Tuesday works

What is this working on Tuesday thing?  I know not of this Tuesday working thing.  

I picked up a day filling in for someone else, and my week feels just slightly skewed.  It feels like Thursday but it is only Tuesday.  That will make my Wednesday be on Thursday and my Saturday be too far away.  If you know what I mean.  (if not, please accept this is how my brain works.  Scary isn't it?)

But, driving home last night gave me the opportunity to hear something on the radio in a time slot I normally don't hear.

There was a musician being interviewed, an interesting man, who said he had never quite been able to see himself as just musician, as a teacher, but that he also felt like a student, a band member, a player. He felt there were just so many ways, big and small that his music touched his life, was interwoven with his life, that one word could never possibly contain all the many layers he feels from his music, within his music.  That he was passionate about music was not in doubt. 

That is exactly how I feel about knitting.  It is not just one thing, it is so many small things, and big things.  It is not easily quantifiable, but it is so right, so much a part of me.  

From the memory of that brownie swatch where the instructor said I was doing it wrong, but could not tell why my perfectly knit (for a 6 yr old) square was wrong, to the funky knitted Christmas socks, to my first pairs of socks before I realized that I was still purling twisted on sock ribbing... 

Yesterdays knitting adventures were yet another way that knitting has touched my life.  I picked up my small machine, a Singer LK 100, a hobby knitter, from an old Club Z program from Zellers, in the late 80's or early 90's. I really wanted to knit sweaters.  I really needed to knit, but somehow the machine lagged and it lay, not forgotten but in the state of getting around to it for all those many years.

All of these things, all of these attempts, these desires, these lame and lacklustre efforts were supposed to happen so that I could land in the world of knitting now.  Perhaps something magic was supposed to happen if I landed in the world of knitting now.  That must have been it. Magic it is.  

I am not who I was, I am not where I was, I am not what I was.  In so many ways, knitting changed me, and in all the ways it has completely filled all the places that needed filling, it has not changed the core of me. It has added spice, colour, grace, forgiveness, acceptance and patience and it has made me a better person.  

How lucky can a guy get?  I live in the land of knitting.  Teacher.  Student.  Explorer.  Practitioner.  Participator. One word.  So many layers.