Fine Knitting

It was, as these things often are, my husband’s fault. I’d packed up the items for our week at the beach carefully—bags of towels and sheets, waters and snacks, sundry items that would be cheaper here than in a vacation town—and added my own suitcase of clothing, my laptop bag, and my knitting. All my husband had to pack was his own clothes.  But I was teaching a class on Saturday, an eight hour seminar that wouldn’t end until 5PM, so my husband agreed to pack the car and pick me up.

My mistake.

We had a pleasant enough drive to Bethany and then arrived at our condo, ready to unpack and begin our vacation. And one of the necessary accouterments to a vacation—or to anything, really—is my knitting. Knitting, that ages-old handcraft gifted to me by my grandmother when I was nine, had seen me through hospitalizations, surgeries, and just downright awful times. Knitting, with its methodical and Zen-like rhythm, its profusion of colors and textures, its ability to create something out of nothing, never failed me.

Wish I could say the same of my husband.

After six trips back and forth to the car—Ron wore out after two and sat down in the easy chair—I realized the awful truth: my two projects chosen so carefully to accompany me on my vacation, had not made the trip.

Utter despair.

Ron insisted he had brought the green bag, that I had just overlooked it in the car, that it would show up in the light of day, that I was concerned about nothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No knitting. Nowhere. I called our son Allen, who was home minding the animals, and he said that yes, indeed, my knitting bag was on the porch.

The porch. All alone. At night.

Needless to say, I had a hard time sitting still that evening. Knitting relaxes me and after Ron’s four week hospitalization in the spring, my job lay -off notice in June, and Allen’s recent diagnosis of autism I needed some calmness in my life. I had envisioned sitting on the porch, overlooking the bay, and knitting my troubles away.

I chewed on my fingernails instead.

At breakfast the next morning, I asked the waitress if she knew of any knitting stores that would be open on Sunday. Sea Needles, a lovely little shop run by two women who adore the fiber arts, was closed.  All the waitress could suggest was Michael’s, way up in Rehoboth. I decided I could wait it out one more day and, as a treat for my patience, splurge in something yummy and wonderful.

Alas and alack.

Monday morning found me fairly pounding down the door of the little shop, explaining to the two women how I was totally adrift without my knitting and how my husband had totally failed me with this one, simple request. And after I’d borne him three children! They took my side immediately and allowed me to walk around the store, grabbing sample projects off of hangers and caressing expensive yarn.

Heaven.

I decided on a pattern for a shawl called The Hitchhiker. There were 42 points, the clerk explained. She didn’t know why, but said I could make any number of points because, really, any yarn would work.

42. The answer to life, the universe, and everything.

I told the woman that 42 was significant in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the obvious inspiration for the shawl, and that as both a reading teacher and a literacy specialist I would have to  make 42. Because, as I pointed out, it was the answer. To life. The universe. Everything.

She was a knitter. Not a reader. I forgave her.

She helped me pick out some lovely sock yarn in shades of purples then handed me size 2 cable needles. So excited was I by the prospect of my new project—which had a literary angle—that I gave little thought to the complex task of knitting on size 2 needles.

Which are really small.

As a general rule, I prefer working with DK weight yarn and needles no smaller than size 8. But, as my daughter pointed out when I called her, I like trying new things and this was to be a souvenir of my week at the beach. An adventure.

A small one.

I started knitting with the Lilliputian needles on Monday night while Ron watched some sporting event or another. They all sort of blend together for me. I was immediately frustrated with the task of casting on tiny, tiny stitches, then putting the right hand needle into the back of the teeny stitch on the left hand needle. My hands started cramping up from holding the little bamboo sticks after just a few rows.

I put it aside.

But I am not a quitter. Ask anybody. I’ll hang in there until after the cows have come home, had their supper, and gone off to bed. So I picked up the knitting again the next morning, really looking for the meditative movements of knitting that never fail to calm me. And if you don’t think I needed calming, please see an earlier paragraph. It was hard. It felt awkward to me, not at all what I am used to when I knit. By the time I had knit 4 of the points, I began to get into a new sort of rhythm. I needed to pay more attention to the needles, needed to be careful that I didn’t split the yarn as I slid it from left to right, and needed to count the slipped stitches that made the points.

I felt a little calmer.

The more I knit, the more I saw the shawl become not just a tangled mess of fine yarn, but a whole new creation, tightly woven together. With stitching so fine, details could not be ignored. It was intricate, and the intricacy of the fine knitting allowed the beauty of the colors to pop. Knitting for longer than an hour still made my hands cramp up, but I realized that this shawl was going to be more than just something to throw around my shoulders on a cold winter day.

It was going to be a work of art.

Now, let me confess that I’ve been feeling what I like to call discombobulated. Yes, it’s a real word. And in my state of utter confusion over all that had befallen me in the past few months, it describes exactly how I have been feeling. I handle a lot. With a husband that has been ill for nigh on 15 years and a son who now needs help, I tend to go way too many directions at once. My heart’s desire is to make a living as a writer and set up a tutoring service for adult students, but the need to work 60 and 70 hours a week gets in the way.

Go figure.

I was incredibly worried about not having a job, even though everyone in the Galaxy knows that I am highly qualified and any school would be lucky to have me. Something will turn up, they all said. Write and set up your tutoring service. God’s got this. Take a break. Breathe. You’ll get the answer.

The answer is, of course, 42.

I’ve now managed 15 points with the teeny, tiny needles and I am leaving for home on Saturday. The shawl will not be finished, because it is not a project that will be quickly and absent-mindedly completed. It is something that requires dedicated attention because it is to be a lovely creation.

And so am I.

I might, in my discombobulated state, want instant answers like the number 42. Simple. Easy. Like God’s voice saying, Yes, Linda, here is the job I want you to have. Or, yes, Linda, your tutoring service will be a success and you can stop working those 70 hour weeks.

But God doesn’t usually do quick and easy.

He does fine knitting on tiny needles, making careful stitches that will make us into new creations. He chooses carefully the colors, the textures, the weight. He doesn’t just grab a skein of DK weight acrylic and say, This will do. Because he wants what is best for us.

And that takes time.

I have received no job offers while on vacation, but I have spent a lot of time in prayer. I am not really sure what my next step will be, what I will do if I have no job in September. If I were not a woman of faith, I would just rip all the stitches out and do what was easy.

Give up.

But fine knitting makes me think about where and how God can use me. It makes me understand that God has allowed many things into my life that are difficult to handle, but he has never let go of me. Even when I had no idea how we would pay the mortgage, God always provided a way. There is no reason to think he’ll stop now. No reason to think he is done with me. There are many more students who need a teacher just like me.

I’ll just need to wait.

It’s hard to wait, but my fine knitting in purple yarn reminds me that good things take time and God’s perfect will is not the easy way to go.

Eventually, I will get to 42 points.

The answer to everything.

When It Just Doesn't Fit

It just never looks right. I pull it out of my closet occasionally, the little brown shrug I’ve had for three years. I am always convinced that this time it will be the perfect complement to my chosen outfit. I lay out the pieces carefully, noting that the color—a sort of coppery brown—exactly matches the trim on this dress, or perfectly accents my green skirt. I dress with the anticipation of looking “pulled together and not dowdy”, a feat difficult to accomplish in today’s edgy fashion world.

But it never quite works and I am hard pressed to know why. It SHOULD fit into my life, but somehow it never does. Despite the fact that it has let me down for years, I hang onto it, convinced that someday it will be useful to me.

Perhaps one reason I hang onto it is my clear memory of who I was with when I bought it. My friend Nancy and I had enjoyed a lovely lunch and I had been excitedly telling her about my upcoming cruise to Bermuda. She suggested that we go on up to Sears so I could purchase a new bathing suit. This little coppery shrug was hanging on a sale rack right outside the dressing room. It’s color matched the trim on a bathing suit that, miraculously, fit both me and my budget. And the shrug was only $3.00! I imagined tossing it around my shoulders on cool evenings as I stood on the ocean liner’s deck, admiring the reflection of the stars on the surface of the sea.

The shrug never lived up to my expectations. Ocean liners, unlike the one in An Affair to Remember, no longer have many open decks for casual evening strolls. It’s actually pretty windy out on the high seas, and my little sale purchase provided little protection. It stayed in my suitcase most of the cruise and now takes up space—if only a little—in my closet. But it doesn’t really fit into my life. I should get rid of it, but still I hang onto it, expecting that it will change color or shape and suddenly fit it. I do not easily give up.

But sometimes the best thing you can do is simply that: give up. The little coppery shrug reminds me of other things I have needed to give up. After Ron’s car accident that robbed me of a partner and the children of a father, I found myself grabbing onto things long after their usefulness had been spent. It took me years to learn to un-clench my fists and let go. Even now, fifteen years later, my first response is always to hang on, even at detriment to myself. I hang onto jobs, to broken items, to articles of clothing that look good on a hanger but don’t look good on me.

This past week, I have needed to let go of several things that I clung to, counting on them to protect me and those who depend on me. First, my job as Reading Specialist at Alliance for Progress Charter School in North Philadelphia bit the dust due to drastic budget cuts mandated by the state’s decree that schools make up the deficit in the teacher retirement fund. I would have gone back to Alliance, despite the long drive in bad weather that strained my poor vision. Then my part-time jobs as a college professor and resource specialist hit the fan, again due to budget cuts outlined by the school’s new president. I was good at these jobs, all of them. But I know God can use my skills elsewhere.

The hardest loss to take, however, was not a job but a relationship, what I thought was a close friendship. For the last six years, what began as a collegiality evolved into twice weekly dinners and help at my daughter’s wedding. But things began to change in April, when Ron was hospitalized for four weeks; there were no phone calls from her, no invitation to Easter dinner. I could no longer devote twenty hours a week to a job that only paid me for ten. I started saying “no” to attending last minute events and going out to recruit students on my weekends off. I didn’t think it would affect our personal friendship.

I was wrong. But still, I tried to hang onto it, tried to tell myself that things would get better when Ron came home, tried to make excuses for her lack of compassion for my current situation. I hung onto it, keeping it stowed in my closet.

Last week, with her casual dismissal of my role at the college and my feelings of loss, I was forced to admit the truth; this no longer fit. I could keep it if I wanted to, shove it aside and pull it out again in a few months. It might be better. But it might not. It depended on if I was willing to accept that it might not ever be what I needed it to be. I bore no animosity towards her. I bear none towards the shrug that never quite worked. Should I see her at Walmart, I would smile and be pleasant. But my life required friends that could uplift me and respect my feelings, not merely brush them aside with a “nothing I can do about it.”

And, quite honestly, the brown coppery shrug might be better off with someone else. On a rack at Good Will, it could call to the soul of someone with a copper-toned spirit. It could be part of someone’s wardrobe instead of waiting on a hanger.

It could move on.

And so could I.