Home again, home again. I wonder how many times I’ve typed that over the years.  It’s a miracle I’ve never followed it with jiggity-jig, which is absolutely what I’m thinking. (This is the exact moment when one of you scans the archives and comes up with sixty-three times I’ve followed it with exactly that, not a one of them I’ll recall.) These last few weeks, I’m bucking the feeling that as I do all the right things, I’m in all the wrong places. This feeling was summed up on Wednesday morning as I missed the Bainbridge Ferry by about 20 seconds – despite careful planning and what should have been a foolproof plan.

I stood there on the dock, watching it sail off, and thought to myself “Well, that’s about right” and sat down to knit until the next one came, mostly content. I was on my way back from Port Ludlow.  After realizing that Susan’s funeral was going to be held during the retreat we just had there, I’d decided to go anyway. Actually, I hadn’t as much decided as I’d realized that there was just no way I could be anywhere else. The retreats we host are pretty tiny, and there’s only three a year, and there’s just no way to change when they are only a few weeks out.  It was difficult to see the family load up and head for Ottawa while I got on a plane for Seattle, we all felt bad about it, but every time I felt like I was in the wrong spot at the wrong time, I reminded myself that I was of service to Susan when she was alive, and that meant a lot more to her than my attendance at a service.  (It has been my experience thus far that other than in your imagination, dead people really don’t hold you to account much.)  It turns out that it’s not as much that I’m in the wrong spots – it’s more that I can’t seem to be in two places at once.

The rest of the week passed in a blur. The retreat was super busy, with Debbi welcoming a grandchild just days before we gathered there, and then it turning out that she actually was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having to go home a little early.  (I know she wished she could be in two places as well.) I did conference calls for the Bike Rally on my lunch breaks, I answered email between class and evening events. I caught a break when a crazy winter storm whirled through Toronto on the weekend, cancelling the first training ride of the year – and relieving the feeling of being in the wrong place when I couldn’t attend it. Thursday exploded in a jet lagged blur- trying to get all caught up, and yesterday… technically I don’t remember anything about yesterday except I ran out of time to do everything on my do-do list and dinner was a salad with mint. That’s all I’ve got.

Little Elliot’s first birthday party is here tomorrow. I was in Texas two weeks back on his actual first birthday. I sort of felt like I was in the wrong place that time, but it was really the right thing to go to the fabulous DFW Fiber Fest and make up deserting the year before, though I did feel a little pang when the pictures of the birthday boy arrived on my phone.  Thankfully, our little guy is blithely unaware of the calendar, so we shifted it so I could be here for the big celebration. I’ve been pushing hard all week to get his birthday sweater finished, and I can admit today that I’m not going to make it. This hasn’t stopped me from trying, inexplicably.

Pretty, isn’t it? It’s Hearst, and the yarn is Alpha B Yarn “Kiwi B”, an Australian Polworth that she dyed just for one of the Strung Along retreats a few years ago. The colourway’s named for the co-ordinates of Port Ludlow. (If anyone’s coming out to Knot Another Fiber Festival next weekend, she’ll be there I think.  I also think there’s a few spots in one of my classes, the lecture one – Knit Smart. Fun and useful, I promise.)

Today, I should have been at the rescheduled first training ride, but I woke up with tons to do, a birthday cake to bake, a backache, and the absolute inability (emotionally speaking) to push my road bike over the snow piled up by the garden gate. Maybe if I did have a clone I’d be willing to send her out into the cold to ride, but as long as it’s me there’s just no way.  I’ll wait for the temperatures to at least be double digits before I get out there.

If you need me, I’ll be here, more or less, baking cake, answering email, looking wistfully at my bike and my knitting, thinking that this would all go a lot better if there was two of me. Peace out.