The Universe Creates Balance

Yesterday I posted on FB about a cease and desist letter we'd received from a big manufacturer. My post was less about complaining about the letter than it was about our pride in being noticed by them. I can't say that the letter didn't cause me a certain amount of consternation, but I made a conscious decision to look at the bright side.

Today we received a very different kind of letter. One that makes me dance with joy. It's a touching story from someone who grew up not far from here but lives across the world. From someone who took the time from her day to tell me how Lorna's Laces had touched her. Where are the tissues?

Hello, I just wanted to say that I got a happy little shock as I was browsing your colours on your site.

Let me explain - I live in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. I was born here, in 1972. In 1974 my parents, little brother and I all moved to Toronto, then in 1975 we moved again, to Illinois. First we lived in Downers Grove, then we moved to The Glens in Naperville.

I had a pretty idyllic childhood in the mid-seventies. Our neighbourhood was friendly, astonishingly so by Australian standards. My parents joined all kinds of clubs and associations. I started school at Prairie Elementary then went to Scott School when it opened in 1978.

Living in Naperville was such a happy time. Us kids could run around the neighbourhood with other kids and other mothers would ring my Mum and say "I just saw Sarah and Stuart with Mike and Heather going over to Stephanie's house." We would of course have just cut through that caller's backyard, there being very few fences and none of us being inclined to stick to the footpaths.

I remember picnic dinners at Centennial Beach, trips to the Field Museum, a Worlds Fair at Navy Pier, visiting the Brookfield Zoo. I remember catching fireflies on summer nights. I remember block parties (a concept unknown in conservative Melbourne, where people hide behind high garden walls and only talk to their neighbours if there's a dispute).

In 1980 we had to return to Melbourne, and my brother and I had to learn to be Australians. It was hard, but we managed. Eventually we lost our mid-western drawls. We made new friends and discovered new things to explore in our conservative eastern suburbs Melbourne home. There were parks, the local pool, it wasn't too bad.

As an adult, I've had cause to be thankful that I got to experience life as a small American before returning to my own country. I've also decided, on balance, that Mum and Dad made the right decision to bring us home. But I've always missed Naperville, and anything that reminds me of it can be sure to give me a bittersweet pang for a life that was over decades ago.

Knitting is a relatively new hobby for me. Ravelry has been a terrible distraction as well as a great inspiration. I came across Kate Gilbert's Clapotis and fell in love. I found an Australian supplier of Lorna's Laces (although they're in Queensland, thousands of kilometres away!) and they can order Lion & Lamb Multi for me.

So I went to your site to explore the colourways. I saw these names. "DuPage". "Naperville"! So then I realised you were in Chicago. And I spent a little while reminiscing about Naperville winters, when it snowed. It's autumn here now. We have lots of imported deciduous trees in Melbourne, so we do see autumn colour, but it just isn't the same as being a small girl in the woods, being buried in massive piles of dry crackling leaves by my Dad.

I hope I haven't bored you to tears with my rambling reminiscing. I'll go back to perusing your colourways and try to decide between "Watercolor" and "Baltic Sea" for my Clapotis, then I can get my order to Yay for Yarn in Queensland :-)

Have a lovely day.