IT took a second-hand knitted vest and a pattern book to alert me. The Fair Isle vest was snapped up for a few dollars from a local op shop. The pattern book arrived some weeks later in a stash given to me by a work colleague. What I didn’t see, for weeks, was that they were one and the same.

Yup, the op shop vest is exactly the vest detailed in the pattern book.

So what, I hear you mutter.

So what! I missed it, that’s what. I missed a moment of serendipity. I missed seeing a coincidence that should have been held up as a moment of magic. I missed that something a little bit special had come into my life and passed through. Not a ratty old vest or pattern book – though both are actually lovely – but the moment. I missed the moment.

I feel like I am missing a lot of moments, of late, but I take heart in what a hand-knitted Fair Isle vest and pattern book taught me. One stitch, one row, one piece at a time, and that there’s always a pattern to fall back on. Always.

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