One of the things that comes with knitting is the act of ripping out your knitting. Tearing it back and redoing what you thought would work. This is more pronounced as an activity when designing your own knitwear. But even with patterns; like the unnamed knitting magazine sweater that I got to the shoulders and realized that the “large” wouldn’t fit a gnat. I think that it can be a metaphor for life too, the backtracking and asking yourself where did I go wrong? What did I do to make this situation worse? Is it really my fault or is it that the pattern is flawed? Some people, hate to rip out, all that work gone to waste, but for me if every time I see that wonky stitch or that skip in the pattern or that cable I am sure I put an extra row on, I will chastize myself for not ripping it out. Again a metaphor for life, is it really something you should repeatedly pester yourself over? Is it worth the time and energy to worry about the wonky stitch that only you are aware of? What of the flawed sweater that everyone notices, that people point out your error and you are filled with shame, how did you even miss that? But in the end you rip the thing out and try to repair the damage but do you just toss out the sweater, rip it out and make a purse out of it or start all over again, I will make this sweater work no matter what. All questions that again tie to life. What if someone hates your sweater even though it is perfect, or hates your sweater because they hate the color orange, or hate it because they perceive it as something other than what you do? Do you care? Do you let their opinion pass in your mind and not dwell on it? Do you hold it and examine it and ask yourself what fundamental truths are in their opinions? Or do you simply toss the opinion out and say who cares what they think, I am going to keep wearing this cloak.
Ah the joys of teaching. Ah the sorrows of a child lost. Ah the angst of a human life filled with small mistakes that sometimes are writ large.
