Where are you going, my little one, little one
Where are you going my babe, my own?
Turn around and you're two,
Turn around and you're four,
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of my door.
- Malvina Reynolds

Usually when socks get stalled, it has to do with turning heels, and kitchenering toes. Not these socks. Knitting them this summer as my oldest daughter, Meera, a new college graduate, prepared to move to distant city, these socks got stuck in a multitude of mindless mistakes.  Each stitch I touched and retouched, twined itself to this hard, next step in motherhood when your child’s nearly adult wings open and take flight.

Plain Janes, I had knit dozens of these top-down socks. In dark teal Sock-Ease yarn, two were started, one after another, each with their own set of double pointed needles. This old sock knitters' trick of two at once, usually is a failsafe method of keeping both socks consistent, and preventing "second sock syndrome."* I cuffed one, then the other—both with a knit 1, purl 1, rib.  Confidently, I choose a simple pattern stitch; a six row repeat- four rows of 2x2 rib, then two rows knit. This gave the leg an interesting texture. It was a good beginning.

Then, two weeks before Meera left, she began moving her stuff out of her apartment.  As boxes and bundles appeared on our front porch, I skipped heel gusset increases, and forgot the essential knit rows in the pattern.  And as our the hallways crowded with her sewing machine, dressmaker’s form, books, and fabric galore, ladders–the too loose stitches at the ending of needle caused by not pulling yarn tight enough when moving from needle to needle—plagued the soles. The socks and the house were a mess. By the time her futon bed and bookcases were lugged back up to the room we will always call Meera's, the legs, heels, gussets, and soles had been knit and re-knit. My needles sensed each load she brought bringing us closer to her moving day. On the day she set off, a heel was knit twice.

Letting go is never easy for a parent or a knitter. I couldn't keep my daughter a child, shelter her forever. No matter how much I would miss her being near, I wouldn't want to. And I couldn't hold on to the socks either; stumbling about, knitting the same pair over and over. Besides, I had a promise to keep.

The day after Meera left, still too soon for me to call and hear her voice again, the socks and I, met at my knitting chair in the early morning. A careful examination revealed an inconsistent gauge. One sock was noticeably tighter, probably the one I favored that last week as Meera popped in and out of the house with boxes and her move imminent. What’s more there was sloppiness to the stitch definition. I gave this thought. The needles I used were 0s--tooth pick-like slivers which I found a bit to slight for my hands. The ball band’s sock pattern’s gauge, the same as mine, was achieved by size 2s. Knitting a new swatch on the larger needles matched the desired gauge. Pleased that the ball band proved to such a reliable friend, I unraveled the socks for what I hoped would be the last time, and after consulting its sock pattern, and cast on the suggested 64 stitches. Working patiently, paying attention, I shifted the socks out of neutral, moved them forward and kept going. From cuff to toe.

Was the new pair perfect?  No. A few minor imperfections. Like forgetting to add the knit rows to the pattern stitch. This last time around, I did not reknit. Instead I altered the pattern, knitting rest of the sock as a rib.  Like Meera, it was time to let them go too.

*Second sock syndrome: Finishing one sock and realizing, you have to make another one. Exactly the same.