Of confessions

I only knit on the lovely blue yarn yesterday.  That is all that wanted to run through my hands.  If that is the way of it, this shawl is going to be completed lightning fast.

What I need to write about today is Yarn Harlots post for today.  I am disturbed.  

What I am disturbed about is that everyone reading her blog will feel it is cool and trendy and hot to be the sort of knitter who will knit at stop lights and knit in sluggish and stuck traffic.  There will be an huge portion of the knitting population who is going to feel my opinion is a wet blanket on their fun.

Good.

I used to work for a firm that did accident reconstructions and while I was very insulated from trauma photos, I sometimes saw them.  I remember the very first one, the first time I came across a person who died because she momentarily forgot to pay attention.  I remember her name. I remember what colour her t-shirt was, how her jeans were worn at the knees, the colour of the sky the day she died. I remember how she looked so oddly peaceful lying there on the roadway.  

I remember the others too. There is a long list of things these people are doing when their 'accidents' happened.  It is such a mundane list:  changing radio stations, flipping through cds, scolding the kids, answering the phone, telling jokes to friends.  The list is populated with small things that we all do each day in our cars.

The one stunning thing they all had in common, was that not one of them meant to die when they got in their vehicle that day.  Not one of the people who may or may not have contributed to their deaths meant to harm them either.  

Not one knitter who sits behind the wheel and knits at a light, or who knits when the traffic is sluggish will mean to hurt anyone.  But they might.

If you are in the drivers seat, be there.  Be engaged in what you are doing.  Your socks will thank you.