Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Weird, full-circle lives

Met a woman (Marlene) last night who I hadn't seen in 17 years, possibly more.. she is visiting her daughter in Durham, and they called Brian to do an estimate on some repairs... This same woman hosted a backyard wedding for Brian and his first wife in the early 1970's... during those same years Marlene and I worked together at the Guelph General Hospital. I also patronized the knitting store on Quebec street where Marlene worked part-time - she and I shared a love of knitting. She divorced and decided to open a yarn store of her own in Elora... I married, and am trying to remember whether Marlene was at my wedding, and I think she was... I divorced, had several serious surgeries, and moved to rural Elora. Again, I patronized her shop, as I loved Filatura di Crosa yarns. Her daughter took over running the store as Marlene went back to nursing... By the time I divorced again, I never went back to Elora. It was hard to catch Marlene at the store.

I met and married Brian, and we had Angeni. Fast forward to last night - there, in the same rural town, we go to Marlene's daughter's place for Brian to do his estimate. Marlene has known Brian and I both as individuals, married to other people, and now married to each other - she didn't know we had a child. Now she is thinking of buying a little place in Durham too... she is still running the yarn store in Elora. For sure I'll have to stop on my way through to Guelph, and see what she has there... I'm still knitting and so is she, thirty++ years later. Knitting sweaters and knitting lives that, like a well-made garment, are stitched together. An amazing, small world indeed...

No comments: