Learning Something New

It was a cold night, late in fall or early winter. We all sat in the "Sunday room" together, each in our own cozy spots around the fire. My girlfriend sat in the corner with her knitting needles and a blanket. The metal needles clacked against each other as she moved rhythmically through the motions. I watched, as mesmerized by the flow of it as I was by the fire in the fireplace. 

"I always wished I could learn to knit," I said.

She looked up, smiled, and said, "I will teach you."

That night, she gave me the basics: a pair of straight long needles, hemp yarn from her basket, and the how-to of the knit stitch. I awkwardly practiced the stitch over and over, my elbows stuck out to the sides, twisting my fingers and sticking my tongue out while I tried to learn this new thing. She gave me tips while I sat near her and reminded me that with time, I would naturally find comfortable ways to hold the yarn and keep a steady tension.

It was months before I finished a very long, narrow strip of scratchy fabric. It was months of practice before I felt I had any idea whether I was doing any of it correctly. We hadn't seen our friends for a couple months, so she couldn't check my work and tell me where I went wrong, what I was doing well. I kept at it anyway, the rough greenish-tan fabric growing slightly with all my practice. Even though I wasn't very good at it, it was satisfying to see the fabric grow.

The next time we saw them, she taught me the purl stitch. The time after that, she taught me to take the project off the needles. Every new thing brought its own learning curve. But slowly my stitches straightened out and became more even. My elbows tucked in and I found a rhythm. My needle stash grew and my yarn stash grew. And now that I am looking back, I can see she taught me so much more than knitting. Learning to knit taught me to be more patient with my mistakes. Every mistake in knitting can be fixed with enough patience. There's a comfort in that. Knitting also taught me that being tightly wound creates too much friction, both in a ball of yarn and in life. I learned to be still, to take my time, relax my shoulders. The yarn running through my fingers softened me.

Mastery is only a daily practice away.

But greatest of all, knitting was the gift that would carry me through the hard days of illness that laid ahead. When I couldn't sit at the sewing machine, when I couldn't concentrate on a book, when I needed space and quiet to think through what was happening to my body, knitting was there giving me something to do. I felt so much less stagnant and my creative energy had somewhere to focus despite the challenges I was facing. It made long dull days of sickness pass with little spurts of joy. Even when I was too dizzy to look at the knitting, I could close my eyes and think about it.

One thing I love about knitting is that there is always another technique to learn. The activity of knitting doesn't get stale because of this. And as I work with the yarn, taking it from its long straight state into the shape of a sweater or a shawl or a hat, I too am changed. Whether it has calmed my anxiety or given me the space to think something through or simply kept my hands busy, I find that I am a better version of me when I set my needles down.