A Boodle Tale

I made coffee today.  It felt right with what I am thinking of this morning and I feel more awake than I have all week.  Beyond a doubt, I am addicted, but I am still going to try to cut back.  Just not today.

I have to tell you a story today, as I sip my coffee.  It is the way I started my day for many years, on a virtual porch, drinking my coffee, listening to news, telling jokes and stories and talking of the vagaries of this world.  It is a story of the boodle.  What is a boodle, you might ask?  If you have been here a long time, you may recall me mentioning them, but if not here goes.

Back in the dark ages of the Internet, before Facebook, back when you commented on forum posts, and bulletin boards, back when commenting on newspaper articles was just beginning, I became a commenter on a Washington Post newspaper blog written by journalist and writer, Joel Achenbach.  Something different happened in that comment section and a bunch of random people from all over North America became something so much more than random commenters.  We became friends and shared stories of life and family and work and books, bonding over our enjoyment of a writer's work. We were and remain unique in the history of newspaper blogging.  Joel Achenbach is unique among writers because he became part of it and was saddled with a Kit and Kaboodle (as in 'whole kit and kaboodle'), or in short, a boodle.  

Forward something close to fifteen years, and many of us are still in regular contact through email and through facebook and when we can, we do try to get together as I did on my adventures to the east this past summer.  

From out of the blue, one of them sent me a random gift and I am utterly charmed and touched by his kindness to think of me. 

I had seen this book hit the pre-orders at Amazon.  Most of the books that I buy these days are digital or audio.  Only rare reference type knitting books make it to my library.  My friend thought of me because he knows I knit rabidly, because that happened in full view of my  boodle buddies.  I became known for minor obsessions with curling, legumes, and knitting and hopefully not for the dumber things I may have said. I rarely get books for gifts and they are treasured when I do get them.  This one certainly will be.  More than that.  It will be shared with my grandchildren.

In a way, the knitting in this book, Faerie Knitting, written by novelist Alice Hoffman and her niece, Lisa, is incidental to the stories. In exactly the same way, the stories are incidental to the knitting.  You cannot tell which came first, knitting or story. They are inseparable.  And they charm me.  They have the feeling of Hans Christian Andersen about them.  Evil remains a force in these worlds but our hero ends protected.  Something knitted is part of that resolution, sometimes a thing that is done, sometimes a gift but always part of how resolution is found.  They are the perfect kind of stories for a grandmother who love stories and knitting to share.

I will knit from this book and think of the many ways you can become friends.  I will wear a shawl and make a blanket and knit tiny amulets and think of the boodle and how lucky I am to be one of them. I will think fondly of them with each story and every cup of coffee.

Thank you Bob, for thinking of me.  What a lovely gift.