Knitting as therapy

I taught myself to knit during the wet rainy days of a northwestern fall. It started as a way to keep busy while watching TV with my girls, it became the knots that held my life together.

That fall I waited for the custody hearing that would ultimately break 24 years of active parenting. Not knowing what was coming I sat and knit scarf, after scarf, after scarf. Every chance I had to sit down, I picked up my knitting and knitted. Knitting at a leisurely pace, enjoying the rhythm of the needles and the feel of the yarn sliding across my fingers.

A month later, the day after Christmas, on the way back from the airport with my two youngest daughters on their way to live with their father, I started knitting furiously. I knit sweaters for my granddaughters. I knit hats to felt. I knit in the house, in the car, at line in the drive thru, anytime I could knit I did. I knit to stay sane. I knit to heal my heart.