Hippie Feet

Sometimes knitting turns out to be more than just knitting.

The lime green socks I started on the Los Angeles trip are complete. So complete, in fact, that I'm wearing them as I type this. Right up to the bit of weaving, I doubted whether I'd truly have the gumption to wear them.

Turns out I do.



These are dear to me, even though they're knit with simple wool (Wildfoote) in a pattern I've already done once before. Buying the yarn was an act of rebellion, an alliance with everything I thought I didn't like and wouldn't wear.

I will turn 36 on January 24th. Often I feel a bit sad to think how I spent my twenties–the years in which one is supposed to be wild and adventurous–strapped into roles and clothes I thought I wanted because almost everyone around me was insisting I should want them.

I was such a buttoned-down little thing. On the outside, polo shirts, topsiders and, I blush to remember, a collection of waistcoats* and bow ties. Inside, a dedicated assimilationist who believed quite firmly that the gay community would be granted its civil rights if we could only act "straight" enough.

I lived in a state of chronic discomfort and couldn't figure out why. Now I know it was because I was being suffocated and strangled by my own choices.

Like it or not, I've turned out to be the very thing I despised at the time: a damn hippie. An eccentric, spinning-wheel-owning, tree-hugging, meditating, earth-loving, war-hating, man-kissing, drum-beating hippie. Who wears loud socks. Or whatever else he wants to.

And bless my soul, it sure feels good.

Peace.

*Upon reflection, I still like the waistcoats. Properly tailored, they look kind of snuggly on a small man. Peter Rabbit-ish.