straddling the line between auspicious and creepy

those of you who don't knit--or who, as I used to, think knitters are middle-aged soccer moms (heh.. wait a minute!)--please give me the benefit of the next few paragraphs after which it will become clear that this post is not really about knitting.

it all starts with my friend Kelsey, who is a weekly guest at our house during "game night" (when we play obscure German board games sometimes for hours). she is charismatic enough that she broke through my prejudices and convinced me to learn to knit and kind enough that she provided me with a ball of yarn which I knit to the death until it was too frayed to knit anymore, after which I was stranded in Hawaii facing a five-hour return flight with four children and no remaining yarn. my best friend Krista, savior that she is, gave me a gorgeous soft skein of coral wool to start a new project with, and so, during that flight, I began making a doll blanket for my childhood doll bed (which now lives in my girls' room but for which all bedding has been lost to history).

but even doll blankets require a surprising amount of yarn, and it soon (by which I mean at least twenty hours of knitting later) became obvious that I'd need a second skein to finish the project. unlike experienced knitters who keep the label of their yarn, I'd discarded mine during the frenzy of packing. all I knew about the yarn was that it was wool.

I'd been told many times about a particular yarn store in San Francisco located in the Castro, and this past Thursday while driving home from the girls' swimming class in the late afternoon I noticed it was coming up on the next block. the gods must have been smiling at me because there was a parking spot right in front of the store, something that never happens in San Francisco, but something that made it possible for me to actually enter despite having three small children along for the ride.

three small children, yes, but my knitting? no, that was at home on top of the mantle. so while I was physically in the store, I did not know the name of the type of yarn. I did not know the name of the color of the yarn. I did not know the size of the yarn. and yarn stores, for those not in the know, are magical palaces full of every type of yarn you could possibly imagine (should you wish to engage in such an exercise), plus much much more.

you can probably guess the conclusion to this tale. somehow, against all odds, I left the yarn store with a perfect match. I've since knitted the new skein in and the transition is completely invisible.

this has to be a good sign, right? a blessing of some sort? maybe I need to hope so because there are so many things on the horizon right now. Juniper's kindergarten and Carter's middle school acceptances, for one, in only a little more than two weeks. Hazel and Clementine's preschool ones in a few days. query letters sent, manuscripts emailed, contests entered--so many practices of risk, of putting desires into the world on the chance that something good will occur.

on the chance that, against the odds, there will be a match.