My friends will be so shocked to hear this: I am knitting! Poorly but persistently. And I love it! I am terrible with details and repetitive motions, plus I have little patience, so naturally I never considered knitting as a hobby. However, my house mate and knitting teacher, C, changed my mind completely. I have found it to be a great complement to my practice, and have learned many precious lessons through this experience. Plus, by June--yeah just when you need a scarf (j/k!)--Paul will have a scraggly hemp-wool scarf ready to put on! Without my knitting teacher around, I don't know if I'll ever make another scarf, but it's the process that matters.
Every time I pick up the yarn, I think back to the friends and loved ones who had knitted for Noah and Ben, especially my aunt (da gugu) in China, who has since passed away, her exquisite stitch work, the fabulous and complex pattern, the beautiful colors, and most importantly the thought that went into the slow-moving process of making yarns into sweaters. I really didn't appreciate the details the way I do now. It gives a way of connecting with them emotionally. When you are working on a piece, you become attached to the fabric, and from there a connection to the person who is going to feel and wear the fabric.
The experience has also made me recall my junior high experience. At my school (Martha-remember this?), we once had to knit a seat cushion for the home-economics class. While most of my classmates had their moms to do the work [side note: as pathetic as it sounds to my American friends, the norm was for us kids to study and study 15 hours a day and for our parents to take care of everything else!] my mom, sadly, didn't know how to knit! So we brought the yarn and needles to Chu-mama, a church friend/knitter, who would do one week's worth of knitting for me and then I would bring it to class to be inspected. And of course, her superb technique and my lack of ANY knowledge of how the heck it worked contrasted each other so obviously that the teacher, now I realize must have figured it out all along, walked to my seat as I was--as usual--chattering away loudly with my classmates, "Now Chou wenying : show Teacher how you knit"......uhm...Oh, okay, uhm, uh, like... this?...Of course I was stumped, and took the needles randomly through various holes to barely fake it. I remember my ears turned hot, but I don't remember what happened to me. Anyway, I did graduate from junior high after that!
More reflections on mindfulness and breathing, as well as learning by doing, to follow....
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