Pieces of the Whole
One rainy afternoon, I returned to my college dorm, dripping wet and a bit crabby. It was there I saw my best friend, Laurie, working the front desk.
“Belindy!” she exclaimed. “I was hoping you’d be the next person through the door! I wanted to see your face.”
At that moment, I felt loved.
Image Credit: © OneLineStock–stock.adobe.com
Today’s bloganuary prompt is, “Where can you reduce clutter in your life?” Well, I’ve written about that a couple of times in this blog, so I’m not going to bore you with more. Except for this one point that I’m proud of. I’m going through all of my yarn, most of it leftover from projects in years past, and making two giant blankets from the scraps.
Now, by scraps, I don’t mean one-yard pieces. Some of these scraps are almost equal to a full skein. Others are much smaller. So far I’ve knit about 46″ of a 55″ wide blanket. I’m almost out of yarn for that one, but I won’t finish it quite yet. The other one is wider. I thought I had a lot more yarn for the second one than I actually do, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work out.
I’m kind of embarrassed at how old some of this yarn is. I’ve been able to date some of it, and it goes back 22 years. The yarn isn’t moth eaten or anything–I’ve taken care to keep that from happening–and it’s nice yarn. If I spend the time knitting something, I use quality yarn.
My mom has laid claim to the first blanket, although I never actually promised it to her. We’ll see what happens. I have a few more projects I’d like to start. Then I’ll use up the leftover yarn from those to finish the blankets. Or not! This is a project that may take me a long, long time to finish.
Image Credit: © kostikovanata–stock.adobe.com
Today’s Bloganuary prompt is easy–it’s what’s your favorite animal? My cats, of course! Here are Walter and Mimi in some pictures you’ve already seen, but I don’t have any new ones.
Image Credit: Paws in Heart © Bigstock; Cesar Cat © Belinda O
This morning, in an “abundance of caution” due to inclement weather, our church services were cancelled. In their place we had prayers live on Facebook, with our priest (I’m Episcopalian) leading us through some announcements, readings, prayers and a short homily. It wasn’t the same as being in church, but it felt right. I used my phone and held it up throughout the service.
We’re lucky to live in a day and age when such things are possible. I can text my brother when I have a quick question that doesn’t require the bother of a phone call. My doctor’s appointments are also confirmed by text. I use my phone for so much communication, but it’s hardly ever phone calls, except for the daily calls to my mom and the weekly calls to my dad.
I screen my calls, of course. If I don’t recognize the number, I don’t answer the call. Let them leave a voice mail if it’s important. That’s a sharp contrast to the way I was brought up. If the phone rang, you dashed to answer it. There was no way of knowing who was calling, and there was no way to leave a message.
I remember a high school English teacher saying he sometimes didn’t answer his phone calls. We were shocked. What if it was important, an emergency or some such? we asked. He just laughed and said he didn’t like to be controlled by his phone.
Today, I feel like in some ways, I’m too dependent on my phone and its conveniences. I try to set it aside for a day at a time, but it isn’t practical to do so. If I forget to take it to work, I panic. I’m frightened of losing it. I don’t keep any financial information on my phone–what if it ended up in the wrong hands?
And yet, I’m grateful for it. Communication has never been easier. Yes, there are drawbacks. There are scams galore, some obvious, some more subtle. Yet I can easily navigate the airport and my connecting flights. And I go back to text messages, the greatest source of my online communication today. It’s too good to go backwards. I hope we never have to.
Image Credits: Mobile Phone © sitthiphong–stock.adobe.com; Rotary Phone © Feng Yu–stock.adobe.com
My second go-round with college was in Portland, Oregon, while my dad still lived in San Jose, California. That meant that holidays required a road trip down I-5, over the mountains and through the woods.
Tragically, this was the age of the I-5 killer, a serial killer who found his victims along that interstate. The school, naturally, was concerned with the number of students who took that route home, and did what they could to require we travel in groups of both men and women, preferably larger groups, but at least two.
I was extremely shy those days around men, but I had a car, so I never had a problem finding someone to drive with me. One spring break it turned out to be a fellow student named Jack, one of the most popular boys on campus who I, remarkably, had a light flirtatious relationship with. We planned to leave right after lunch and drive straight through to San Jose, which was about a twelve hour drive.
He drove most of the way, even though it was my car, which was fine with me, I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of driving in the dark.
To break the ice, I asked him, “what’s the most embarrassing moment of your life?” He proceeded to tell me a story I’ve all but forgotten now, but it took place in junior high, which was one long embarrassing moment for me, so I totally related to what he was saying. In fact, it was a bit of a relief–and revelation–to hear that this popular kid had had bad moments in eighth grade, just like I did. I didn’t realize until much later that we all had bad moments at that point in our life. It came with the territory.
Then it was my turn, and for the life of me, I couldn’t think of a story to tell. Believe me, I’d had my share of embarrassments along the way, but I totally blanked on a story. Perhaps it was because I was afraid it would get repeated, or perhaps I was just too insecure to let myself be that vulnerable. I came up with a story, a true story, but it didn’t come close to matching his.
When friends later asked how the trip went, I said, “fine,” but I wasn’t convincing, and they knew something had happened to make me uncomfortable. I wouldn’t tell them what, and I never repeated Jack’s story, believing it had been told in confidence. More importantly, I never told my friends that I couldn’t come up with a story about my own most embarrassing incident.
In retrospect, I see that trip as part of a trend in my life, a fear of making myself vulnerable to others, particularly to men. I didn’t recognize it at the time, although I don’t think I would have denied it.
I wish I’d had the courage to tell my own story.
Image Credits: Mountain Driving © Denniro–stock.adobe.com Embarrassed Kitten © Dixi_–stock.adobe.com
My World With Words 
You must be logged in to post a comment.