Friends and Socks

For a number of years, I wished for a pair of hand-knitted socks. Ideally, I'd knit them myself, but we all know how well my little knitting project went. I finally had to admit that I just don't have the patience for it. Maybe it's something that could teach me patience, but not at this point in my life. I'd rather spend my time reading and writing.

Since I'm probably never going to knit my own socks, the next best thing, of course, would be to have a friend who is so-inclined knit a pair for me. In fact, that's better than knitting them myself, because every time I put them on, I would think of my dear friend who'd spent all that time and effort knitting me a pair of socks. How humbling.

Well, for my birthday last year my friend Linda did just that. She gave me a pair of socks that she had knitted for me. I probably shouldn't say it was the best birthday present anyone ever got me (after all, I got an engagement ring one year for my birthday), but it was definitely one of the best. And I was right: I think of Linda every time I wear the socks, which I happen to be doing today, because it's suddenly turned quite chilly here in Pennsylvania.

For a number of years, I've also wished that I appreciated poetry more than I do. It's high time I got over my fear of poetry, left over from my high school days. I've had this wrong belief for so long that all poetry is chock full of hidden meaning that I'm too stupid to understand. Now, confronting this irrational fear is something, unlike knitting, that I know I can actually do. In 2011, I've chosen to read more poetry than I ever have, and I've begun to make great strides when it comes to poetry appreciation, begun to realize that, yes, some poetry is chock full of hidden meaning that I'm too stupid to understand, but plenty of poetry speaks worlds to me, or touches me, or makes me think. I've also realized that there are plenty of novels out there with hidden meaning that I'm too stupid to understand, but I don't avoid reading novels, and you'd never hear me say, "Oh, I'm not a big fan of novels."

I mentioned in my recent post on what I read while I was in Maine that one of the books I read was Americans' Favorite Poems edited by Robert Pinksy and Maggie Dietz. In this collection, Emily Wilson Orzechowski, a 59-year-old teacher from Oneonta, NY, chose the following poem by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda:

Ode to My Socks

(translated from the Spanish by Stephen Mitchell)

Maru Mori brought me

a pair

of socks

which she knitted herself

with her sheep-herder's hands,

two socks as soft

as rabits.

I slipped my feet

into them

as though into

two

cases

knitted

with threads of

twilight

and goatskin.

Violent socks,

my feet were

two fish made

of wool,

two long sharks

seablue, shot

through

by one golden thread,

two immense blackbirds,

two cannons,

my feet

were honored

in this way

by

these

heavenly

socks.

They were

so handsome.

For the first time

my feet seemed to me

unacceptable

like two decrepit

firemen, firemen

unworthy

of that woven

fire,

of those glowing

socks.

Nevertheless

I resisted

the sharp temptation

to save them somewhere

as schoolboys

keep

fireflies,

as learned men

collect

sacred texts,

I resisted

the mad impulse

to put them

in a golden

cage

and each day give them

birdseed

and pieces of pink melon.

Like explorers

in the jungle who hand

over the very rare

green deer

to the spit

and eat it

with remorse,

I stretched out

my feet

and pulled on

the magnificent

socks

and then my shoes.

The moral

of my ode is this:

beauty is twice

beauty

and what is good is doubly

good

when it is a matter of two socks

made of wool

in winter.

(Pinsky, Robert and Maggie Dietz, eds, Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000. pp. 200-202)

Emily Wilson Orzechowski chose it as her favorite with this comment, "I have knitted socks." (p. 200) Emily Barton would say, "I have received socks knitted by a dear friend. Everyone should be lucky enough to have such a friend in life." I'm pretty sure Pablo Neruda would agree with me.