This weekend I went to my beach house, a place which I visit very infrequently ever since my marriage ended for many reasons, among them the fact that I now rent it out. I keep some belongings there in a locked closet, and went through them while I was there, hoping to find perfect cozy clothes for this weekend's stormy weather.
Among the things I found were mittens, several pairs of intricately handmade mittens made by ME several years ago. They really took me back - to a time and a place when I was willing and able to dedicate myself to the concentration and single- minded quietness that knitting requires, to a time when i had a partner to knit for, to a passion that has cooled. I realize that I am pretty far from that state of mind, and wonder what has happened to that Lisa.
Interestingly, a man I dated briefly remarked upon hearing me say that I am a knitter that he couldn't imagine me knitting. I was shocked, insulted almost, as he said that I moved too quickly, and I took it as yet another sign that he just didn't get me. (And a man I was really fond of totally got it, luxuriated in the blankets I had knit and which were strewn across my bed.)
But the funny thing is, once a serial knitter, now I am an intermittent, reluctant knitter. I can't slow down enough. I have difficulty allowing the repetitive movement and zen of knitting to take me over as it once had. I miss that knitter, that Lisa, and don't know quite where she is keeping herself right now. I suspect she will return along with the accompanying calm from the act of knitting itself. But meanwhile, aren’t these mittens fabulous?
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