The irony of the situation (beyond that I am currently listening to someone else's IMusic Library, and they seem to LOVE Alanis Morissette, and "Ironic" is playing as I type this) is that I've just finished reading Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, in which Penelope tells her side of the story of waiting for her husband to come back. She talks at length about weaving the shroud, and picking it apart at night, then reweaving it, then unraveling it, and continuing like this for years. Now, I know that Penelope was patient, or she never would have waited for her husband to come back, but I'm sure that all of that progress, followed by anti-progress, would have driven any person completely batty.
Or, maybe it's not actually irony that I've just finished that book at the same time I'm restarting something that may need to be torn out and re-restarted, but just bad luck. Like rain on my wedding day. Or, as the case was, having the lawn sprinklers go off on the reception.
Penelope does have something interesting to say about the fiber arts, and given that I'm now knitting something for the second (and probably not final) time, and that I'm wrestling with writing a presentation and doing my own research and so am at the end of my proverbial rope, I'll put it in here:
"The teaching of crafts to girls has fallen out of fashion now, I understand, but luckily it had not in my day. It’s always an advantage to have something to do with your hands. That way, if someone makes an inappropriate remark, you can pretend you haven’t heard it. Then you don’t have to answer."
Now, I agree with the statement that it's an advantage to have something to do with your hands. It helps me to focus on whatever it is that I'm actually supposed to be doing. It's soothing. It's methodical. It keeps that part of my mind where the worrying takes place a little quieter. I'm not so sure about pretending not to hear inappropriate remarks, though. Knitting or not, I can't keep myself from responding, though I can wait to respond until after I've moved out of ear shot. (It helps immensely to have someone who listens. (Thanks, John.))
Knitting will not keep people from talking to you, though. Knit on a plane, and you'll field dozens of questions about what you're making, how you got the needles on the plane, and how it must be so boring because you just do the same thing over and over again. You'll hear all about how someone's grandma used to knit. You might hear a nice story about an important handknit. But you certainly won't be alone, and you won't be sitting in silence.
Lucky for me, if I want silence, I can work on the stuff that really makes me unravel.
1 comment:
You don't need knitting to keep people from talking to you, your profession should take care of that. At least it does for chris - people find out what he does and they (1) say "wow, you must be really smart" and (2) are suddenly dying to go in search of another beer, or a something, across the room.
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