The Personal Satisfaction of Darning a Pile of Holey Socks

This week, as we near the end of 2025, the writers and editors of KQED Arts & Culture are reflecting on One Beautiful Thing from the year.

“Y

ou’re entering your homemaker era,” my mother said earlier this year, mostly joking.

She’d been teasing me for finally getting into cooking about 20 years later than I probably should have, as a self-sufficient adult. For too long, I’d done the bare minimum, more of a “combiner” of ingredients than a chef de cuisine. Sometimes, on long walks or bike rides, I’d marvel that I was actually able to keep this body moving and in semi-good order, considering how little care I put into feeding it.

But it wasn’t just that I’d graduated from chief dishwasher to chief dinner-maker. My mother was astonished by my mania for darning my household’s socks, som