My Boon Companion

Love2Knit

I’ve been trying to write this post for a couple of months now. The right words elude me. Or rather, words do not seem to hold the meaning I’d like to convey. I wrote on this topic a few years back, here, after Maddie was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. I’ve had a similar, though deeper, experience this Spring and on through the Summer.

My love for knitting and crocheting could be talked about in many ways: the colors, the tactile nature of it, the gifting aspect, the variegated colorfulness of yarn, the wearing of it, the meditative qualities, the squishy colorificness, the portableness of it, the wide-ranging uses for it, have I said the color of it?, the variety of things to make, the abstractness of it, the kindredness with other yarn lovers, the rainbow of colors, the sense of connection with women throughout history, the IMpractical nature of it (I mean, if you want to have a new sweater  you could just go buy one!), the technicolor walls of yummy yarn at yarn shops, the slowness of it (like in the Slow Food Movement…Slow Clothes Movement:), the softness of it, and really I don’t think I’ve mentioned the colors…divine.

It has been in and through some trying times that I find an attachment to my yarn projects to be far deeper than just something to keep my hands busy. It becomes a kind of companion through the difficult days. Something that even if you aren’t actually knitting or crocheting provides a sense of softness to the rough edges you’re going through. Something that has a presence with you, even if it sits on a windowsill in a ziploc bag, or tucked in a hospital closet, never actually brought out to knit. And when you are able to knit or crochet again, you sense that something is being knitted back together that has come unraveled during the recent ordeal. And as you go on in healing, recovering, learning a new normal, your boon companion is always there, always the same stitches, the same lovely colors. It hasn’t changed even though your life has been rearranged to a nearly unrecognizable state.

In packing the few things I thought I might need when I was desperate to get to the hospital this spring, I decided not to pack my knitting. I had begun the knitted part of Resurrection Shawl, and felt too wretched to think I would want to knit in the hospital. I was hoping I would only be there a few days, five at the most! So I figured I could forego taking the yarn along with me.

After a long day of being admitted, getting hooked up to all manner of drips and meds, having blood drawn, etc, I was finally wheeled to what would be my room for the next three weeks. My dear husband was setting up my things in the room…flowers on the windowsill, clothes in the closet, and “oh yeah where do you want your knitting?” Huh?

I am so thankful he had brought it along. Even though it sat in the hospital closet for three weeks, I loved knowing it was there. Even though both arms were wired to a tree on wheels, I liked seeing the colors and needles through the ziploc bag in the closet. It did not clamor for my attention. It was simply there. My boon companion waiting patiently to be held once again and continue the work of healing it had in mind for me.

You may think it absurd that a lifeless inanimate object could be a companion. This fuzzy stuff doesn’t even purr or wag a tail! But it is what it is, and I know what I know because it was so and continues to be so in my life. I keep on dragging my ziploc baggies of yarn projects around with me. They go in my pocketbook, in case I find myself with a few minutes to knit while waiting somewhere. They go with me up to my room when I’m tired to the bone and need a nap, or need to go to sleep at the end of a long day. I intend to knit a few stitches before I fall asleep.  Sometimes I do. Ofttimes I don’t.  It just sits there beside me, the colors glowing through the plastic as I drift off. I may put my hand on it, or I might remember to set it off the bed before I’m completely out. And when I wake up the next morning, and swing my feet to the floor, there sits my boon companion, waiting for the days’ adventures, whether knitted or not.

0 thoughts on “My Boon Companion

  1. freebirdsings says:

    Thanks for sharing this. I find it a primal thing.

    When I was a teenager I carried my thread crocheting everywhere I went. It fit nicely in my sack like purse I’d made and I could pull it out anytime (much like I do my Iphone today). It was my companion as you say and I never went anywhere without it until after a trip to Kmart. On my way out of Kmart I snagged a guy! Literally! The hook, a size 10 steel hook, had poked it’s way through my purse and grabbed a man’s trousers. Oh the embarrassment I felt was something.

    I stopped carrying my crochet everywhere. I eventually learned to knit and if I go on a trip anywhere a project has to go with me. But I have to have more than this. My husband laughs at me because it can be a two hour or even a 1 hour trip and I will have food of some sort, often just candy, with me. I can’t be without it but on longer trips I can’t be without a fiber project. I think it speaks to that second level on the Moslow scale of human needs. It is security. I won’t be without something familiar, something to do, something I am creating so I WILL BE OKAY. That’s where it fits for me.

    • freebirdsings says:

      I just went and looked at a graphic of Moslows hierarchy and it seems creativity and problem solving are the peak of human awareness so my knitting covers both ends of the spectrum of being human, from security to creativity!

      • jenpedwards says:

        Love this too!! And…I feel like I’m keeping my mind quick and able to figure out stuff as I get older. I tell ya, some days I wonder if they took a bit of my brain during that surgery this spring. The forgetfulness! Without knitting, it might be worse!!

    • jenpedwards says:

      Ok Timaree…are you sure we aren’t sisters separated at birth or something?? I didn’t know you were a knitter/crocheter! Or if I did, I had forgotten this! Your story about “catching a guy” made me laugh out loud!! Thanks, as always, for your comments!! I love what you said at the end there about the security of it, having to have something creative with you so you will be okay. Love that!! Hugs, Jennifer

  2. Katie Metheny says:

    I can definitely relate to this. If I don’t have a crochet project or applique or a journal to carry around with me, I’m hauling a quilt book or an arty book of some sort. I look at quilt books at stop lights and continue my brain planning of the next one. Sshhhh – don’t tell anyone.

  3. Ann says:

    Yes and yes. On every trip my crochet project goes along. Even when I am waiting through Kiddo’s tennis lesson, if I don’t sketch, I crochet. Like an addict, I feel lost without a yarn project underway. When staying in Cincinnati through my mother’s hospital stay, I lugged my bag with my crochet project every day, back and forth to the hospital. Just like Timaree said about the security of it, so that I would be okay – I love that too! Oh and your sketch is divine 🙂

    • jenpedwards says:

      Thank you Ann! It is wonderful to know that I’m not alone in this AND that I’m in such good company!!

    • jenpedwards says:

      Thank you Ann! It’s wonderful to know that I’m not alone in this and what’s more…that I’m in such good company!!

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