Chronically Knitting

Lamenting about things gone by is never a good idea. At least for me. Those cogs get turning in my head ... slowly at first but ramping up at warp speed ... which inevitably sends me reeling.

So moving on in "moving on," I bought myself a couple of pairs of knitting needles the other day; a bear pattern to knit for my grandson and then for his future cousins; some great yarn; and hunkered down for a long winter's night. Like riding a bike, right? Yeah. If before you got back up on that bike you'd suffered brain damage from say, Lyme Disease. No, boys and girls, it's not "just like riding a bike." After I spent hours trying to figure out some "basics" I resorted to YouTube where one SHOULD be able to follow along. Or watch along and then make an attempt. Rip it out, rewatch and try again. Rip it out, pay CLOSE attention before making another attempt and give it a go. Repeat the phrase oft quoted from one's former school,"insanity is doing something the same way and expecting different results." CLEARLY the bear pattern was insane, or all the people on YouTube were insane (EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.) Or me.

Or maybe it was just a bad day.

I practiced my own words to the wise, "You can change your THOUGHTS" and momentarily reveled in the fact that I was in my own home, in front of my own fireplace, sitting on my own couch and, if I felt like it, I could get up and fetch myself a ginger root beer w/Stevia from my very own fridge. Or not. After THAT five minutes of pure joy was over I tried again.

And I did it. I knit a bear head inside out. Yes, inside out. Although proud for myself for managing to figure things out again; realizing that muscle memory IS a reality for my fingers and that all gray matter was NOT lost; I wasn't exactly certain how I'd creatively fix that little blooper of an inside out bear head. Maybe, just maybe I could throw in a couple of purl rows and call it good. Nah. I'm a perfectionist. Ok. Maybe I'd knit the bear a SCARF to cover the errors of my ways and then, like a tidal wave, remembered all those "potential choking hazard" warnings I'd read as a young mother and had nightmares about. Little boys swallowing Legos. Little boys swallowing those toothpicks that looked like swords ("S-words for $500 please, Alex.") Little boys soundlessly gagging on mozzarella cheese sticks while their exhausted mother inattentively stared blanking into the horizon. Little boys hanging themselves on mini-blind cords. My GRANDSON choking on the scarf that his Bubbe knit for his bear because she was too lazy to ...

I ripped the entire thing out and burst into tears.

Today I tried it again. Same needles, same yarn, same scenario. Me on the couch with the cat. (Ok, I wound the second ball of yarn hoping the original bear head yarn will literally relax by the time I get to it.) But THIS time it worked. It really, really worked. I knit a bear head all by myself (with a little help from YouTube and words with G-d.)

The cat and I are in bed and the bear head is on the couch where tomorrow I'll stuff the little deer, pick up a few stitches and knit on.

Chronically and incessantly, of course.