Untangling the Knots

I just started knitting a year ago, and I haven't produced a whole lot: one scarf, two trees, and a whole lot of swatches. I love the act of knitting, how delicate stitches improbably weave together from the loops of yarn that I pull from the needles. It's a completely centering activity. And even though I haven't produced many finished items, I have realized that the practice of knitting has benefited me and my family in several ways.

I've recently discovered knitting as a parenting strategy: it keeps my hands busy so that I don't get over-involved and meddle with my kids as they work out their own issues. Picture this. I knit quietly. Meanwhile, my son practices his viola or does homework. I knit quietly. My sons negotiate the sometimes tricky business of playing together without fighting. I knit quietly. My daughter tells me about her day. While knitting quietly, I am reassuring my kids that I am present for them and listening. At the same time, I am sending the message that I am involved with my own activity and am not going to take control of what they are doing. They are not on their own, but they are in control of what they are doing.

In addition to giving me a strategy for relating to my kids, knitting also gives me metaphors for my life. As you can see from the photo above, I am quite good at getting skeins of yarn tied into a tangle of knots. I don't always have the patience to fish the end of the yarn out of the middle of the skein, and I end up with what you see above. Over the course of a few weeks, stealing a few minutes of free time here and there, I managed to untangle that ball of purple cotton yarn. It was obsessive of me--I even took it to a dentist appointment and pulled it out while waiting to get a procedure done--but I patiently worked out all the knots and ended up with a smooth ball of yarn.

That's the metaphor for what I've been doing in the last month--patiently trying to unravel the mass of knots that arise from the complications of daily life.

And let me just throw in another knitting metaphor for good measure. Since I started knitting I have begun to notice handmade items and can appreciate the skills and time that they took to create. Recently I admired the shawl that a friend had knitted, and after chatting about knitting for a while, we got to talking about how little time we have for the craft. I was complaining about how many projects I had on my list to make and how little time I had to even start on the first one. And she replied, in her sensible and inspiring way, that yes, but wasn't it nice to have something so beautiful and tangible to look forward to doing? What a healthy perspective with which to view a very full life that sometimes seems overwhelming to me!

Getting outside to enjoy nature and fit in some much-needed exercise and play time has also been my focus in the last month.

This past weekend I spent some one-on-one time hiking in the woods with my middle child. It was interesting to see what things caught his attention:

A leaf bigger than his head;

a bucket snagged on a branch in a dry creek bed;

a cracked retaining wall being overtaken by nature.

Meanwhile, various fungi and other natural sculptures caught my eye:

the sedimentary-like layers of a polypore, or bracket fungus;

the natural twining of fallen branches;

an orange mushroom growing on the bank of the dry creek.

Part of my play therapy has involved making the most of the gorgeous fall weather and getting out to the country to enjoy the leaves and take part in the many fall festivals. Last weekend we went to an apple festival, and it was so soul-lifting to see my children's wonder and hear their laughter at the simplest things:

a barrel of apples ready to be pressed into fresh cider;

liquid sweetness pouring out of the press;

pure joy while playing with a simple wooden toy . . .

and feeding the goats leaf after crunchy leaf.

We have just started on a brave new undertaking for our family, and one that's upending the routines that we have practiced for quite some time. We are in the process of eliminating television from our lives, and limiting access to other media as well. After dinner tonight we were actually all together as a family in our living room instead of dispersed throughout the house hooked up to our various electronic devices. My husband and daughter played the guitar together. My older son read a book. And, after collapsing on the couch for a while, I was persuaded to do two puzzles with my youngest.

Nature, play, undistracted family time--these are some of the strands that we're weaving into our lives as we slowly untangle them. I'll let you know how it goes.