looking forward this morning and almost feel resentment that I have to type, which is slower, to tell you about it all rather than just letting all the words come tumbling out like wee Marcus does when he tells me about finding all his toys again.

I started two different socks yesterday.  

I started a plain just knit me sock

 

from one tidy ball of my favourite yarn blend, wool, cotton and nylon from Jawoll.  It should be noted for clarity that one simple sock in this put up, uses up one skein, so a pair requires two. I am letting the yarn do it's thing for this sock.  It is interesting even though I am not through one pattern repeat.

The second comes from a bag of stuff gathered when I went through the sock yarn pile the other day.  

It's kind of a mess isn't it.  Its one ball of gray Sisu with one ball of Patons Kroy and a partial ball of Elann Sock It To Me.  I had the Kroy and Sisu out through several sock binges, but they always seem to be the last yarn I look at.  I think it is because there is no punch in either yarn.  The bland just never excited me enough to begin even though I know it would look perfectly fine.  The skein of Sock It To Me was on its way to the scraps bin, but I wondered if the dark gray, almost charcoal would be the punch the two drab yarns needed.  I am not 100% convinced yet, but I think I am getting close.

I might pull back and put in a bit more of the dark, but I might just keep working forward and just add two rows of the darker next time and repeat a one, two sequence of it, through the sock.  The other two yarns blend so seamlessly, that is it difficult even for me to tell which rows are which. This is pure play, and it excites me.

The spark of sheer joy of these two little socks, have me looking to the next thing. They have even set my mind to the next thing and I want to knit it pretty badly.  The next thing means I get to go dig in my yarn to find this yarn.

I have already picked the pattern.  

I love this point of things, this edge just before you jump where your belief that the step you are taking is right, that it is a good plan and that all you have to do is take that first step.  I will forever be thankful that knitting allows me to feel it.  

It is much harder to find that feeling in the rest of life.  In the rest of life, outer forces often foil a great plan and temper the joy of that first step, by the reality of things you have no control over.  I know that all the self help gurus and life style coaches in the world wouldn't agree with me, but there are things that a positive attitude and believing in yourself can never resolve for you and can never make happen.  It isn't popular in our modern western culture to acknowledge that some things just happen.  That some things just are. Some things, some situations are not your fault or your responsibility but you carry them all the same. They colour everything else in your life, all the same.  

This week I had to face the fullness of the end of that life and that place and those dreams in a way I haven't had to up till now.  I was completely ready for it and mostly I feel lightness that it is done and over, but right there sitting with happiness is this strand of inescapable sadness.  Some things just are.  Would I go back and have that life in that house with Brian again in my perfect world?  I wish it with everything molecule I am, but it cannot ever be.  Some things just are.  I accept that it is.

It seems to me, that the real trick is to find at least one thing, one place in your life that allows you to feel that place of a perfect edge of joy before you commit yourself..  Everybody needs a place to feel that.  If you fish, that point is where you know you have a fish on the line, but before you get it in the boat.  If you skydive, it is standing at the door of the plane, ready to jump.  If you bake cookies, it is that point just before you put it in the oven, where you know, by the taste and texture of the batter, that this is going to be a really great batch.  If you knit, it is that place where you have the yarn and a pattern in mind and it is all so good together, that you can see yourself wearing the sweater in your minds eye.  

So here I am, standing at the edge of perfect joy and isn't that a great place to be at the start of a day?