What else?

“My eyes aren’t working, can you do this?”

My grandmother held the needle and the yarn out to me. We were sewing up the edge of a set of gloves we had made together. First, we had made a thick shawl from the striped blue, white, and tan yarn, using a special but complicated bobble pattern to give it extra coziness. Then we made a hat with a ruffled rim. Finally, we made a pair of mittens, to complete the set. They were just right for cold winters. She looked them over through her thick bifocals, her lips in a serious frown, then gave a small smile of satisfaction, and folded them over to me.

Those summer days visiting my grandmother or when she visited us were filled with learning. She and I spent many hours together each day. We crocheted, we knitted. She taught me how to use U-pins and tatting shuttles. We experimented with embroidery, and made lace edging on handkerchiefs. She talked about her famous wood apple jam, and how she used to fold and sew candy wrappers to make shiny mirrors on fabric. She showed me her pencil sketches and described how she made miniature sweaters one after another for new babies in the slums of her neighborhood to make it through the cool winters. She would tell surprising stories from her life, again and again, or retell traditional tales. I never tired of either the tales or the crafts. One after another, we thumbed through projects and ideas, sharing together, learning together, reminiscing together. When we had done one, she would ask with a smile, “So. What next?”

So when I grew and found myself needing a retreat from the world, it was only natural that I turned to the things that had brought me solace while I was with my grandmother.

People said we were alike, and my cousins teased me, calling me “Granny” as a teen, because I loved all those activities usually relegated to elderly women. Those things now bring me joy, though I lean to the practical. You might find me crocheting scrubbing pads for the kitchen sink, or embroidering my children’s initials on their clothes, making a beautiful chalk menu on the chalkboard, or making cherry jam. As I work, my grandmother’s stories fill my mind with vivid images.

But when I draw, the practical disappears. I draw for the sheer joy of being here. I draw not to learn but to let my body unlearn, unwind. I draw not to end up with anything at all.

I sit now, at a low table, with a smooth black ink pen in my hand, and a white sheet of paper. I draw lines and curves. As with each flick of the needle, the movement of my pen mirrors my breath and steadies my mind.

With each stroke, the calls of the day come and go--the cries of children, the demands of work, the endlessness of chores. Just like those repeat, now, in this moment, this simple drawing repeats. I listen to the tick of the clock and the sound of the ink on paper.

A song blossoms in my thoughts, and slips out of my lips with a hum. My breathing slows. Soon the page is covered in tiny black and white designs, as if a garden has grown on bare land. The lines are close and together, the way my grandmother’s knitting lay like pearls in her lap. Her needle is my pen, her yarn is my ink.

When I am done, I inspect the page, then sign it in an inconspicuous corner, but with a flourish.

I imagine my grandmother’s wrinkled hands smoothing the page, her gentle smile asking, “What next?”