When I Knit

There is something deeply satisfying in the untwisting and untangling of yarn. To untwist, you slowly follow the strands through the mess; turning, under one loop, back through another. It doesn’t matter how the yarn got twisted, although I do have a tendency to blame myself for not putting it away properly. Sometimes, when it’s a real mess, I need to put it down and walk away for a few minutes or even a few days. Then, after much effort, and several feelings of hopelessness, it is a coherent ball of yarn once again filled with potential.

As a 48-year-old woman, the storm of my hormones courses through my veins throwing me off balance from the inside. Unwanted emotions visit unexpectedly. I use so much energy to push myself forward, hold myself back and keep myself afloat amidst the turbulence of myself and the people around me. My home, baruch Hashem, is filled with teenagers. They want space. Except when they don’t. They are embarrassed by me, except when they are not. They love me, except when they hate me.

Neuroscientist Dr. Dan Siegel claims that my kids are in the midst of a Brainstorm and “if parents and teens can work together to form a deeper understanding of the brain science behind all the tumult, they will be able to turn conflict into connection and form a deeper understanding of one another.” I try to hang on even when I feel like I can’t.

That’s how, as a mature adult, I started to knit. One cold winter day, trapped in the house with a sick child and a teen who wouldn’t go to school, practically numb from holding myself back from screaming, I signed up for an online class and began learning to knit. It is incredibly soothing. There is one ball of yarn and two needles. You control the size, the tension, the color, the texture, and the pattern. The action itself is simple. Once you get the hang of it, all it takes is patience to create beauty and warmth.