Weather Waits For No One

no change from last time

My pretty Sky Scarf began on January 11th and I have kept up pretty well until mid-March when I reinjured my shoulder and when I finally saw someone about my ankle.

Apparently last year when I sprained my ankle (for about the 8th time) two days before my shoulder surgery I tore the cartilage inside and had an avulsion fracture. The bone has healed but the cartilage won’t unless I take *measures*.

Measures, meaning no walking, no exercising, wearing a big ole boot, contrast bathing nightly and possible surgery. I had a very painful cortisone shot that seems to have made things worse, and if it is not better in two weeks then it’s surgery time again.

I’m trying to stay very chirpy and positive during this time, therefore in that spirit I am happy to realize I may have lots of opportunities to knit in my future!

Up until now I haven’t felt like knitting mostly due to shoulder and to new injuries from using a cane and crutches. Time marches though and the weather waits for no one. I have dutifully been logging the weather every day for my scarf:

3/21 blue and grey
3/22 drizzle –
3/23 rain
3/24 rain
3/24 rain
3/25 stormy but dry
3/26 Blue sky & dark clouds
3/27 Grey and cloudy
3/28 rain
3/29 cloudy
3/30 torrential rain
4/1 cloudy
4/2 partial clouds
4/3 rain
4/4 clear
4/5 clear
4/6 cloudy
4/7 sun
4/8 sun
4/9 cloudy
4/10 rain
4/11 blue and rain
4/12 blue and rain
4/13 rain
4/14 sun
4/15 overcast

There is a lot of catching up to do!

Conceptually you would think of the changing weather reflected in the yarn would be interpreted as discrete stripes but I have been fascinated by the gradations in the fabric.

Our coastal patterns of fog followed by a few brilliant days of sun then a drastic awakening to moth-grey overcast and fog are predictable; the subtle arrival of our winter storm systems were not though. Perhaps it is a mechanism of awareness?

As I knitted this Sky Scarf I observed the fabric lengthening under my hands to display the breakup of blue skies to partial cloudiness, to light overcast skies, to multiple light and moody clouds then to sprinkles and showers, a subtle ombré of the sky bleaching out the blue and deepening into dramatic tones.

It is utterly fascinating and magical because we have no control over the weather, it just *is*, and most of the time city people don’t even register what looms above them in the sky, just a mental note. Do I need a warm jacket today, an umbrella, where are my sunglasses, or the inconvenience of it all when the weather changes and one does not have an umbrella.

I am more British than I care to admit and wouldn’t mind carrying a furled brolly over my arm on a daily basis. Perhaps the San Francisco brolly equivalent is a scarf, as my dear friend Anna never leaves the house without a scarf of some kind coiled around her throat.

Next year at this time I will be wearing this scarf cuddled around my neck and I hope to be reflecting on my hard earned perspective that my ankle should be pretty normal by then, and what a wacky couple of years it has been with me getting so very hurt over stupid accidents and how little it all matters right now. I will run my fingers over the seed stitch for the months showing March and April, over the beautiful shades of our rainy season, how the rain washed away my physical pain and where happy blue skies always pop up, suddenly, and then just as suddenly, fade to grey.