Today was the third day of rain despite bright sunlight. There is something beautiful and disconcerting about rain falling from a blue sky, a single wisp of cloud loosened over head. The potential for rainbows of course. But again, disconcerting. Out of place. I watched an old lady bent and twisted by her years hobble past. Unable to hold an umbrella. She wore a mismatch of prints. A tartan skirt, patterned tights, a yellow arran jumper. I felt I should help her but didn’t know what to say. She didn’t remind me of my grandmother – my grandmother was large, swollen instead of diminished by age – but the tatty jumper, yellow wool unravelling does make me think of her. Her fingers moving the needles, wool wrapped around her little finger, keeping the tension. She never used fancy wool – too expensive – just nylon yarns that didn’t wash well, but she could make anything. She taught me when I was little but it wasn’t until recently that I started to crotchet again, my hands and fingers echoing hers, they remembered her techniques, her lessons better than I could. Her DNA recalled by more than just my blue eyes and sharp temper. The strands of being are much longer than that.
And tomorrow my next novel is published, and she isn’t here to be proud or pinch my cheek.
Heidi James 