This evening ushers in the holiday Rosh Hashana, which is the Jewish New Year. I think everyone is ready for a fresh start!
There is so much going on around us! I am taking a break from things like poor air quality and viruses and simply telling a story this week.
A strange but true story about a pair of socks
Serendipity? Coincidence? All I can tell you is that odd things happen more than you would think to me and my family. My husband for years tried to find explanations that made sense, but he finally gave up. Here is one such tale.
The mysterious socks
Social media is a mixed bag. I try to avoid the political spats and focus more on the sweet updates from family and friends (admittedly I don’t always succeed.) One of the more enjoyable aspects of Facebook is the memories that surface. Just this week a memory popped up from 2013 about a pair of socks. I had forgotten all about it. It was such a strange story that I have no way of explaining it. I can only promise you that Sandy the skeptic bore witness to it.
When we moved out to San Francisco back in 1985, I made it clear that moving to the west coast was contingent on me going back to visit my family in Pittsburgh several times a year. Sandy was very supportive of this. The big brick house where I grew up in the actual Mister Rogers Neighborhood of Squirrel Hill became a second home to my kids as they regularly came back with me to visit family. As the kids got older, they still made it their business to get back there, but they no longer were able to come with me on every visit. On that August visit seven years ago, I had gone solo.
The house had several stories and somehow, much to my mom’s dismay, was a magnet for “stuff”. My childhood home and it’s various collections are featured in many of my posts over the years. Aside from the generations of letters, photos and treasures, new and odd things had a way of appearing. My mom had taken the term barnacle and used it to describe things that somehow took root in a place where they had no business being. That empty container of hand sanitizer in your house that has been sitting on it’s side, on the coffee table for several weeks, and somehow looks like it belongs there...that’s a barnacle.
During this particular visit, my mom had asked a favor. Somehow the set of steps going from the second floor up to the attic had amassed a collection of stuff. Would we be kind enough to go through it and clear the area? She had someone coming to do some work on the third floor and has been asking for people to get the steps clear. My visits were often her catalyst to getting things done. My sister, my niece (who lived up on the third floor) and I started our sorting. Here was a copy of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette with Lauren and I on the cover, the day after the Loma Prieta earthquake. Here were piles of clothes to go to the thrift store; here were some books. Piles were made. Keep it, toss it, donate it. We were making good progress. At the bottom of a bunch of clothes was one sock. It had a distinct embroidered pattern and I recognized it as mine.
“Hey that sock is one of mine.”
This was August, sandal weather in Pittsburgh. My best guess is that this sock got separated from its mate (as socks do) during a laundry during my last visit, which in this case was December. That is a good definition of a barnacle. The sock had somehow taken root on the steps and folks just stepped around it. But for now, I stuck it in my suitcase.
I spent a week in Pittsburgh and then stopped for a few days in Denver to visit one of my best friends. The day before I was heading home I spoke to Sandy for what was a fairly routine call.
“I miss you very much and can’t wait to have you home. There are fresh sheets on the bed, and I cleaned the house from top to bottom...it would be nice if the house could stay neat for at least a day once you are home.” (As an side, there is of course a reason why he had to ask me that; I am not the neat one in our relationship!)
“Yes dear.”
I got home to a truly spick and span house. I brought my suitcase up to our bedroom, and plopped it on the bed. Before I even opened it, I turned around and saw that on my dresser was a single sock. Yes. It was the mate of the lone sock in my suitcase. I picked it up in a bit of shock and yelled “Why is this sock here?”
Sandy looked puzzled. “I have no idea, I didn’t put it there, I straightened up everywhere, maybe Alana put it there."
As soon as Alana came home that afternoon I waved the sock in her face. ”Where did this sock come from?”
“Gee Mom, it is nice to see you too!, I have no idea where that sock came from. It has been hot out and I haven’t worn socks for awhile."
I opened up the suitcase and pulled out the matching sock to show them. This sock had been sitting on a step in Pittsburgh for months and months and somehow its mate was waiting for it.
If you are waiting for me to follow up with an explanation, I have none. I will say that if I knew I had one wish, it likely would not have been to find a missing sock.
There is a follow up. The socks were clearly special. On my next trip to Vegas I brought them along. Yes I got a straight flush at the poker table and the slot machines smiled at me a bit more than they usually do. When we came home and did the laundry, only one of the socks came out. Somehow I think it will turn up again.
Is this my strangest story? Probably not.
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