Creative Ebb & Flow ~ The Knit of Family Life (Yarn Along)

March 7, 2012

I have never joined Ginny's Yarn Along because I'm not much of a knitter. There is this project I'm doing (how's it going Mom?) but it's a slow go I tell you.

But this morning as I sat down to share these photos, and snippets of our family's creativity, I happended to remember it's Yarn Along linky day. The day where some of my internet friends and acquaintances (and a whole bunch of people I don't know) join together to share what they are knitting. A big knit fest I guess.

So I'm joining in too. Totally hadn't planned on it till just now but I do love the serendipity of it.

Technically, it's not my yarn along but my children's. I am knitting this dishcloth pattern from Simple Organic and finding it amazingly easy and... simple! (Yeah for that.) But I have no photos to share of that project.

I'm in the last throes (of agony?) with editing my e-book (so close to publishing now!) and working with my hands is the perfect antidote to the fact that my writing brain is nearly mush.

Last week I re-taught the kids how to knit and it was all the rage. We first learned to knit three years ago.

The kids fast and furious knitting pace from last week has slowed down somewhat now. They are like that in their creative pursuits. Cycling in and out of crafts and activities. Old things becoming new and favorite things getting shelved for a season.

My children's creativity naturally moves with this ebb and flow. Learning to do this myself is not always easy but is very necessary. It's simply the way of it and it does no good to fight it. Indeed, it wears us out if we do.

We cannot operate - creatively, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually (pick your -ly) - at the same level, all the time. It's not natural. Especially not for the very cyclical half of the population known as "women".

You might be super productive one week (or in a certain life season) in a creative project or with the kid's homeschooling. Or cooking up a storm in the kitchen, reading a bunch of books, painting your living room, whatever. Then the wind blows a different way (often associated with an actual seasonal shift) and your body, your mind, your spirit needs to re-calibrate. Find a new rhythm.

Right now I'm not sure where I'm at in this cycle. The winter season here is long. We are not shifting to spring yet and won't be for another month but there are internal shifts happening anyway. A coming out of winter reflection and into spring readiness. Readiness for what?

Wow, that was unexpected. I honestly sat down to write about my kid's knitting and look where that went!

I do want to return to knitting though because that is what I actually wanted to write about this morning - knitting, not seasonal shifts. (But oh, those thoughts knew they would find a way to be expressed, sneaky little things!)

One of the things I love about knitting is not knitting itself but taking photos of yarn and stitches. Having some of that handiwork around last week to photograph was lovely.

Equally lovely (more lovely actually) was cooking lunch for my family while Damien read to us, the kids all knitting next to him on the couch. Moments like these are golden to me.

Our life together is full of work - both that which we love and some we don't. We are busy in our own tasks and projects, supporting each other however we can. Some days it seems we circle round and round each other, like a ball of yarn. Close, but going our own way and in sometimes seemingly different directions.

And other times it seems we're actually knit together - in our doing and our being. Being knit together and living those moments is the golden part.

But the actual process of being knit together - it hurts a bit.

If you are a knitter you know that yarn doesn't naturally fall into a weave. It must be pulled into place. Stretched over and under those needles. And even then it might want to go its own way and the whole thing might need to be "blocked", or even washed and felted, before it takes its true shape.

This has been a week of being knit together with my life partner. There has been some pain in that. Stretching always hurts. But I'm starting to see the pattern taking shape and it's beautiful and inspiring.

And it's worth it - being knit together instead of wrapped around.