Once upon a time,

there was a little girl who wanted to learn to knit.

She tried learning from books.

But the directions were much too hard for the little girl. She couldn’t see how to hold the needles.

She begged her mother to let her take a class for people like her, who wanted to make beautiful things out of brightly colored string.

So the little girl’s mother put her on a big bus that carried her across the town to the shop where the yarn was.

The girl discovered that she wasn’t particularly good at knitting.

There were holes in the sad blue dishcloth she tried to make.

Over the years, the little girl tried to knit other things, like hot pads.

But nothing turned out particularly well. “Maybe I’d be better off doing cross stitch or latch hook,” the little girl thought.

And so the knitting sat, untouched, in her closet for many years.

The girl grew and grew. She never forgot about the knitting. One day, the girl received bad news.

Her grandparents had died in a terrible accident. After the sadness, after the sorting of the belongings, the now-grown girl discovered she had inherited her grandmother’s knitting needles and yarn.

The magic knitting seed planted in her heart so many years before began to grow.

It grew slowly at first, while the girl struggled to make a scarf for her sister’s birthday.

And then, a little faster when new nieces needed hand knit sweaters.

And faster still when the girl found a booklet, which to her seemed like the Rosetta Stone of knitting. The little booklet at the craft store didn’t look like much from the outside, but inside was the key that unlocked all the mysteries of knitting.

The knitting seed was now a thriving plant that the girl lovingly watered with moves across the country. With a sweet husband. With too many cats. With babies of her own.

The girl started making baby things for her friends, who told their friends.

The knitting seed grew to be a knitting business with pattern designing and dresses and pants and piles of yarn cozying up the house.

You can’t see a seed grow, no matter how long you watch it.

You can try to stand, unmoving, eyes fixed, for weeks on end, and you won’t be successful.

It’s not until you blink that you realize that time has passed and what was once a seed is now a tree.

The girl tried her hand at putting colors on yarn.

Some attempts were successful. Others resulted in charred bits of wool that left black flakes in her hand.

But she kept trying and learning. And meeting new friends and sending them yarn.

The girl discovered that people liked the yarn she made. The people showed her pictures of the special things they made for their own friends and family.

Things like socks, and sweaters for their own babies, and mittens to keep their hands warm.

Every day, the girl poured all her creativity into painting yarn with pretty colors.

It was a lot of work, but the girl didn’t mind. She discovered that the things you work the hardest for are the things you appreciate the most.

Slowly, word spread about the pretty colors on the special yarns that girl had made from the fleece of magic sheep.

People came from all over the world to get some of the special yarn for themselves.

They came from tropical lands, where palm trees grow. They came from large islands bedecked with coral reefs.

They came from the lands of the Vikings and ship builders, and from inside stone cottages with thatched roofs.

They came from quaint Southern towns, and rural plains covered with snow and ice.

Each day, the girl marveled at the wonderful assemblage of people who came from far and wide to buy her wares.

But little did she know. Little did she know that these people were conspirators. Conspirators who wanted to give the girl a wonderful gift.

They plotted and schemed and knitted and stitched.

Slowly, something took shape. Something magical, not because it was knit from the fleece of magic sheep. Not because it was made with pretty colors. Not because it came from many faraway lands.

It was magic because it was made with love.

When the people — now friends — presented the girl with this special thing they had labored so long over, she was overcome. Overcome by the generosity of her friends who knew just what she needed.  They knew she loved handmade things, and they knew she would love seeing the fruits of the little seed that was planted so many years before.  They knew that she needed

a magic carpet.  A magic carpet to wrap herself in on cold winter nights, to festoon a favorite chair in the summer. A magic carpet made, stitch by stitch, with care and kindness. And it was good.

The end.

The moral of this story is: Never underestimate the power of a tiny seed. It can blossom into a tree that grows magic carpets.

Those are the words that popped into my mind, I swear it’s true. What in tarnation are those? I thought.  Who actually says the word tarnation? I mean, other than me. I would love to know its etymological origins.

What in tarnation are those? Why are they growing outside the studio?

It looked like a plum, but smaller. And there were different colors growing on the same tree.

Is one ripe and the other unripe? What in tarnation are they doing out here? Not that I’m complaining, it’s just that the studio is not exactly located in the Garden of Eden.

And there’s not just a few here and there. We’re talking a whole tree full, and then some. In fact, does that look like several trees growing fruit? Things are really intertwined and overgrown back here in the Garden of Tarnation.

Are these persimmons? That’s the only thing I can come up with. The birds adore them. In fact, they were angry at me for having the audacity to leave the windowless studio and step outside for a moment. There is yarn to make, after all. And it’s important that I not leave until every last bit of it is well and truly done, even if it means waiting until my children are 25, coming and going only during the dark hours of the day, and all the (persimmons?) are off the tree. The birds are HUNGRY.

Look what else I found on my daylight foray.

Are these currants? Or some kind of southern berry that I’ve never heard of before?

(An aside: having grown up in the great white north my mother refers to as American Siberia, I was unaware that there was an entire magazine devoted to living in the American South. I was also unaware, having grown up in the aforementioned Siberia, that Washington, DC is indeed the South. It’s not just “south of Maine,” it’s the South-South. It says so in right here in my Southern Living magazine.)

Currant? Unheard-of southern berry? Currant? Unheard-of southern berry? They grow close to the ground, if that helps any.

And these. These have to be someone messing with me. What other explanation is there for all of the trees and bushes outside my studio to suddenly, in mid-November, begin producing copious amounts of unidentifiable fruit?

They’re iridescent. They’re purple and light blue and dark blue. And they have chartreuse leaves.

I got nothin’. They’re definitely not blueberries.  Notice how the stem on the left has been stripped of almost all the berries? And notice how the leaf on the right is half-eaten?

All of this stuff was growing mingled together, the red berries at ground level, the blue berries 3-5 feet off the ground, and the plummy-persimmony things starting at about five feet and going “way, way high up in de sky” like my baby would say.

The whole time I was out there, there was a secret bird operation going on. They were clearly worried I was encroaching on their territory, and were signaling each other both raucously and covertly about my whereabouts and my doings.

She has a large instrument used for harvesting our fruit! It has a big round window on the front and a button that makes a sound! She’s getting close to the fruit! Prepare for a 5-9-8-7! 

So more raucous than covert, then. Seeing as I could clearly make out what the birds were saying to each other.

I, too, am a woman of hidden talents.

What kind of birds are these? They’re brown and iridescent. Small-medium sized (this was taken from far away).

I think these are the grown up babies of the mama bird who, this spring, made a nest in my air conditioner.

She did a good job cleaning up after herself, you can’t see the remnants of the nest anymore.

So, quick recap of today’s What in tarnation? quest:

Persimmons?

Currants?

No idea?

Starlings?

Help?