Completion

Dragged myself out today to buy a set of double pointed needles. I have other things to do but this hat that I have been obsessively knitting for the past couple of weeks had to be finished. I wandered out around 2pm, right as all the over scented high school students were beginning their end of the day migration and made my way with them up to the drugstore to mail a condolence card. A store bought card which had traces of guilt on it. I can't make everything. The words printed inside seemed good enough but still it felt cheesy. I could have just written a note, but what to say. Your life will never be the same, you have lost your only father. Your heart is broken. You won't get over it, why would you want to? Instead I sent a card with a lovely painting of a single purple tulip on it. The members of this club of grief stricken people will understand. Grief is overwhelming and familiar, we all understand so we nod at each other with these crisply designed cards whose words are appropriate and safe presented in tasteful fonts.

I walked from the drugstore to the knitting store quickly as it had started to rain while I was mulling over over-priced eye brow brushes, luckily I was dressed for the rain. Still I felt cold but also sort of hot from the briskness of my movement past the nondescript buildings that make up our suburban landscape. I wished I was wearing a sweater.

In the knitting store I unwrapped myself from my shoulder bag and loosened my scarf, removed my gloves and began my usual contortions about what I needed, what I was making, how it was making me feel, why I was doing it. My usual public dance, speaking quickly my hands flying around. The owner wasn't in but her helper was able to sort me out. There was a young woman there winding yarn into balls on their machine. She was exactly the type of person I have been hoping to run into in this shop. I considered coming back later with my pattern and project but really I just wanted to work it out in silence on my own and not feel like I was performing for anyone as I tend to.

On my way past the vegetable store next door I noticed a man loading his car, resting a gallon of white milk on the roof before placing his bags in the back seat. His skin, white as his milk, had a dense but short black beard at a right angle to his neck, a thin bright column standing up out of his black colored coat. His black jaw length hair falling in his face. I wished he had on a fine orange knit hat such as the one I was rushing home to complete and perhaps a scarf of bright colored wool to warm up his overall chiaroscuro demeanor. As I passed him another young man decked out in excellent punk rock style passed in between us and I had to catch his eye and smile because I approved of how he looked and off I went feeling pleased to be out on a gray Monday afternoon.