Two weeks ago friend of mine said “Let’s have a knitting club. My mom will teach us.” Since I knew that by“knitting” she really meant grazing on high-fat-store-bought appetizers and sipping wine while telling stories of men, wet paint, stalled cars, mean girls, soccer, the stock market, candidates, knights and armor, graceful arms, head injuries, sons, stuffed penguins and Star Trek, I agreed.
When the night arrived, we convened at Rosanne’s house – my friend’s mother; some of us showed up with tampenade, some with bruchutta, some with cheese.My friend brought half an old pineapple she’d found in the back of her refrigerator and apologized.She’d had one of those ick-bad days and her mother patted her shoulder, said “It’s a lovely pineapple” as mothers should say.
We took the lead of the daughter and plopped ourselves in kitchen chairs ready to do not-much-of-anything.Rosanne raised her eyebrow and said, “This is knitting club!”Her daughter said, “Mom, by knitting we really mean eating and talking.”“No, no” said Rosanne, “Come in the living room.”
We did. And what a sight it was. On the sideboard she had a picket-fence spaced row of different colored knitting needles.Around the dining room table she had projects placed like horses on a merry-go-round: an Irish knit sweater, a scarf, a pair of socks, a vest, a cap. She led us through each.
Uh-oh, I thought. She’s serious.
So, I learned to knit.My teacher was excellent, but I wasn’t so good at it; I kept sneaking back to the kitchen for tampenade.I left with six rows and a blur of instructions, and the intention never to pick up my haystack pile of what seemed like many more than two needles again.
But, a funny thing happened the next night, and by funny, I mean intriguing. Dubiously, reluctantly, and with anticipatory frustration, I picked up the paltry row of stitches and put it in my lap.The very movement froze me into a deer-like stillness.
“What?” my husband asked eyeing me not moving at all.“Nothing”, I said as a shadow of recognition passed just beyond me.
He put his book aside, turned on the TV. I picked the yarn and stitches up out of my lap and thought about the placement of my hands, asked myself if the needle went under or over the last stitch; I couldn’t remember how to knit and so I stopped trying, stopped looking, stopped thinking. And then I was knitting, the needles clicking together, almost the slow sound of an old typewriter.
Again, I deer-froze. Again, my husband said “What? Why do you keep doing that?I answered him that I was remembering something, entering into something, but didn’t know what.He’s used to this kind of thing from me and wisely returned to watching TV.
Next thing I knew, my memory unwound backwards and I ended up smack in the middle of a many years old moment:my grandmother sitting in her blue chair, her yarn bag snapped open like a fish’s mouth at her feet trailing threads, and skeins, and argyle charts.I remembered her hands flying until she made a mistake, counted the loops on the needle, grabbed the thread, pulled and pulled, then took it all up again seamlessly.I remembered entering the room, some slight, or hurt, or mood or worry or loneliness glowing from me.
I remember her looking up, at me needing her, and down went the knitting into her lap, no mind paid to her needles, her count, her project.I remember the sound of her wedding rings against the plastic needles as she patted her lap “Come here chickadee, come here.” And I’d fold into her, crawl up onto her knitting, hold ever so still while she rocked and patted and surrounded me.She did this, mind you, even when I was far bigger than her.She’d do it today if I asked her.
I look down now at my ridiculous stitches and think why wouldn’t I knit?It is a window back to her willingness to always stop for me. That’s why.
We can, in so many ways, touch the ones we love; they are at our fingertips. They can pass near us in the strangest places; when it happens, know yourself lucky.It’s grace teaching you to notice.(Happy Birthday, Grandma-Great)
