the Village Knittiot

I have a confession to make. I haven’t knit anything in months. It isn’t that I don’t want to. I desperately want to. I’ve picked a few things up. I’ve dabbled. But I just don’t know what to make. It isn’t that I don’t have yarn — I have a little. It’s a pretty small bag filled with uninspiring materials. It isn’t that I don’t have patterns — I have a couple books (mostly uninspiring) and access to the internet and a library with plenty of knitting titles on their shelves. It is partially that the yarn I have and the patterns I have don’t exactly mesh. And it is partially because the projects I do have matching yarn and patterns for are leaving me cold and, well, uninspired. I want to do something more. But I don’t know what that is. I feel stuck.

I have talked a lot in the past about my desire to grow and branch out into making my own things and even more about the frustrations I have with not feeling as if I know enough to do that. Then, of course, there is the overwhelming bewilderment of where to start. This week as I was tearing through my house trying to find something, anything to knit that I could feel excited about, I realized that what I am feeling most constrained by is lack of funds. I’m waiting to have money so I can buy the books I think I need or join the guild or purchase the yarn — and this attitude of mine really bothers me.

When I look at the vast majority of knitting blogs out there, I can see that knitting is just another consumer activity. Most of the blogs serve as showcases for the endless purchases of yarn and books and knitting paraphernalia. There are bags and needles and other accessories. There are secret pal exchanges with chocolates and bath products tossed in. I keep asking myself where everyone is getting all the money to buy all these things? Clearly our financially tough year is getting to me. And I’m glad! Because, as enjoyable as yarn is, I still think that compulsively purchasing it and accumulating massive stashes of materials that will never be used and will probably have to be given away after you die is bizarre.

Still, there is no way around the fact that the act of creation requires raw materials. And the acquisition of raw materials requires money — or at the very least an exchange of goods. When we were back visiting my family over the holidays we spent a wonderful day with friends and at one point the subject of paying to do laundry came up and my friend said she thought this was so good because no one should ever think that water is free. It was such a simple statement and we moved on, but this one sentence resonated with me. It has been bouncing around in my head ever since. No one should really ever think anything is free, but in the land of walmart prices, we have begun to expect the cost of almost everything to be so ridiculously and irresposibly low that we have no concept of the worth of a thing anymore.

So, what does this have to do with knitting (or creating in general)? Well, it seems to me that no one should ever think the raw materials are free. The tools of our various trades shouldn’t be taken lightly or devalued in any way. They should be purchased or traded for or discovered in unexpected places, and always, always, always bought with an awareness of the process. For me, this means I have to work at it more. I have to put effort into my tasks. Being responsible with your resources requires planning, foresight, figuring and creativity. All of these things take time. Since when did I begin to expect that it won’t require a little work or effort to use up this relatively small stash. In the end, it will be well worth it.

For me, my art is practical and designed to be used. I need to start simple and move forward from there. I think one of my downfalls is that I am always living somewhere that is about 30 steps ahead of where I am and that is no good. Because when I am living 30 steps ahead of myself, I don’t know where I am. Slow down, little knittiot, this isn’t a race…

Apparently I spoke too soon about things calming down. All the time I thought I would have for blogging has been suddenly taken up with settling into a new city and adjusting to working from home. There were several 10 hour days this week that involved trying to get caught up on the mountain of work that somehow accumulated in my absence. I’ve also got a couple of other creative pursuits on my plate that seem to be occupying some of my time. What I still haven’t managed to find time for is knitting.

Now that I’m finally settled and in the city, I plan to hit the knit night at one of the local yarn shops. I don’t know what it is about going somewhere new or doing something you haven’t before that always makes you wish you had someone to go with you, but I will admit to a certain level of reluctance based on the unfamiliarity of the situation. I thought if I at least put this intention out in the public atmosphere I’d have a few theoretical people to be accountable to.

I spent a few hours this weekend getting caught up on some of the blogs I’ve been desperately missing over the last several weeks and in the process read mama cate’s post about the solstice. Wow. This year I did a lot of contemplating about what these holidays are, what they mean to me as an individual, how they have been shaped by larger cultural forces and how to embody the “season of giving” without getting caught up in the “exchange of goods” mentality that seems to be so pervasive. Buying something for someone does not neccesarily a gift make. It may make an obligation or a tradition, but it can be as unrelated to giving as ducks are to coffee cups.

I think I have mentioned before that Mr. Knittiot and I have a no obligatory gifts rule, which means we don’t exchange presents for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries or the like. Presents are reserved for spontaneous moments when you see something that you know you must get the other person, and then you do. That way it’s always fresh, always inspired and completely without expectation (or pressure). That doesn’t mean we don’t find ways to mark special events — after all, celebrations exist for a reason. They are a vital part of any culture, because the human spirit needs a reason to deliberately partake in joy every once in a while. So, each year we craft new ways to celebrate, incorporating bits of old and new.

For the past few years, my sweetie and I have been without a television. Netflix has been great for us, because we get to see all the best shows without assanine commercials or intentionally fear-inducing plugs for the local news. Staying connected to what is going on in the world is far easier via the Internet and for some reason it is also easier to read between the lines and filter out some of the sensationalism.

But this year, we both found ourselves living several hundred miles from each other, both with access to television for the 6 weeks leading up to the marketing orgy that is Christmas. What an eye opener. Over the last several years I have found myself more and more aware and alarmed at the messages being sent and received at every turn. At no time has the idea that “material items = love” been more blatant than during the 6 weeks I was glued to the television. And worse than the commercials were the televisions shows that came between them — some of which were nothing more than extensions of the commercials themselves. Finally, as if that weren’t enough, I couldn’t stop watching. I was lonely. It was company. I felt connected to something larger than myself (after all, I was watching the same crap that millions of other Americans were watching) and so I kept watching. Weird, right?

It was strange the effect it had on me. I started to feel overly concerned that we were going home to see my family and that we would be receiving gifts and presents from them with nothing to offer in return. While this was understandable on a strictly practical level with this year’s unemployment of Mr. Knittiot and the lack of extra spending cash, how was this going to work moving forward when we do have a little more money? I didn’t want the holidays to be about presents — ever. Especially when we start to add a child of our own to the mix. But I still want to instill a sense of celebration and excitement. I want to foster connections and exhibit a giving spirit. So, how do you make that happen? I guess you just get more creative.

This led to a number of conversations between us, in which we talked a lot about what we want our holidays to look like. In the end, we concluded that it is all about time spent, a willingness to connect (even with the most challenging family members) and it is about being open with family. It didn’t necessarily preclude spending money, but it always involved spending time with others and finding a space to exist in together. Giving shouldn’t just be about monetary resources. It should utilize all your resources — the most valuable of which is time. Most importantly, it is about the little things. Extravagant gestures are lovely and enjoyable, but if they aren’t followed up by the daily attention to detail, they lose a little of their luster.

So we approached the trip home with all of this in mind, and you know what? This trip turned out to be the best one we’ve ever had. Anyway, those are just some post-holiday reflections that I’ve been storing up inside my brain. Best wishes for a happy new year and many more meaningful celebrations in the years to come.

Mr. Knittiot and I arrived back in The Mother Country (aka the state of Minnesota — where my mother resides) a little more than a week ago. Our holidays have been enjoyable (mostly) but busy. They have also included the distinct pleasure of sleeping in until 9:00 a.m. several mornings this week, which I haven’t done since the last time I was here nearly a year ago. Catching up on much needed sleep has been too wonderful for words, but reuniting with my sweetie after the 6-week marathon of living in separate cities has been the real highlight.

Coming “home” always carries such mixed feelings for me. No matter how much I think I’m going to enjoy being in the familiar environment where I lived for most of my life, the truth is, it is always a little stifling. And also comfortable — too comfortable, in fact. It’s the kind of comfortable that makes you feel like you’re walking around in a coma. There is no way that I would have been able to discover as much about myself as I have in the last year if I remained in this state — physically in this state or mentally, emotionally and spiritually in the state I was while I lived here. All the growing and changing I have done would have been impossible within the borders of this state. Never underestimate the power of geography.

We leave tomorrow and that too is a complicated tangle of emotions. I’m ready to go home — our home. I’m ready to have some time and space to myself. But leaving also means leaving behind some of the people who matter most. Friday we spent the day with two of our dearest friends and their spritely daughter. It was the best day I’ve had in longer than I can remember. As we left the cozy confines of their new home after a long and leisurely day, I cried. It’s the people that make the leaving so difficult. Thank goodness so many of them provide such a compelling excuse to return so frequently.

While I imagined that coming home would mean hours and hours of knitting time, it simply hasn’t. There have been two rather harried and hurried trips to one of the local yarn stores and a disappointing attempt to visit another one (which turned out to be closed). The hours of leisurely knitting time have been more like minutes of frantic knitting punctuated by my mother asking, “Does this look right?” or “How do I do this?” In my zeal to convert everyone to the ways of fiber, I have set up shop as the resident knitting instructor to almost everyone I know and as a result have had very little personal knitting time. I’m looking forward to having a Pajama Saturday in the new apartment with movies and knitting and maybe even a margarita or two as soon as we are back.

Hope you all are having a joyful day filled with little obligation and lots of relaxation. I look forward to “seeing” you all more frequently now that the schedule is calming down a bit.