In Spite Of The Fact

Life is one of those ridiculously unpredictable things.

Growing up I thought I knew just what would happen. I would grow up, get married, have children and when my children grew up I would be a grandmother who made cookies and sat around in a rocking chair knitting something. I don't know why I believed all that, or even why I wanted it. I think it was just such a dyed in the wool sort of expectation that it never occurred to me that anything else could happen.

Now some history behind all of this that should explain why I had no reason to expect these things to happen this way. First of all, my own grandmother was the ultimate liberated woman, rearing three sons and a daughter after my grandfather died. Except for her butterscotch pies, which were to die for, she wasn't much of a cook. I recall her hockey puck hamburgers with their charred little layers crumbling like soot in my mouth. I don't even know if she could sew buttons on, my great aunt was the domestic one in their household, but I know she never knit anything unless it was a broken bone. She would never have been able to sit still long enough to rock any chair and she was far too busy to care. She was always working, running a business and making sure that all the ends in her life met neatly at the end of each row.

Secondly, I didn't really learn to knit until my husband taught me after we were married. I wasn't interested in knitting. I was more inclined to read books, or study house plans and then try drawing my own, always looking for something more unique and efficient. Or, I was playing the piano, or some other instrument, dreaming about becoming a great musician in spite of the fact that I was nearly crippled by stage fright. Of course I also collected rocks and dreamed about great archeological adventures and living in a wild and untamed place, completely reliant on my own abilities to provide for myself and my family, in spite of the fact that I would not walk around the block alone because of neighborhood dogs! And in spite of the fact that I barely ever went to a church, I even had a period where I wanted to be a cloistered nun, or more particularly, a saint.

Shortening this story let me say that I did grow up, get married, acquire children in various and sundry ways and I am now a grandmother. I'm not much of a cookie baker, but my recliner does rock and I have knit a few things during the course of my lifetime, mostly for lovers and seldom anything but scarves. I spend my time writing and looking for more interesting pursuits than rocking and I have found many through the years.

Life is just too short not to enjoy the adventures that present themselves. Who knows, maybe, some day, I will be a chair rocking, sweater knitting, grandma who finally gets into baking cookies, but I'd like to make my own chair and learn to card wool before I do it.