Sittin’ and Knittin’

I confess I’m late to the knitting the pussy hat game.  I had commitments that prohibited me from marching so I didn’t knit myself a hat for the march.  Distressed that I couldn’t go, I spent far too much time viewing the amazing and inspiring photos of my many friends and family members at various marches throughout the country on Facebook.  It was an obsession to try to experience the march through their images.  And then I saw a photo that took my breath away, my “Aunt” Molly at the New York march.  Molly, in her 70s now, is my best friend from childhood’s mother.  I think I spent more time at their house than mine growing up and she was never “Mrs” to me, always “Aunt.”  Anyway, after I razzed my friend about her lack of a hat I learned that she would really love one.  So I’m knitting again after about a six or seven year hiatus.

I used to say that I stopped knitting because the slice of time in my pie that was reserved for knitting migrated to yoga.  But getting something back on my needles has been so amazing, so grounding, allowing me to “just be” in a way that I haven’t indulged in for far too long.

This December I lost my dear sweet father.  And during the couple of months before he passed I was glued to my phone as a method of getting updates on his condition from family, listening to it back and forth on my drives home, reading the news and email in the waiting room in the hospital, making yoga playlists, the list just goes on and on.  Let’s just say it hasn’t been healthy and balanced.

Knitting is like opposite day.  Simply feeling the texture of the yarn, the needles gliding back and forth, focusing on whatever my own thoughts decide I should dwell on or problem solve, or being completely present with the people around me in a way that I was unable to when it was just me and my phone.

I feel like this hat has directed me back to solid ground.  From the distraction and disruption of checking/reading/calling, to sitting and knitting for someone I love.  I feel so connected to Aunt Molly and the movement that I am a part of (even if I couldn’t march!) and equally, I am finally here, not somewhere my phone wants to take me.  Happily grounded.