Friday, September 22, 2006

Bedridden


Strange what being injured does to your head, strange what it does to your knitting. I took some time last weekend, stole some time from all I had to do and all I had to give to my job and house and relationship, stole it right out from under all of that and took it for myself. I used this time to go diving. Both days. Two whole days of diving and hanging out and getting nothing of any consequence done except for floating among the fishies.
I also injured my back. Something to do with carrying tanks and a lead weight belt around my tipped pelvis- doesn't matter, my chiropractor is working on it in his way, and I am working on it in my way:
I started a fussy new knitting project, of course! The lovely Bayerische sock from Eunny Jang. As she states:
I've found that when my brain is in danger of melting altogether and dribbling out my ears, a couple repeats of Bavarian-style twisted stitch patterns set everything right. All the little lines are so graceful and logical, so tidy, so totally devoid of chaos. What you see is precisely what you get - and it doesn't hurt, I suppose, that what you end up getting is almost always really, really beautiful.

See, that is just it: My head is too full of too many things. Work, relationship, writing, friends, what it all means and what I want to be when I grow up and why I needed to steal away two days and why did my body crash out from all of this? An ex once told me that when you re-injure yourself, you must go back to the time of the original injury and revisit that pain in order to work through it. He said that the body's constant reinjury was a reminder of something unresolved. I first injured this area of my back years ago in a gardenia and yoga-mat scented summer in North Carolina. I was independent, newly graduated, tremendously in love and yet drifting and sad like many women that age. Healthy, beautiful, and unfulfilled, living as an addendum to my boyfriend's dreams for lack of my own. I remember feeling raw, sensual, new, and fragile. Everything went easily straight to my heart, and I lived with an unguarded immediacy that I have not felt since. My heart broke at the end of that summer as I left him and I left that town, and in the years that have passed and the walls and guards I have built, I still lack the lower back core strength to protect from this reinjury. It all reminds me of how little I have journeyed from that time. I am still raw and drifting.
"I don't have a handle on this knitting thing," a friend just told me, "I know that I need to check in on you when you are injured, missing work, and thoughtful like this. But I don't get how to read the knitting yet."
Well here it is: I am unfulfilled by the projects I have working now (the Kyoto to rip, the 2nd useless glove) and in that boredom, have chosen a project beyond my abilities. While I attempt to convince myself that I will be learning new skills (tiny needles, cables, cable-needleless twists) and shall be forgiving of my own newbie mistakes (there are a few already. I am understanding, but hardly forgiving) the real purpose is distraction. Like maybe if I pour out all the thoughts and obsessions and worries, pour them into the knitting, those thoughts will run like rivulets along the tiny precise cables of this complex pattern, and the pattern itself will create a beautiful order to it all. Maybe when I am done I can look at it and say, "There. See? It all makes perfect, beautiful sense."

3 comments:

somebunnysloveDOTcom said...

I was feeling something similar regarding a couple of FOs that I had in the house, particularly a pair of oven-mitt sized mittens. Finally I decided to frogged them apart and make a better use out of them for a charity scarf and 8-in square. The result? I feel MUCH better! Hope you do too.
=:8

Unknown said...

I love how your Bayerische is turning out. I should try it since I actually love my sock knitting now.

I'm also learning to not freak out about frogging, something my friend tapmouse has learned already.

I know there's a lot of writings out there about the zen of knitting (for lack of a better term), but the lesson I learned from the Yarn Harlot's talk is that knitting doesn't necessarily teach you to become a higher being w/more patience and stuff, but it's really about keeping you sane and from strangling something or someone that aggravates the heck out of you.

Acornbud said...

All your time is your time;)
Eunny Jang is a master of precise intricate, well fitting patterns. I love your analogy about the cables and order out of chaos.

I like that knitting can be undone and redone until you are satisfied. If it really makes you nuts you can put it down or just give it away.