A tale of two sock drawers

 

No, it's not a showcase, but the sight that greets my friend Linda when she opens her sock drawer every morning. My own experience is quite different.

Linda’s sock drawer is like a jewel case. Seventeen pairs of hand-knitted (by her), beautifully colored, carefully chosen socks are tidily lined up in rows. She wears them in turn, starting with the red pair and working her way through until she’s at red again. Every morning it’s a treat, a surprise, to see which lovely pair pops up for the day.

I wasn’t surprised at what this looks like when she sent me a photo the other day, although I was impressed by the beauty and the number (Covid has been good for knitting.) But it did start me thinking about my own sock situation, which is kind of the polar opposite.

My sock drawer is a disgrace. Normally, I would take a photograph to illustrate, but in this case, it is too embarrassing. I will use words instead.

Imagine a drawer, quite a large one, stuffed to bursting with generations of socks and undergarments, some not seen for years. The ones in current use – think of them as flotsam and jetsam washing up on a beach – settle at the front and get used, washed, and used again. Everything else settles into the depths of the drawer (I think of it as kind of an ocean) and vanishes from conscious knowledge.

Almost everything has a greyish tinge, “wash light colours together” being interpreted loosely in our household. My socks are mostly those white athletic ones, the type you buy five pairs to a package for a ridiculous price that makes you think of semi-slave labour in some far-away factory, and slightly guilty, but that’s what’s there, so what the hell. Usually, I buy the ankle socks, but some longer ones have made their way home with me. Finding these uncomfortable, I took to snipping them off just above the ankle. They fray, but they’re usually hidden by pants, so who’s the wiser? Well, Linda, for one. When we were sitting on a waterfront bench on one of our recent distanced visits, she told me later that she noticed a space between my (frayed) sock tops and my pant legs. She wasn’t being critical, she was just worrying that my bare legs would be cold while hers were toasty warm in her high, hand-knitted, beautiful, cozy socks.

In my defence, I haven’t renewed my socks for a year because of Covid. Why risk death for a new package of athletic socks? Eventually, the world will be safe to buy socks again.  But that up-front supply continues to shrink, and it’s getting harder to find a usable pair. Every morning is a surprise – will there be a functional matching pair, or will there be one black, one white? Will I find one (or two) with new holes?  Will I have to scoop back into the “ocean” in hopes of finding something usable?

So in one way at least, Linda and I face a similar situation every morning. She gets the surprise of which of her hand-crafted gems pop up for wear that day. I get the   surprise of whether I’ll find any at all.

Linda has knit a couple of pairs of socks for both John and me, which we both treasure. Here are ones she knit for John. (Photo by John Denniston)