One Habit I Won't Be Kicking This Year

by Jean Marie Moffa
February 1, 2006

I've been told to put the needles down. That my conversation skills suffer. That I seem distracted. Rude. Disrespectful. And I'm certain that many a friend has wondered why I cannot seem to go anywhere without them.

I am not dissuaded. I answer these complaints not by acquiescing, but by acquiring a new skill: I now use them without looking. Eyes locked on my conversational partners, on my daughter's piano practicing, on the teachers at open house...my fingers are wasting no time. I am knitting.

Of course, not all projects can I knit without looking--each one, over the years, has had its own challenges, its own lessons for me to learn, as I move yarn over needles. And more often than not, it is the needles and yarn that bring me to an understanding, varying radically from project to project, of what I am working out, through the rhythm and nature of the work.

Two years ago I was drawn to shawls. I couldn't seem to knit enough of them, each one enticing me more, to wrap up in its warmth and comfort. A Bohemian, oversized triangular shawl, in raspberry mohair and glimmering novelty yarn, soft enough to get lost in, bright enough to cheer me. A thick, chartreuse mohair wrap, with long, variegated, contrasting, silk fringe--deeply warming, with grace. A rich, teal version, of the same, to comfort my mother, in her last months. Yes, after months of knitting these and others, they revealed to me how deeply I needed comfort, in the face of Mom's impending death. It was the dark brown cotton shawl, with a large, open work pattern, that nearly took my breath away. One tearful night, as I knit it, its message became so clear: while this shawl would comfort me on summer nights, it was defined by its openness, by the air that would pass through it--this was a shawl to honor changes and passing. And within days of this realization, I was at the hospice, completing it at my mother's bedside.

Other projects have revealed their offerings more subtly. Oftentimes it is my need that defines my perfect choice--a need that I understand only once the knitting has begun, and has spoken to me in its own quiet way.

The Tibetan silk yarn, spun from remnants of discarded silk, so unpredictable in color and texture, and so feisty. A vivid declaration of beauty, birthed of loss, and the uncharted, often unwieldy, process therein.

My husband Frank's charcoal heather wool pullover. A gorgeous basket weave, zippered at the neck. This was a sweater that took time. Not because it was difficult, but because it required constant attention and calculation. This sweater became my marriage, in my fingers. No room for mindless work, here. Attention and care are the stuff of making it all work.

Felting has brought me to themes of strength and resilience, and, in an assortment of handbags, large and small, a place to help carry the challenges of a life. My dad's deep red wool pullover. I needed to give him something to wrap up in, to warm him, that first Christmas without Mom there to do it herself.

It's been socks, now, for many months--these months of transition from one home to another. Socks are wonderfully portable--in cars and planes, they take little space and travel easily. And they never cease to bring a smile--"turning the heel," that moment when it all comes together as you round the bend, doesn't ever lose its charm, or produce less joy. But beyond these benefits of knitting socks is the obvious goodness that I knit into them: when I knit a pair of socks for someone, I am focused on sharing their path, on wanting to help warm and ease their steps, and their journey. That is as good of a knitting meditation, as any.

I knit out of love. For love. With love. Knitting stills my soul, and awakens it. With every project, a new meditation. There are many guises to my projects, not to mention many perplexed onlookers. But I don't let them get in the way of important business. Because I know something that they do not: knitting makes things make sense.

And, let us not forget, what lovely by products of my journeys I do have, when, of my own accord, I go ahead and put the needles down....