Twitch or Stitch
Nothing related to online gaming, sorry.
Without a steady knitting project, my mental health suffers. A sweater, or shawl or some long-term project that requires lonely islands of attention and oceans of repetitive stitches. Maybe it sounds silly, it’s not a joke. I have been lacking one for a few weeks. I can’t even remember what the last one was. Crud. I think I finished one in February, and then I didn't start a new one, for reasons I also can’t remember.
Knitting is part of my regulation process. When I try to shift from a full day of parenting and house keeping into stillness, the result is twitchiness. I suddenly itch everywhere and I pick at my eyebrows or chew my fingernails and I can’t get comfortable. I try to do three things at once and I usually end up scrolling through social media without really reading much. It is an unsatisfying way to rest - the activity isn’t pleasure-full and I am not rested when I am ‘done.’ Usually I give up and go do something ‘productive’ (but since I am not rested or refreshed, I don’t do it well or quickly, essentially filling my free time just to feel like i am not ‘wasting it.’)
When have a knitting project, I can pick up my knitting, and sit quietly while my hands are moving in a steady rhythm. I can feel the rest of my body relax a little, find some ease. I don’t have to make any decisions, I only have to keep the pattern moving for a little while. If I do run into a decision - or a step that confuses me, or a technique i don’t know… well, sometimes it throws me off (this isn’t a perfect system, but perfect is a fiction anyway), but if i am calm enough to roll with the problem, i can look up the technique and try it, or do a little math to figure out a decision. When I am still in full twitch mode, that would just stop me in my tracks. I don’t yet have the capacity to use logic like that. Which sounds kind of terrible - do I wander around all day without using logic? No, that’s not it at all. It's the transition from being At Attention to being At Ease. All the pent up feelings-energy comes rushing out or the adrenaline is leaving my system… and I am a ship adrift.
So, knitting is my anchor, until I can get my bearings and be ready to set a new course.
Is all knitting my anchor? Nope. I am trying to learn how to knit with two strands at once, and that takes more focus than I have at transition times. Learning takes energy and focus, and recovery times restore my energy and relax my focus, so they can’t be the same thing. And that is fine - I can learn Fair Isle stitching after I rest a little. I can have more than one knitting project at a time.
But the problem right now is that I DON'T have a knitting project that helps me through those transition times, a recovery project. I can write all this and sound like this is a long held truth, but it only occurred to me last week that I was struggling without a meditative, quiet project. For a few weeks I substituted a quilting project - I couldn't take it out with me or work on it while we watched a movie… so, not ideal, but it was mindless and satisfying to work on before dinner or in the evening. But still, I am going to bed later because I can't unwind, and I am struggling to write because I keep picking up my phone instead of sorting through my thoughts.
And so, here I am, checking the mail every day even though I know my yarn hasn’t arrived.* Struggling though my fair isle project because I can knit it alright now, even if it increases my stress a little because I keep hitting struggle points.
I am going to knit a lovely, easy sweater - something that will take me two months at least to work through - slowly, with lots of ease. And lots of time to unwind from my day and unravel my thoughts.
FYI: this is my next project: Simpler Sinister Sweater for my 10-year-old
And I am swatching for a Carraig Fhada Vest (for myself) but I am not sure if it will be a mindless project or take a lot of focus - I mean, at the beginning I am sure it will take focus, but after the first pattern repeat? Maybe then it will become more mindless? I guess we’ll find out…