Relax and (un)wind

Shortly after my older son was born I found myself, as parents often do, in a series of waiting rooms: doctors, dentists, the reception area at school, the lobby of the martial arts studio. Though being a parent is often exhausting, at the same time I cannot sit idle either. There is in me some frantic urge to make every moment productive, and although I have tried to silence it with meditation and other forms of mindfulness practices it simply will not be quiet, so I have decided to embrace it as healthfully as I can. Dragging around delicate beading project or piecing a quilt top in a waiting room or studio lobby is impractical, and yet I had to have something to keep my hands lightly occupied. (The obvious question here is why not just read a book? The answer is that I’m a librarian for a reason, and a book can keep me so engrossed I will miss all social cues like shuffling feet, throats clearing, doors opening, and my poor child will be left standing there waiting while I finish the chapter.) I began knitting in seventh grade and took a long hiatus while the demands of my early career were in full force, but found it was the perfect solution to the waiting-room problem: fits into my handbag, easy to pick up or put down as needed and produces excellent accessories for giving or keeping. With every knitting project I have started, I’ve aimed to teach myself one new skill, and I have been careful to choose patterns that are not only easy enough to avoid frustration but challenging enough to avoid boredom. Selecting the right yarn for each project is as satisfying as finding the right ingredients for a delicious dish, and I've gotten into the habit of trying to pick up at least a ball or two at an independent yarn store in any new city I visit - the best kind of travel souvenir.

By now I've been through miles and miles of yarn, and so my husband’s head is kept warm in a chilly office with cozy hats and friends’ babies are swaddled in blankets I have knitted. My older son wears what he calls his “thinking cap” to tackle particularly thorny homework assignments and my younger son’s muscles stay warm after ballet class in legwarmers stitched to order in his favorite color. My own wardrobe now boasts stylish sweaters and elegant shawls I am proud to wear, and all of it has been knitted with love and care and thoughtfulness, my own kind of meditation in which daily concerns fall away and I concentrate on the yarn in my hands.

A couple of years ago some interested students formed a knitting club and I agreed to be its faculty advisor, confident I can steer novices through learning to cast on, form stitches, follow a pattern and bind off, in addition to choosing the right needles and the best yarn. The scissors on my desk at school, usually only employed by students for trimming the edges of data tables pasted into lab notebooks or snipping out an itchy tag, have never been more busy as beginning knitters cut through the snarls in tangled skeins in frustration or triumphantly snip the yarn tails off a just-finished scarf. Whenever I can, I bring in things I’ve knitted to help show them what is possible, that with just two sticks and some string they too can bring into being a garment to wear proudly or a gift to give from the heart.

Inevitably, whenever I wear my favorite lacy sweater or mohair evening shrug outside of school I hear, “That’s gorgeous. Did you make that? Is that for sale? Can I commission one? Have you ever thought of selling your work at the Saturday market?” I do not knit for money, only love. Although we are told “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” an article by author Molly Conway struck a note with me - that the contemporary practice of turning hobbies into hustles means that everything is work and nothing is simply done for the delight of doing it. “You don’t have to monetize your joy,” she writes. And she’s right - it is fine to pursue a fun thing to do just because it’s . . . you know, fun. No expectations, no deadlines, no one to satisfy or disappoint, just the sheer pleasure of taking a ball of yarn and turning it into a hat or a blanket, a physical manifestation of the warmth I feel for its recipient. Furthermore, it’s not even necessarily important to master a hobby either - you can be bad at it and still enjoy it. “Mine doesn’t look like yours,” the student said mournfully, holding up a lopsided scarf full of dropped stitches. “Was it fun? You liked watching the scarf get longer every time you finished a row, right? Just keep knitting. It’s not important that it’s perfect - you’re not going to sell it and you’re not turning it in for a grade either, so keep knitting if it makes you happy,” I said. And she kept knitting - it did make her happy. By the end of the term she had mastered plain knitting with a nice even tension and no dropped stitches, but it would have been fine if she hadn’t improved at all. People sing terribly in the shower every day and that’s fine too; it’s still fun, and last I heard that’s not how Hamilton conducts its auditions anyway.

The school year finally ended for both students and faculty, leaving me free to consider my next projects, particularly small things I can easily take on a plane. Soon I’ll be facing the universal challenge of the traveling knitter: will I be allowed to board with these needles and scissors? I’ve had to surrender more than one pair of scissors at security checkpoints before, and no matter how small, dull, old, or tarnished those scissors may have been when I had to give them up, it stung every time. I’ve got good sturdy teeth and can bite off the end of the yarn if the occasion calls for it, but I feel real sympathy for a seatmate who might first be confronted by the sight of me yanking a set of bamboo needles out of my updo and then chewing through a snarl of linen yarn that refuses to break. Reader, if that seatmate ends up being you, I apologize in advance but two hours on a plane with nothing to occupy my hands means I might be driven to use a pair of cocktail straws to whip up a doily out of loose threads plucked from the seat upholstery. The latest advice from the Travel Safety Administration for those of you with similarly itchy fingers and a plane to catch is that the blades must be less than four inches from the pivot point but “The final decision rests with the TSA officer on whether an item is allowed through the checkpoint.” Whether you are a good knitter or an enthusiastically bad one, I invite you to raise your tiny scissors unthreateningly in solidarity, pluck the needles from your hairdo or shirt pocket - I see you, guy knitters! - and join me in turning a ball of yarn into not just a hat or a shawl, but into several of the most soul-enriching hours one can spend.