The All-Pooling, All-Striping Sock Of The World

 

     It must be 80 degrees today, maybe 85.  Here in Phoenix, that qualifies as a crisp fall day.   I almost believe it, sitting here in the shade.  It is a little breezy, compared to the weather we've been exposed to for the last six months.  So chilly, in fact, that I am wrapped in two African cloths.  They are tucked into my underwear, into my tank with the built-in bra.  I have a bladder disease.  And arthritis.  Not a good combination for fussing with pins when the need hits.  Also, just the thought of something tight around my waist makes me want to scream.  So I do a great deal of experimenting with wrapping and tying and otherwise avoiding normal clothing.  Sometimes I end up showing my neighbors and other strangers way too much skin or my under things, if I happen to actually be wearing any.  I don't care.  I lost any sense of modesty nine years ago.  That was when I gave birth at home to a nine pounder in front of a dozen people, including my in-laws.  I was naked.  There was a lot of cursing.  I haven't looked back.

     Aside from my collection of kimonos, I have a drawer full of simple lengths of cloth.  Some are from Africa.  Some are batik prints from Bali.  I think that I got the top one that I am wearing today when we went to New Orleans a few years back.  It was a traveling gift from my traveling companion.  He's French, and he couldn't find anything in the street market there that was French enough for his tastes.  African was a good substitute, I guess.  I have another, purple with an image of men on a rickety canoe-like boat that another man (not French) bought for me when he was in Madagascar.  He lives in New York City, so this one made its rounds before his mother delivered it to me in Indianapolis.  But all of the others, I've bought for myself.  The one wrapped around my legs today is the newest.  I found it last week, at the San Diego Zoo, of all places.  It was cheaper to buy two, but I never do.  It's a rule of sorts, I guess, one at a time.  Like boys.  Like knitting projects.  One at a time, even if time seems to be slipping away from me.

     I sit here, by the pool, and I wonder if this new wrap will be my last.  I am recovering, lying prostrate on the cushioned lounger.  Traveling is nearly impossible.  I try not to let the girls see how hard it is on me.  They talk about our next trip, about whether Legoland or Sea World would be a better choice.

     Stephen and I looked at each other then, but remain silent.  We do about those things.  We treat every trip as though it is my last.  We splurge.  We spoil each other and the kids.  He feeds me Cokes and morphine.  He monitors swelling ankles and blisters.  He finds clean restrooms.

     Then we return home.  He busies the kids with settling in, chores in the kitchen and drives to the market.  No one comments on how much I sleep.  And then, after a few weeks, things start to return to an even keel.  Endless days of invalidism.  One night after work he'll climb into the bed and bring it up again.  A small trip.  I'm restless.  It's good to have something on which to focus.  The kids have a school break.  Let's go to the mountains, to the ocean, to the desert.  I will be relieved that the last trip was not my last, after all.

     Today it seems impossible that I could work myself up to that point.  Impossible that I spent three days last week on my feet, in the van.  But I want to see what happens.  I want to, despite the overwhelming fatigue (I cannot hold the phone to my ear AND talk at the same time), get there again.  Get to a place where I can buy another cloth.  A piece of the world to wrap around my broken body when I am in between voyages.  Maybe I will buy more than one next time.

     Why not?  Lately I have been working on many knitting projects at the same time.  The ticking clock propels me ahead, and I grasp the strands of wool to steady myself.  Despite four sweaters and a shawl on the needles (Don't judge me.  I finished a sweater, four socks, and a shawl from the first wool I ever spun myself during that three day trip - I tend to finish what I start), I pick up some sock wool that has my name all over it. 

     Illanna gave it to me.  "It doesn't pool.  It doesn't stripe," she said.  "I won't use it.  I hate it, here, you use it...."  She makes me laugh.  We both pretend that we are sure that I can make it work, that I am some sort of knitting savant, or maybe just the idiot variety, the kind that can't resist a challenge.  I don't know what she really thinks.  And she doesn't want to know that I think that I've lost my confidence. 

     I pick up the yarn.  I cast on; 48 stitches grow from the eight at the toe.  On size zero double points, these socks are for me.  Illanna is right.  The yarn is soft, but the color patterning is horrid.  Bland.  Nothing.  It looks so appealing in the skein.  Even after being balled up into a perfect little cake with her wooden swift, it looks inviting.  Pink and purple and grey-blue, with pieces of taupe and white...  But when the yarn knits up, it looks so......yuck.

     I remember, though, that Jo Sharp once solved a similar problem by rippling the yarn in a simple Feather and Fan pattern.  I decide to use that old lace standby for the tops of the socks, to see if the blotches of nothingness can smooth themselves into some kind of blended, soft melody of wool. 

     Deep breath.  First I have to get past the foot part (toe-up, remember).  And, using two sets of needles and two balls of yarn, I make both socks at the same time.  It is the only way that they come out the same size.  Again, arthritis haunts me, changing my gauge from day to day.  I have to work the toe of one sock, then the other, three or four rows at a time before switching.  It is a constant game of catch up and move ahead.  That way, even if my tension shifts, both insteps will be tight, even if both heels are ridiculously loose.

     So, I have to finish BOTH feet, turn BOTH heels before I can experiment with my planned lace tops, before I see if it has been worth it.  None of my other projects hold such a mystery.  None have this urgency, not even birthday presents with very real deadlines.  That is why they remain inside the house, tucked into their own little knitting bags.  That is why I sit out here with my new socks, trying to work it all out, to find a solution.

     I hurry through the mundane, endless rounds of two foot-shaped tubes.  It is the same as trying to hurry through this recovery.  Soon I will get to the next part.  But it is never soon enough.  There will be new doctors, new treatments.  New side effects.  The torture of getting used to new rounds of medications, then that too-brief honeymoon phase, when the drugs take away the pain, before my body betrays me again and acclimates itself to a new, huge dosage.  By then, I'll know if the socks are a success.  And that is when we will take that next little trip.

     No matter what, the socks can be saved.  If the ripple doesn't work, I can over-dye the pair with Kool-Aid.  Maybe I will use green, but probably pink.  Or, I can rip them out and make them into tiny baby booties.  The color patterning won't be so important on such a small scale.  That could work, I tell myself.  They will still be socks, at any rate.

     But not so for me.  I won't be me if I am not traveling.  I cannot be saved by a bath of color.  Not if specialists and desert living and the best of everything can't save me.  Not even love is enough, and I have more of that than I deserve, surely.  I'm tired.  Really tired.  I have enough African cloth now to last me several lifetimes.  But I do have to finish these socks, just to see how they turn out.

 

cjh24oct05

poolside, phxAZ