A Rare Moment...

So last night I had a rare moment to knit a few stitches, having barely touched the needles at home this whole week, and I got to contemplating about what it was that I was working on and why it is that I was enjoying it so very much. It struck me as odd, sitting there all by myself in a rare moment of solitude these days, very, very late in the evening (the G-man having long gone to bed and DD1 still in hospital recovering from the nasty effects of her final round of chemo and her BMT - she is doing great, by the way - hoping to have her home for Easter!), that I was getting a ridiculous amount of pleasure from the simplest knitting of just plain 'ol mitered garter squares from leftover mediocre quality stash yarn.

I wondered why it was that working on my extremely expensive Alpaca cardi-wrap, while pleasingly repetitious enough and the end result will certainly be worth the effort, does not effectively sooth my mind and quiet my body in the same manner as does making a little garter stitich mitered square.

I am aware of the relationship that has been made between knitting and yoga, meditation or other Zen-like pastimes, but somehow it was even more than the peacefulness this little knitting brought, which was certainly present and most welcome. It was just that the simple feeling of real pleasure at the actions of my hands I was feeling that struck me as intensely out of proportion to the actual activity. After all, it was not a fancy square, not sumptuous yarn, not a particularly favorite color, not a special stitch - there was absolutely nothing special about it. And yet it pleased me immensely to work on it, row after row, square after square.

Perhaps it was exactly the absence of all of these exceptional things that allowed my mind to rest quietly a while (given the crazy state of our family, this resting thing has been seriously lacking of late), and perhaps it was in the resting of my thoughts that I found a perfect moment of pleasure that I was so obviously needing, once of course I had recognized what it was. Since this little blanket will be for charity, it is not just a little ironic that the old adage "It is more blessed to give than to receive" seems to have come to fruition here, as truly I felt very blessed indeed with this little gift of a moment of rare and simple pleasure.

Knit on.....