A Cat Bordhi Story

Yesterday, late in the day, I saw a quick note from the Knitmores about Cat Bordhi and her post and request.  I cannot tell how sad I felt.  

I went to a knitting conference in San Fransisco just months after Brian passed away.  I probably shouldn't have.  I was terrible company and I wasn't really ready for being around so many people.  But I had paid for it and had a travel companion and I went.  

One of my classes was with Nancy Bush and another was with Cat Bordhi.  I remember the neat things I learned in Nancy's class and I smile in remembrance when I look at the very pretty blue and white toile de jouy size 4 knitting needles I found at the market but what I learned in Cat Bordhi's class, perhaps lecture is a better thing to call it, stayed in my head and my heart and gave me a way forward.  

I know exactly where this little piece of paper is all the time.  It is one of my most treasured posessions.  It doesn't live in my jewelery box or one of my little boxes where I keep bits and pieces.  This piece stays in the drawer of my sewing table, close to me, where I see it at least a couple times a month.  It sits protected under the dividing sections full of sewing notions.  I know it is there. It is part of my everyday world. It is a very purposeful placement.  I debate putting it somewhere safer whenever I tidy up the drawer to sort seam rippers, button hole cutters, small scissors and sewing machine feet and sort needles and pins.  But it stays here, visible, someplace very ordinary but safe and deep and almost hidden.  Purposeful.  Part of everything ordinary.

I remember that little room so well.  It was a bit airless and we were packed in a bit.   I tried to take knitting notes as she talked but when she said these things, I started crying, quietly I hope, but two things touched the bleeding raw heart of me.

"Forks in the road are not always a choice. Sometimes they are not forks, they are mobius."  

And "Pauses are as important as the rest of the process"  Cat was speaking mostly about design processes but to me, they were and remain about life. 

Cat Bordhi, touched the lives of many knitter's but in a lot of ways, she gave me the tools I needed to find mine. 

#catbordhi