All Wound Up (14 page)

I know, though, that it wouldn’t have worked. If my knit-sisters had taken a moment and said something about how you were as matched to my taste as nude go-go dancing in public is, I would have told them that they were wrong. That you were charming, and fun, and that it was time to embrace something a little different and try new things, and isn’t it okay, just once in a while, not to be yourself entirely? That maybe there is something wonderful about stepping outside of what you always like, what you always do, who you always are. I know that I have nineteen plain brown shirts and, I admit it, I do think they look really good with plain brown pants (and for the record I think the way I put that look together has way more flair than a UPS man’s uniform), but does that really mean that I wouldn’t look fabulous in a multicolored, bouclé, bobble yarn, wrap sweater? Does it really? Just because this is who I am now, does that mean that I can’t grow? Can’t change? Can’t knit and love a yarn that isn’t really me?

If they’d have told me that you were wrong for me then, I wouldn’t have seen it. Love is blind, my skeined buddy, and just like it is with anything you’re dumping, the time for your friends to tell you, “I’ve always hated him and I knew from the start that it could never work” is after the breakup, when the yarn is gone for good.

In any event, I’m mostly sorry. Not hugely sorry, because, as I believe I mentioned before, you are actually only yarn and you’re actually inert. It was just me who got crushed. As much as it feels like you were a part of this process and this relationship, you never made an effort. I got my time wasted and learned that my self-image isn’t quite ready to make the leap from beige to bobbles. I got taunted by the promise of a cute new sweater that’s not going to happen, and you… you’re what you started out as. You’re a fine-looking yarn with bright promise, who’s going to make some other knitter very happy someday, when you’re away from me.

That other knitter, she’ll knit you up into something, probably a funky wrap cardigan, just like I tried to make, and every time a bobble shows up she’ll be thrilled instead of secretly and intensely horrified that a bobble yarn is making bobbles. When it’s done she’ll be cozy and delighted, and she’ll wear you everywhere and the two of you will be totally happy together. Yes, that’s how it will be. I’ll put you down and pick up with a really traditional tweed in some shade of brown and that yarn and I will make some cables together, and you’ll go find a fun-loving knitter who embraces you for what you are. In time, we’ll both move on, and this time we’ve spent, when we both knew the truth and I kept knitting anyway, this horrible few weeks when we were together all the time and couldn’t tell each other the truth, will all be a memory. We’ll remember that you wanted me to be something I wasn’t, and I wanted the same thing from you, and in time, we’ll forget about each other.

Years later, one day in spring, I’ll be walking down the street, probably while visiting New York, when the cherry blossoms are out in Central Park and it’s all so romantic, and I’ll pass someone on the sidewalk. It will be a woman who looks fantastic. She’ll be tall and gorgeous, probably wearing black skinny jeans and tall black boots, and she’ll have on a black scarf that trails gossamer behind her. She’ll be walking with authority, probably laughing with her friends on the way to cocktails, and she’ll be so sexy, and so chic, and she’ll look so incredible that I’ll wish I was her, and that’s when I’ll see it. She’s wearing you—a multicolor, bouclé, bobble-knit wrap sweater—and your strand will make her look like she’s got a million nipples, only, on her, a million nipples look fantastic.

In that minute, I’ll miss you and what we could have been, if only we were ready for each other.

have always had a thing for October. It is my favorite month of the year, I think, and I am pretty sure that it is because of the leaves turning color and falling, carpeting almost all of my world with a beautiful rustling blanket. I know it might not be so where you live, but my country is Canada, and while this country does a lot of things very well that I am truly proud of, it would seem that we sort of specialize in forests and autumn splendor. I live in Ontario, a province so big that you can drive for twenty-four whole hours at a good clip, without stopping, and still not be in another province yet. Ontario is more than a million square kilometers (more than 415,000 square miles) of area which is, for reference, about one-sixth the size of the entire lower forty-eight states of America. Despite its size, a remarkable thing about this place is that no matter where you are it won’t take you long at all to get to a forest. Even here in the city of Toronto, a city teeming with millions of people, I can be communing among the trees a few minutes’ walk from my house, and, in October, that’s where you’ll find me much of the time.

When I was a little girl I read a story in a book about a Japanese boy who was asked to prepare the path for an important visitor. I wish I still had the book so I could tell you exactly what it was called, but I remember the story so clearly. The path was partially covered with cherry blossoms, and the little lad painstakingly swept it clear, and then called his teacher to come and check his work. His teacher looked at that path and told him it wasn’t good enough, and the poor little kid swept it again, this time more carefully, before the teacher told him again that it wasn’t up to snuff. In the story, this went on for a while, with the kid cleaning up more and more of the cherry blossoms while his teacher waited for him to figure out that preparing the path meant shaking more of the beautiful blossoms onto the path, since there were only a few days of the year that it was possible to have such a beautiful thing. When I first read that story, I really thought that letting the kid spend a whole day sweeping a path before you told him that all of his efforts were pointless was pretty damn rude of the teacher, but I’ve sort of gotten over it now that I understand better. Every October as I walk through the leaves on the sidewalks, parks, driveways, and paths, I think about that story, and it makes me reluctant to rake up that wonderful carpet and occasionally inspires me to tell a total stranger to consider leaving their leaves on the ground, just for a few days. (It is well noted that this never occurs to me in spring when there are actually cherry blossoms, but such are the wonders of my mind.)

As I rustle and stomp and swish through the leaves, I realize that I love the way that October sounds. Not the word October, but the sound of the month itself. I guess if I were a thief or a ninja or another sort of person who needed to creep around silently for professional reasons, the fall would really get to me, but since I’m not a ninja, I just love it. The leaves on the ground are inviting. I hear that sound under my feet and it makes me want to put on a sweater and go for a walk, and, oh—the sweaters, they are simply the thin edge of the wedge when one begins to describe October.

October is unequivocally the best month of the year for a knitter in these parts. Sweaters, scarves, shawls, and hats… they all come out and make glorious solo flights. In just a few weeks sweaters and scarves alone won’t be enough. A coat will cover my glorious sweater, my hood will be pulled up over my hat, and the beautiful scarf I’m showing off will be tucked in tight, caulking against the snow and ice, holding back the fierce winter. In October though, a sweater is just the thing, and I believe that this has a tremendous influence on the non-knitting population and their thoughts about knitters. Walking through the leaves and downtown streets of my city in this month, I always think that people must see my handknit beauties and wish, if only for that glorious moment, that they too were so lucky as to be a knitter. (It has been pointed out to me, as I don a sweater, hat, scarf, and mittens—all my very best—that it’s more likely that they’re wondering who that lady is wearing all the knitted stuff, but this is my fantasy, and I like it the way it is.)

In October, my lone kitchen houseplant has dropped a few leaves, just trying to join in, and in October, I am always so consumed by knitting and how wonderfully appropriate it is to have wool around that I have always considered knitting my children’s Halloween costumes. (Sadly, it is never my good sense, but their lack of desire for a knitted costume, that has stopped me.)

In October, you never say just, “It’s a lovely day.” That’s what you think in September, but in October, it’s always followed by the wistful thought, “Too bad there aren’t very many left,” while sighing exactly as though the world ends when the snow flies. October sunshine is made sweeter by there being a little less of it every day, because every day in October the daylight has a harder time starting in the morning and the night creeps in a little sooner in the evening. In October, it’s a little cooler each day, and the retreat of the light and warmth of the sun makes it feel like what October sunshine remains isn’t to be missed.

One day, when October is almost run out, almost ready to give way to the far more depressing pallor of gray November, I am out on my fourth walk of the day, just so I can hear and see October, when I notice that the leaves aren’t changing anymore—they’ve changed. I turn and look for a locust tree, always the last guy to drop his leaves, and I see it nearly naked against the bright clear sky, and it hits me. It’s almost not fall anymore, it’s almost winter, and I stand there in the leaves and realize that soon it will be the long dark time, and I’ll have to wait months—six or seven—before the trees are awake, before leaves are part of my world again.

That same day, I saw a little kid running in my park (I think of it that way in October), and he was piling up leaves as high as he could. When the pile was as big as any of imagination, he would back up, trying to run backward, mostly failing, laughing already in anticipation of his launch. Face shining, when he thought he had enough distance, he’d run at the leaves full tilt, giggling madly, and then all in a riot, he’d dive into the mountain of leaves, the rustling deafening, his grin wicked. He was wearing a bright blue handknit sweater, a little bit too big for him, and it was perfect. The whole scene was perfect. That little kid, with his black hair and his blue sweater, running and playing in the orange, yellow, and red of the leaves. It was heartbreakingly beautiful.

How many Octobers does a person get? How many times do you watch your trees put on and shrug off their fiery best? How many chances are there to rake the leaves onto the path, rather than off it, to enjoy all that October offers? Seventy Octobers? Eighty? I stood in the leaves, the orange and red leaves bright against the beautiful sky, and the little boy in the blue sweater ran by me and entirely buried himself in his pile of leaves, laughing so hard that even his breaths were made of giggles. This is maybe… his fourth October. I bet it’s the first one he’ll remember.

Watching him, I could think only one thing: I should totally knit a blue sweater.

make a lot of mistakes, not just in knitting, but all over the place, and mostly I don’t mind a lot. I’m pretty sure that I’m making this many mistakes because I’m actually trying new things and learning new stuff all the time, and experience is a great teacher, even if it leaves a little embarrassment and humiliation in its wake. Mostly, except for the humiliation and embarrassment, I’ve grown accustomed to the sort of mistakes I usually make, the things that happen when you’re not sure how something works, and you try, make a mistake, and then after that know what you’re doing. Like the time I filled a house full of smoke because I made a mistake with a wood stove. There was nobody there to teach me whether the flue was open or closed, I had a fifty–fifty shot at getting it right, and I was wrong. I lit the fire, the smoke billowed into the room, and I had the information I needed about the flue. It was definitely closed. That was absolutely a valuable mistake—just like the time that I saw the PTA lady headed my way on the playground. I knew that woman was going to try to rope me into volunteering for a school function; I knew I didn’t have time to help, but I also knew that I was going to be absolutely helpless in her grasp. I looked into my future and saw that my inability to say no was absolutely going to end with me baking 324 cupcakes at three in the morning and I decided to run. There was an excellent chance it would have worked too. I could have shouted, “Sorry, Marie, no time,” and whipped off home, safe and sound, bake­ sale free—but that’s not what happened. What happened is that I made a mistake. I tried to run away too quickly, I didn’t look around me well enough, and when I panicked and turned to run it just so happened that I ran into a tree, knocked myself down, slowed up my escape, and, naturally, as I lay there with my head bleeding, it was Marie who came to my aid. For the record, I got a small cut and a massive dose of humiliation, and (once she made sure I was alright) I was a sitting duck for Marie’s organizational zeal. This, I thought, as I baked 324 cupcakes at three in the morning, was a mistake. Clearly I still need to avoid Marie (or learn to say no to her, but frankly the running has better odds); it’s just that the next time I need to, I will have my getaway route plotted like the theme from
Mission: Impossible
should be playing while I’m at it.