It’s done for my own safety.  Really it is.

I knit together the pattern of my days with the soothing and rhythmic clack of the needles, stitch upon stitch, row upon row.   The pattern is regular and even.  Honest and expected.

I am grateful.

And yet?

Sometimes I have to appreciate the dropped stitch. Or two.  For the occasional unraveling of the yarn. Because only then do I look up to see the wild rumpus, the crazy helter-skelter, the marvelous phantasmagoria of sights and sounds and feelings that otherwise would  fly away like dandelion puffs swirling in the wind.

I can’t let them get away! Maybe I  can catch them. So of course I try.

• the jolt of connection

• the satisfaction of caring 

• the exultation of loving

• the joy of simply saying what needs to be said

*the laughter that rattles and roller-coasters through the room

*the mutual embrace of kindness

Nothing more. But nothing less either.

When will these marvelous events occur?  Do we know? Do we care? Does it matter? The expectation is a mystery and a thrill all its own.  But they are coming! They always do.

My eager fingers reach out to catch the puffs, dancing away in the wind.  I grasp them and carefully weave them into my pattern. I work to gather up any dropped stitches. 

I reach for the needles once again. The pattern continues row after row.  But please look up.  I do look up. Reach out.   Robert Burns said it best:   “catch the moments as they fly.” *

I won’t forget. I won’t ever forget!  Oh, how could I?

***

Photo: Big Nick, a lifelong appreciator of moments that fly. Also an appreciator of flies in general.

*from Here’s A Bottle and an Honest Friend by Robert Burns reprinted in The Norton Book of Friendship, edited by Eudora Welty and Ronald A. Sharp, W.W. Norton & Company, c 1991