One is NOT Only

My friends, Tom and Stephanie, invited me over for dinner this week. They make dinner and I bring dessert and then we talk and laugh for hours! We hadn’t been able to see each other since mid-December so I brought their Christmas gifts as well. When Stephanie said, “and here is yours!” I was giddy. I love presents…giving and receiving. It is not the material gift but the time and thought involved -how special that someone spent their energy to think what you might enjoy. I opened my bag and felt a soft bundle wrapped in tissue paper. I squeezed it trying to guess the contents and then I gave in and tore the paper off. I saw a lovely pair of wool socks and gasped, “did you make these for me?” and Stephanie confirmed that indeed she had knitted them herself. I was sooooo happy – I love socks! My dear friend, Sara, has a long tradition of giving me a “sock box” for Christmas. I consider socks one of life’s little luxuries, and now I was holding an exquisite pair knitted just for me. Stephanie said, ” I realized after they were done how right they were for you, green in the toes and blue at the top – like you – your feet grounded in the earth and your head in the clouds!” We laughed as indeed she knows me.

I knew from previous dinner conversations that Stephanie and Tom are also fans of the poet, Pablo Neruda, and even had one his love sonnets in their wedding program, so I said, “You know Neruda’s sock poem don’t you?” I was surprised that they had never heard it and immediately I pulled “Ode to My Socks” up and we had a spontaneous poetry reading. This in itself was a gift. We read to our children aloud for years but for some unknown reason give up the practice as adults. I might have said about my socks, ” oh they are beautiful! like clouds for me feet!” But this is what Neruda said when given a pair of handknit socks:

Ode to My Socks

Pablo Neruda – 1904-1973

Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
sea-blue, shot
through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
They were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that woven
fire,
of those glowing
socks.

Nevertheless
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as learned men
collect
sacred texts,
I resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
into a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers
in the jungle who hand
over the very rare
green deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.

The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter. ( By Pablo Neruda, translated by Robert Bly)

We laughed as I read these fantastical descriptions of his socks, ” two long sharks, two immense blackbirds”. I decided to try and describe my new socks through “Neruda” eyes – “my socks are two blue porpoises, indigo otters gliding through the ocean, my toes are wrapped in the softest of moss woven together with gossamer webs of gilded spiders and my feet and ankles swaddled in clouds made from the wool of sheep fed on sweet sun-kissed blueberries”. This led to fits of giggles but, Neruda knew how to express gratitude. He didn’t say, ” hey thanks for these cool socks” he wrote, “my feet were honored in this way” and gifted us with this beautiful lesson on gratitude.

I want to see the world this way. I was thinking of writing about this concept as I was swimming laps this morning which I like to call mermaid training – indeed that sounds more appealing that “swimming laps” – when I swallowed a big gulp of pool water and was quickly reminded, I am a many tarsaled creature not a finned one and anyway – a mermaid can’t enjoy lovely socks.

I have started the year focusing on a practice of gratitude for all the simple things it is easy to overlook. I am going forward trying to see the world through ” Neruda eyes” realizing that every day is full of wonder if I pause to notice. This isn’t about getting out the Thesaurus and seeing what extravagant words to use, but pausing to value people in my life, the landscape I inhabit, the possessions I already have. Take time to appreciate those gifts shared with you by others and especially your own gifts. It is so easy to think, “I am just ordinary.” When something comes easily to us, we often think “oh anyone can do this” instead of accepting it as a gift we have. I invite you to see your own gifts in a new way or ask someone you trust to share some things they see in you. I was amazed when a cousin told me she found me brave and inspiring. I have found when you are doing something brave what you actually feel is afraid and weak. How sweet that my cousin gave me the gift of her perspective and helped me see myself through new eyes.

Let Neruda be your tutor. Read “Ode to My Socks”, maybe even out loud, and then tell someone things you appreciate about them, give thanks for your own specialness that you now notice or count the beautiful things you see as you drive to work. After all, Neruda is the one who instead of saying ” it’s sunrise” wrote, “but the gentle morning painted the black night blue…”

©Michelle Bradley Campanis 2022

Photo Michelle Campanis

“Ode to My Socks”, The Yellow Heart – El Corazón Amarillo, Pablo Neruda,1974 Copper Canyon Press