I think at this point if you don't have a Wii, you know someone who does. With your Wii you can do virtually anything. I like to throw myself off big mountains in the Wii Skii, but not really. So many of us 'talk' to each other on Facebook or Twitter, but it's not real conversation. This blog, the blogosphere, communities, that are real, but they aren't, too. In this world of things that are, but not really, I cling to my illusions of being something real, doing things that are real, embodied in my yarn.
I am a yarn crack whore. Total addict. It's BAD... I just love yarn. I'm certainly partial to wool, but any natural fiber will do. I rarely make it out of a yarn store with empty hands. I have a whole stretch of cabinets to hold the stash, and countless works-in-progress. That's been something I'm working on, a growing edge if you will, actually finishing a project before I cheat on it with some new, softer, knubblier ball of yarn. With my knitter's ADD I've learned to keep to small projects, that give quicker satisfaction, like hats, mittens, or baby gear. Although I swear I'll finish Bridger's baby blanket before he goes to college. Or at least by the time his first child is born.
But beyond the yarn fetish, the physical and spiritual act of knitting is a healing salve for my high-idle self. It forces me to sit, become the process, and enter a quiet space. The actions ofthe needles are quite like the sat-nam in meditation, just the simple quiet focus of breath, or yarn.
As with cooking I find knitting for others to be a nurturing act. I can literally wrap the intended recipient in my love, carried in each stitch.
But even more than any of this I cling to the realness of my yarn. With a strand I can make something of nothing. Knitting is truly alchemy. A series of loops, with a single knot at the beginning. And broken down even further, there is only one stitch - as knits and purls are simply the reverse of each other. A knit garment is a fraud, a shape-shifter. Yet with that ethereal nothingness a myriad of things can be created, things I can feel, touch, breathe into, wear.
Sometimes I question my version of this world. I know that I can look at an object, and call it blue, and someone else may do the same, but does it look the same to them? Is everything I believe to be true experienced by others? Big questions... so overwhelming. So I sit down with my yarn, and make a tangible hold on the world.
Bridger modeling my very first original design:
