Wool. A fresh pair of socks on the needles, a new ball of yarn, the promise of the unknown.  I sense the challenge ahead, the dream of the end. I bask in the vision of cosy feet, of the glory. 

In the beginning of course, it wasn’t like this.  It was all puzzling over written instructions, stopping to pore over mysterious ancient code like the Rosetta Stone, looking for anything I recognised to use as a starting point.   sl1 p16 p2tog p1, a foreign language.  I used to write out patterns to try and make sense of them, whole sock sections at a time before turning to the needles, getting hopelessly muddled, ripping hard won centimetres out and throwing the lot across the room in frustration.  But I stuck it out, (no pun intended working on 2mm double pointed needles,) and now it brings only a growing appetite for further challenge. Maybe cables will be next, who knows? The mighty sock has been brought within my circle of possibilities.  

There have always been new things, wanted or not.  The only certainty is that I do not know and can never predict what is around the corner.  I used to think that the only  new things I chose were necessarily limited - a style of shoes, whether to purchase a new type of tech, to try a new routine or organisational method to get all of the old things done better or faster.  So the biggest new thing just jumped up and slapped me in the face: Hey you - you really get to choose now, how you live your life.  You can get off the treadmill.  You do not have to go go go, and be all responsible and grown up and serious all the time.  How did this not occur to me before?  With four children I could never let go, never not be mum and in charge.  Now I am only in charge of myself.  Cut loose, free to wander.  A new beginning, and it has taken some time to not just feel adrift.  

“Look at your hands,” I was advised by my husband.  “While you are dreaming, if you are aware, look at your hands in the dream.” Apparently this would help me remember, control, move it into my conscious mind for critical examination.  “Look at your hands like this.”  He demonstrated the turning and alternation of his hands like pages, like blades.  What tosh, I thought.  Dreaming wasn’t new, of course. But recently, I have become aware that sometimes I know I am asleep and dreaming.  Actually that is a lie - as a child I practised turning my dreams like with a TV dial.  Didn’t like the dream? Turn the channel.  But that precocious talent slipped away with the pressures, indignities, concerns of adolescence and I mourned it only occasionally.  Now, I think I want it back.  

Last night, I had a dream of being well in every way. That everything was in order, in perfect warm harmony, in some way exactly right.  It had to do with quantum alignment, which, in the dream, I completely understood.  Being one with the universe, I suppose.  If I am even capable of imagining the entirety of the universe.  There were still difficult situations, just a deep, comforting acceptance that all situations were right where they were supposed to be.  It was so good, so joyful, that I forgot to look at my hands.  Each event was examined from every angle and it was good and proper.  A suffusing glow ran through me, being and understanding everything.  Only now fully awake, I can’t remember what any of those things were.  I try desperately to regain this, to hold on as I surface unwillingly into the day, moaning - a moan of both joy of the deep glow and the anticipation of the loss; I feel it coming.  I look at my hands in the morning sunlight, and think maybe they hold the power to make me remember this next time. I handle the wool with love, turn and pace the stitches, instinctively find rhythm and solace and grace in the work.  These hands are powerful, and what they do next will be new, and beautiful.