I met a woman and she was wearing the most beautiful knitted vest. I complimented her and she had made it herself. We talked and she airdropped the pattern to me via our iPhones while standing in the coffee shop. Two women – both in the third/third ** of life dropping files and using our iPhones to great advantage. I remember walking into my friends home one day and there at the table were three people, all well in their decade of the 80’s working between their computers and phones to share information. What can we learn from day-to-day things? Anyway, I digress this blog is about what I learned from knitting …
I came home and pulled up the pattern the woman had given me. It was a pattern I could follow and knew the stitches so I went and purchased the yarn. I have discovered my drug of choice is now yarn. In this, the month of my sobriety date, January 28, it is often a time when I reflect on the days I consumed alcohol. Scary memories, much shame, challenges living with myself and an abundance of reflection. As I pulled out my little pocket AA booklet today and read again the 12-steps and some excerpts from the Big Book and the list of “just for today”s I am reminded that stitch by stitch things get completed. Again, I digress, what do I learn from knitting ….
I came back to my room and set about beginning to knit the vest from the pattern. Calling for a ribbed bottom, like all sweaters, I knit away and watched my favourite program. Then the challenges began. I followed the pattern and back and forth from panel A to panel B to panel C and repeating from * to ** then to repeat once again, I had more stitch markers than stitches. It was exhausting, this pattern, hard to follow and even harder to imagine. I completed three rows back and forth and promptly decided this pattern was more work than it is worth. I have knit beautiful items and certainly did not feel the stress of this pattern. I found it added complicated elements that are unnecessary to the overall piece. Then I realized this is what I learn from knitting, do we add complicated elements to our lives that are unnecessary to the overall piece? I think we do!
This past week was a doozy for me! So much going on in my life that I was unsure which way was up! What I had set in motion culminated into chaos and then there was a sprinkling of real life added in. In the chaos, I was asked to step up one more step into complete disarray and confusion. Like my knitted row I had more markers than stitches. Time came to rip it back! Let it go and start again. What is not serving and what must be allowed to fall away? I learn so much from knitting and one sure thing is while you can rip out the rows of knitting and they no longer exist, life is not like that. We can reset and we can start again each new day, however, the memories and effects from our actions are always present. Self-forgiveness is not so easy as ripping out a row of knitting and having a re-do.
So I let go, let go of that which does not serve me and I let go of those places where I was asking too much of myself and here I stand to begin a new week with a fresh outlook and poised to pick up where the chaos train dropped me off. This master’s degree studying reminds me so much of the video by Reba McIntyre when she sings, Is there life out there? In the video she gets a paper back and the professor says, “I could have done without the coffee stains!” and she says, “I learned more from the coffee stains than I did from the paper!”
I am learning in my my third/third of life ** that my knitting, my hiking, my family and my own reflection are teachers …. alongside my student roommates in student housing, the younger ones in class and, of course, the ancient text I am reading, yet again! Who could ask for better than that?
** Like knitting one must watch for the asterisks. Here I take you to a resource I am sharing with a class on video over the next few weeks. I invite you to come along with us for the journey. It is an amazing resource and I am excited to be sharing it. If you come along, you will be helping me with my supervised education experience and gaining yet another credit towards my masters. All ages are welcome who are interested in learning about aging well.
#breakingstibah 