Currently you are wondering why I chose to write an article about knitting and I would be lying if I said it wasn't because this week I had what many writers experience, our arch enemy writers block. For those of you who aren't writers, Writers Block is a term to be feared among writers it is when your brain has so many thoughts that none of the thoughts jump out at you. Instead you sit there in front of your computer rubbing your temples thinking "why... why in Valhalla is this happening to me". Anyhow, back to knitting.
I absolutely love knitting, when I was little girl it fasinated me but I never had the patience to sit for long periods of time. It wasn't because I had ADD or ADHD it was simply because I was a kid. What kid has the patience to sit down for hours on end knitting and purling scarves? About two years ago I bought a ball of woolen, olive green yarn and a pair of knitting needles and I drove myself a couple towns over to my Grandmother's House. She taught me how to cast on to my needle to begin to make a scarf and showed me how to knit and purl! I was excited, at nineteen years old I was finally learning how to knit and it felt amazing, except for the fact that I couldn't seem to grasp what my Grandmother was trying to show me. I would also like to say thank you to her for having the patience of a Saint when it came to teaching me how to knit. I can still remember her saying, "what aren't you getting, Mackenzie? I just showed you!". Needless to say she had to fix many of my mistakes, sorry for that by the way.
I left her house later that night and put the unfinished scarf into the large antique trunk in my room. Out of sight and out of mind, two years had gone by and every time I saw my Grandmother, which was more often than you know, she would ask, "How is that scarf coming along?", and we would both laugh at how I never got around to finishing it. Two years had blown by and I never got back into what I said I wanted to do, life kept getting in the way.
So there I am on New Years Day sitting beside my Grandmother at the dining room table and she asks again, "How is that scarf coming along?". I lept up from my seat and charged my way up the stairs to the antique trunk. It was exactly where I had left it, nestled in between my spare blankets and massive amounts of Yankee Candles. On New Years Day, I finished the scarf, which actually didn't look like a scarf, it looked more like an enfants blanket. I found it particularly humorous, looking at the hideous creation that I had finally completed.
In that moment I realized why I had even wanted to knit in the first place. I wanted a connection with my Grandmother that no one else had, something that her and I could share. It wasn't about the end result of a misshapen scarf, it was about the connection I had made with my Grandmother. It was about making memories and building relationships with the people that I love, because nothing says I love you, more than taking the time out of your day to do something other than watch cat videos on youtube or like another person's Instagram photo.
These moments when I am learning from her, those are the memories that I am going to cling too for the rest of my life. When I think of her, it won't be what she bought me for Christmas or how many times she liked my profile pictures. When I think of her, I will think of her hands showing me how to knit, even though I know the arthritis is killing her. I will think of her laughing at my end result, and how she told me to start something different or take it apart and make a hat instead. I will think of her and all that she teaches me and knitting gave me that.
Knitting gave me a calm peace of mind and a ton of memories that I get to hold onto for the rest of my life. I am certainly not done learning because I intend on being able to make more than scarves, and I look forward to the knowledge that she will bestow upon me and the memories that we will be making.
-The Granddaughter Who Knits
