Perfection In A Yarn Shop

At the end of yesterday's lengthy post about my yarn shop visits on Tuesday I indicated that I had one more thing to share concerning one of the shops.  

I was standing at the checkout counter in Shop B.  I had just made my exchanges & the owner was figuring out if I needed to pay anything extra or if she needed to make some sort of refund to me (turned out I owed her $9.19).  Someone came into the shop & walked over to the side of the counter where the needles were displayed.  This was only a couple feet away from me.  It was at this point that I became aware of her presence.  I glanced up as one does when someone appears in close proximity to them & I am sure I stopped breathing for a moment or two.

I am one of the most unphotogenic people to walk the earth.  99.9% of the time when pictures are taken I tend to look like some kind of mutant farm animal.  In real life I can pass for human but Lord knows it's just by the skin of my teeth.  On Tuesday I left home thinking that for me I looked okay.  However, after my initial visit to Shop A which entailed walking from the car to the Pay & Park machine, then back to the car, then over two blocks to the street where Shop A was located, then up & back down the street looking for Shop A, then up the steps into the building only to find Shop A wasn't open yet, & then walking back to the car ... all this done in somewhat warm weather with no breeze except that of the cars whizzing by ... I looked like I hadn't washed my hair or face in days.  I then of course went to Shop C, back to Shop A, & then on to Shop B where this story takes place.      

If God had sat down with me before I was born & asked "what do you want to look like," I would've described this woman.  I can't make a guess at how old she was ... certainly younger than me.  All I know for certain is everything about her that could be seen was absolute perfection.  The first thing I noticed about her was how tall she was.  I am tall (5'9") but she was several inches taller than me.  I then noticed the shoes she was wearing ... black fabric wedgies with a high heel & an open toe.  I have a 'thing" for cute shoes but I can't wear them because my left foot is covered with purple blotches & it swells larger than the right one thanks to the damage from 3 major blood clots in that leg, the first of which occurred when I was 21.  I then moved my glance upward.  She had on black pants which perfectly fitted her perfect body ... not in a baggy way but not in a tight street walker way either.  They fitted her "just right."  She was wearing a pretty purple print gauzy type sleeveless top that was elasticized underneath the bust & then flared outward to her hips.  She reached to the top of the needle display to take down a package of needles & the skin on her arm didn't move.  Meanwhile I need to be careful when I'm reaching for something that nothing is too close to me on any shelves or tables nearby that might be knocked off when my arm flab starts to swing back & forth.  Her skin & bone structure were flawless.  There were no lines & no sign of sagging on her face or neck.  Her hair was thick, dark, straight, & parted in the middle hanging below her shoulders with long bangs.  Just the way I like to wear my hair but I hardly have any hair now after taking anticoagulant medication since the second blood clot 20+ years ago.  Hair loss is a side effect of the medication but it's either hair loss or death so not much of a choice there.  Her eyes were bright & they twinkled.  Her nose was straight & just the right size for her naturally beautiful face.  Her lips were normal lips ... not overblown by injections or, like mine, barely there.  She wore only the tiniest amount of makeup.  She had a lovely smile that lit up her entire face.  Her teeth were beautiful.  When she opened her mouth to speak with the shop owner her voice was like that of an angel.  And there I stood next to her dressed in my wrinkly t-shirt & mega size jeans with my waist flab hanging over the elastic waist band, my hair hanging in strings around my saggy, sweaty face, zipping up my purse that was sitting on the counter & hoping I wouldn't catch my arm flab or neck skin in the zipper.        

There are all kinds of physical beauty from the girl next door to high fashion divas. I have always been able to see at least one thing physically beautiful  in everyone.  Usually I see more.  Physical beauty is, of course, not what's important in life.  I have met a few people who look beautiful on the outside but they are so ugly on the inside that I am repelled by them.  I have also met a few people whom the world would consider to be unattractive but their inner beauty makes them exceedingly beautiful.  Then there's this woman who was in Shop B who appeared to have inner & outer perfection.  I'm sure that when God finished creating her all the angels & saints stood up & applauded.

Yesterday I looked through my new Noro books at the projects I want to knit & pictured how great they would look on this woman.  My current thinking is to instead knit covers for all the mirrors in my house.