Knitting

It has been ages since I picked up my knitting. Then I started reading Michelle Obama’s new book, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times. This is what she had to say about knitting:

When everything starts to feel big and therefore scary and insurmountable, when I hit a point of feeling or thinking or seeing to much, I’ve learned to make the choice to go toward the small.

In knitting, when you create the first stitch of a new project, you cast on. When an item is finished, you bind off. Both of these actions, I’ve found, are incredibly satisfying – the bookends of something manageable and finite. They give me a sense of completion in a world that will always and forever feel chaotic and incomplete.

To her description I would add the satisfaction of making something that you can hold and touch and keep, as opposed to so much of what I do, which is ephemeral. Even in retirement, I feel like I spend too much time moving papers (or electronic files) from one pile to another. But I still wear sweaters I made for myself twenty years ago, and baby sweaters my mother made for her first grandchildren were handed down to mine. I would also add that knitting makes me feel connected to my mother, who taught me when I was a girl.

And yet, my knitting is still in the closet.  I agree with Obama’s understanding that knitting is a way to “quietly click us out of that hard place,” but I haven’t been able to get over the feeling that time spent knitting is time away from other projects, especially my writing. I need to get back to knowing that the time I spend knitting, focusing on the work of my hands and at the same time letting my mind wander, will enhance my creativity.  

And as an added bonus, I’ll have a new sweater!