The tangled webs we weave.

Somehow stings, yarns, cords seem to always get tangled... kind of like our lives. Today, as I was sitting in the shade resting after hoeing around my timid little tomato plants, I thought I would untangle the the cord that I had attached to two sticks to use as a guide for my garden rows. They had gotten tangled up last week after planting a few rows of beans and corn.

The task brought to mind a scene from the summer of my 14Th year. I had decided to make a baby afghan in anticipation of that day when I would have my own baby to love and cuddle.

Yep, at 14, with no probable boyfriend in mind... besides not being permitted to date until I turned 16. I had decided I would start preparing for motherhood.

The afghan that I was working on was mostly blue, made of 4" Weave-It squares. I had already made several squares with my little 4 inch Weave-It loom and had managed to crochet several together into a tiny afghan.

Of course, I had managed to entangle the yarn for the umpteenth time and was busy trying to disentangle the mess when my cousin (this is what I called all my nieces and nephews, since they were nearly all older than me), Ben, and his new wife, Margaret, arrived unexpectedly. As Mom was preparing dinner for us all, I worked diligently on disentangling the knotted mess I had created.

Daddy asked me to walk down and get the mail. When I continued to labor at the task before me, he made his request a bit more insistent. Before I gave in and laid the knotted mess down, Margaret said, "Go ahead and get the mail. I'll untangle it for you." When the look I gave her apparently said I was suspect of her capabilities she said. "I'm good at getting knots out of things." Reluctantly I gave her the knotted yarn. Mostly I did not want anyone else to share in my creation, but I figured her getting it untangled would not be part of the actual creation.

Since I never wanted to miss a thing that happened or was said, I ran the tenth of a mile and back. A trek that took less than two minutes. That is why I was so shocked to see Margaret sitting in a different chair with idle hands. When I inquired about my yarn she pointed to the chair I had been sitting in where the yarn hung in straight strips over the back.

Relieved that my back was to her when I walked past, I bit my tongue. Mom and Daddy would not be happy with me if I spoke my mind. The yarn hung in several straight strips all across the back of the ladder backed chair, at varying lengths. I touched one of the lengths and pulled it away from the back of the chair, as if that would somehow mysteriously show that I had been mistaken about their actual lengths. That they were in fact still attached in one long strip.

Without a doubt the yarn was cut into dozens of 2-4 foot strips. Slowly I stepped past the chair, gave the mail to Daddy, ran upstairs and threw myself onto my bed and wept bitter tears. Nearly a whole skein of yarn was ruined. You cannot make Weave-It squares with knotted yarn!

I was furious!

Yes, she was very good at untangling knotted yarn... she just took scissors and cut the stuff. I wondered if her favorite necklace were to become tangled, would she simply cut it?

More over, I could not believe that my Mom would stand by and just let her cut it to shreds, being the extreme frugal monitor she always was over me and knowing exactly the purpose of the yarn.

The afghan never was finished, though attempted it on several occasions. I raised two very robust boys.

Rested, I laid the cord aside (all wrapped neatly around the stick... in one long stretch) and got back to my gardening. Time to do more planting, I would be reusing the cord.