Loop d' Loop

 Carol Burnett didn’t live upstairs, but Georgia Kelly did. She was fun and her wide, open smile lit up our kitchen whenever she came downstairs to have coffee with my mother. A momentous day for me was the first time she brought her knitting in with her. Spellbound by the way her needles interlaced the yarn, I begged for lessons which she provided on the spot. Afterwards, I swelled like a balloon when she entrusted me with her own needles and green yarn to practice. It was lucky that she lived so nearby. The complexities of knitting are such that I’d get to the end of a row, and have to scoot upstairs for her to show me, yet again, how to begin the next. She was patient, I enjoyed being under her tutelage, and despite lots of spliced yarn and dropped stitches, I proved to be a natural. I think I was about six years old.

I felt jolted, when after I’d acquired enough skill as a beginner, Georgia told me that she needed her yarn and needles back. She explained to me and my mother where we would find supplies at Woolworth's, yet in the busyness of family life that errand never took place. No matter.  Necessity is the mother of invention; I’d drunk the kool-aid, was jonesing for more and was determined to find a way. I knew which closet held the family rag-bag and fished out a sweater; the red, wool one with all the holes. It was stop and go at first, and, no doubt the moth-eaten condition of the sweater was an issue, but before long I had unraveled enough skinny strands of red yarn to form a tidy ball that I could call my own. The problem of needles was solved easily. Pencils have points and we had lots of pencils. 

I wasn’t any good at DodgeBall, so for a while there, knitting was my claim to fame. On one particular get together with my cousins I stuck the ball of yarn under my arm and stood on the sidewalk alternately dropping stitches while fielding questions about what on earth I was doing. Knitting, I’d proudly say, then brazenly add, Do you want me to knit you a sweater? Not surprisingly, no one got any sweaters from me back then. A good kid at heart, I stung with remorse over my false promises.  

The pencils didn’t last long as substitutes for knitting needles, and not unexpectedly, my interest in the craft waxed and waned. Once a knitter always a knitter, I guess, and as the Greek goddess Athena (or was it Arachne) would have it, I was fated for more. Both my grandmother and a great-aunt taught me to crochet and improved my knitting proficiency. I’d make (hole-y) hats, ruffley collars to pair with sweaters, and little skirts and blankets for my dolls. I had my own real needles by now and precious balls of yarn. Yarn that I’d alternately treasure, and, given childhood’s fullness, inevitably forget. On rainy days, I’d unearth a massive tangled mess cast off in the corner of a closet or a drawer. These became occasions to untangle: a pastime that requires no instruction, needles, patterns, or worry about dropped stitches. I might have looked pathetic as I leaned over my matted clumps of yarn. But, as I slowly, wordlessly traced the path of wayward threads, through my sense of touch, I opened to an intuitive way of knowing. That I could transform a hopeless snarl of yarn into a neat, usable ball made me feel like a magician. Just a kid, I could do that which to others seemed impossible. 

Kids skate, play soccer, they swim for a team; for me, the ability to make things out of yarn put me on the planet and boosted my self esteem. I was hyperactive, so it’s no wonder that I was drawn to an age-old crafts that hold the potential to relax and calm. Seventy odd years later, I still enjoy the creative challenges of needle work. Yet, nowadays, I'm mostly drawn to its meditative features, the simple knit one purl two ways those stitches keep me present. And, though to date, there is no Olympic category for untangling hopeless jumbles of yarn, fishline, gold chains and string, should there ever be, I’ll rank right up there as one of the contenders. 

My very own needles and tangled balls of yarn