That Contained Chaos of Knitting

The best thing I ever learned to do was knit.

I’ve had a few peaceful days of late, quiet days filled with bliss and serenity. I gather that’s why I haven’t been blogging very much these last two weeks. Not that anything at all is wrong, mind you. I’ve just been in one of those reflective moments, where stillness and quiet have overruled the desire to share everything about my life. I’ve been keeping some of these treasured moments to myself. So, rather than write about them, I’ve simply been enjoying them….silently.

It can be a challenge to keep your thoughts to yourself, to explore them, to challenge them. But, I guess that really is the difference between writing and meditating. One requires a telling of the thought, the other requires a reflection on the thought. And lately, I’ve just been reflecting.

I have sat here with my knitting needles in hand, moving stitches from one end of a double pointed to the other, with no music on, no television, no radio….Just silence, save the sound of the bamboo needles as they tenderly click and clack against each other. I have sat comfortably in this chair while I knit up my teddy bears, and have cared for only the random sounds outside.

I’d randomly peek out the window. The green tops of grand old trees greet me, the sky is a robin egg hue, and the earth glistens with a sparkly dew. This is where these last 10 years of knitting has brought me: to this view.

And I just can’t help but think that learning to knit was the best thing I ever did. My knitting gave me this view, this time, this life, this experience that no one would think possible. It brought new and amazing people into my life, while at the same time casting off disastrous relationships that needed to be done with for good.

After 10 years of knitting teddy bears, all of them taking me through turbulent, difficult times, I was sitting in this chair enjoying my view, enjoying the silence….and I suddenly felt at ease, at peace with my knitting, and with my past….

Where once I was knitting out of panic and dread, I have found myself knitting from a place of total serenity. I used to knit out of fear, fear of hunger, fear of eviction….and it hasn’t felt like that anymore. I feel like I have grown out of that contained chaos that I used to knit within. I feel like I’m maturing as a knitter, as a writer….as a person.

These are those moments you realized how blessed you are.

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