The best stocking stuffers are feet

While people scurry in search of last second stocking stuffers, I want to speak for socks. For the last twenty years, they have been my gift of choice—to myself and everybody else, including Rinpoche’s monks. I wish I could describe the look on the young cashier at the Gap when I came to the register toting 18 pairs of men’s in maroon. “I…I guess you must like the color,” she finally blurted.

Frankly, there is much to like about socks. They keep your feet warm; they don’t make you look fat; they don’t need to be tailored or dry-cleaned; they’re a common denominator for all ages, sexes and incomes; they’re not frivolous or gaudy trinkets; and best of all, they’re cheap—a useful gift frequently for a few dollars. Wool socks can even turn sandals into year-round shoes, saving the expense of a second pair.

It’s really really really hard to give somebody a pair of socks they already have or won’t need. Socks come high and low and anklet, crew, ragg and tissue thin for dress up. They’re milled of almost every fabric from acrylic and bamboo to worsted wool and yak hair, and in every color imaginable—plus some that are unimaginable as well.

People say I am easy to buy a gift for because I'm so into socks. I say: who doesn’t need a pair? On a snowy day in Manhattan last January, I had lunch with a childhood friend who reminded me her husband had just celebrated a milestone birthday. “He didn’t want gifts,” she said, “but people sent stuff anyway.” Feeling challenged, I left the lunch and hunted down a hosiery store where I bought a pair of gray cashmere men’s socks. “I didn’t know such wonderful things existed,” her husband said on the phone. “Thanks for such a great idea. I’m going to get a pair for a friend whose birthday is next month.”

As it happens, I was standing in that Gap store clutching 18 pairs of men’s maroon because at the end of what had been a two-month tour across America, I’d simply asked Rinpoche’s Dharma heir, Tulku Damcho, if he needed anything. At first he shook his head dismissively, but after I stubbornly repeated the question, adding: “don’t be afraid to tell me,” he squinched his face up and sheepishly confessed. “Socks, I really do need socks.” I heard a “me too” from the monk sitting next to him.

Because of that three for $12 purchase plus the thank yous I got from all the monks who shared those 18 pairs of maroon, I went to Kathmandu last December with a mountain of socks, and after watching the monks scurry across cold stone monastery floors in bare feet, I whipped out the heavy ragg wool ones from LL Bean. They weren’t maroon but they were such a hit--what a Bodhisattva end of suffering gift warm feet was, that the ragg socks were the first to go from the pile I presented Rinpoche and his monks last summer when they came to Maine. After that were the ultra fine merino wool trouser socks from a premier designer that I’d scooped up on sale for only $6 a pair because maroon evidently isn’t a color men in gray flannel suits want to wear.

Right now I am wearing my black socks with red and white snowmen and snowballs on them. During October and November, I wore my brown socks with orange pumpkins. In July, I alternated between my yellow socks patterned with dancing Joe Cool lobsters in denim blue and my green socks patterned with vegetables. I have gray socks with dogs on them, black socks with monkeys because monkey is my Chinese astrological birth year, leopard socks, socks with an Eiffel Tower climbing up my leg that a friend brought back from Paris; denim blue socks patterned with coffee, eggs and toast, and three different colors with pigs all over them because I tell little children to call me Piggé. (I didn't want to be accused of plagiarizing Miss Piggy.) I still keep an old pair of black socks with piano keys and notes to wear to concerts.

Sadly, I seem to have lost my treasured black socks patterned in white with the skeletal bones of a foot and ankle. Because shoes must be off, I used to wear them in shrine rooms to keep up with all the deities adorned in skulls and bones. I did this so routinely I forgot I had them on during my first visit to Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, so I didn’t understand why the family of Malaysians across the room were so excitedly pointing at me while I received blessings from His Eminence Tai Situ Rinpoche, why they chased me down outside. “We want your picture, please, your picture,” the son said. “Lift your skirt a little so we can see all of your socks.”

Thank Buddha, I haven’t lost my twenty-year-old gray cashmere socks from Switzerland, even though they have holes in the heels. You just can’t get that quality of cashmere or sock anymore, certainly not at a pleasant price. And since I only need them when it’s cold outside, I wear them inside boots. Nobody sees the shabby holes.

I would certainly sacrifice them if I came up with an alternative but the quest goes on. Several years ago, I wandered around the shawl shops in Kathmandu overwhelmed by the vast array of colors and so moved by the mountains of merchandise yet to be sold, all I could think was: Socks! People had enough shawls already, how about pashmina socks…in all those glorious colors it was already dyed. I thought I had hit upon the economic development idea of the decade, for me and for Nepal. Unfortunately, Nepal is a country corrupted by narrow, arrogant Brahmins and has become too mired in their machinations to mobilize or envision. After a year of trying to find a willing pashmina factory, the best my influential local friend could come up with was two hastily milled and rather expensive pairs in black, and alas, my toe went right through the first the day I put them on.

Two years ago this month, I drove two hours south for a wedding in Monterey. I got to walk on the beach of Carmel and spend an afternoon in the remarkable aquarium, awed by jellyfish and sharks, but the highlight of the weekend was finding a store in the clutter of Cannery Row that sold nothing but socks. Socks with parrots on them for a friend who has a small green one named Pickle, ruffled pink socks for my childhood friend’s new granddaughter, and red cashmere socks for me.

I wore those snazzy socks the whole damp winter in San Francisco. I reached for them last year this time, slid them over cold feet and suddenly noticed both the heels were shredded and gone right up to the ankles, too big to hide. They had been made in China.

But then, as any washing machine will gladly show you, impermanence is the absolute truth of socks. Which is why human feet will always have a need to stuff themselves into more.

~Sandy Garson
"Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"

http://www.sandygarson.com

http://yoursinthedharma.blogspot.com/

Technorati Tags: Yours In The Dharma, Sandy Garson, Dharma, Buddhist, Buddhism, Spirituality, Religion

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Click here to request Sandy Garson for reprint permission.

Yours In The Dharma 2001-2008, Sandy Garson @copy: 2001-2008 Sandy Garson
All rights Reserved