stitch by stitch

I got back into crochet for the first time since childhood about a year ago.  When Pip was small, I made him one small scarf just to try to remember how.  Then, after Pemberley was born, I found my hands remembering single and double crochet and almost recalling a granny stitch.  I made a couple of hats and I think a scarf last winter.  My friend Miranda gave me a cool crochet learning book that inspired me to try new stitches.  Then my dad's diagnosis came along, and the travel, and my sister's wedding, and finding a new house we love, and moving, and my baby sister making a couple of attempts on her life, and a great deal of intense sadness, and losing an old friend,  and I set it aside for a number of months.

I was sad, y'all.  Stupid sad, anxious sad, working my ass off to function and be a happy mother sad.  I was balancing on the edge of the seawall while a hurricane storm surge tide of sad and grief and old pain and anger pulled right below me.  And I walked hard pressing against all my habits of prayer, leaning into my introversion to let actual quiet try to soothe me.  The waves beat in, and I was all, hell. gasp. no. pray. hell. no.  I am not falling into that motherfucking water of depression.  I prayed, I danced, I read a load of books, I made several new friends, I played, I avoided crowds, I spoke my fears to a few trusted friends, and I practiced being present to my children and husband, knowing that they are my first and closest church.  If I couldn't think of something to teach them, I could always play hide and seek or dance with them. 

But I might still be standing there if it were not for a few good divine interventions:

1. Our prayer team leader noticed I was lying my ass off about being okay, and she prayed right into my pain and broke that fight right up.  She was all, "surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows," and a light came back on in my mind.  Oh, yeah, said the anxious part of me.  Well, that's better.
2. My husband started writing an icon over Christmas break.  I have snuck into his work area, and I see his secret prayer scrawls.  The ones who need it most are being prayed right into the Transfiguration.
3. I really got into writing longhand.
4. I started crocheting again.  Do you know one of the earliest spiritual gifts is handcrafting?  God sent the Holy Spirit on hand crafters to make the beautiful things in the tabernacle back in the day.  Christian monks seem to have caught on early, weaving ropes while they prayed or listened or recited psalms.  Even when I wasn't praying, I found that I was praying.

First I found my one half skein of unpacked yarn, which fortunately had a crummy plastic crochet hook stuck in it.  I made it into a double crocheted scarf for the Pipster.  Then I was hooked (ha!).  We went to the craft store and bought a few types of yarn to try and a few sizes of hooks.  I made a beautiful scarf for Pemberley from merino cashmere superwash.   She loves that scarf! She carries it around, adorns herself, primps, puts it on to go on "sidewalk" (her word for outside).  What's that?  Yes, you may see another cute baby photo:

Then I tried to look up some crochet patterns, but they all required too much exactitude for my current lifestyle with tiny wonderful ones needing my attention. So I found this guy Mikey on youtube, with the best crochet tutorials, and I learned the blackberry stitch.  He is seriously great, not going too quickly for you to see where he's pulling the yarn through like some of the teachers online.

So, I started using a wine colored merino cashmere superwash yarn to try out the blackberry stitch.  I wound up wanting more stitches/row, so I increased the number over several rows, achieving a cozy warm beautiful (if irregular) scarf.  

above: the cute baby's mama, plus a blackberry stitch scarf of awesome.

Then, somehow, I found a week or so ago that I had come out of my hole.  I found myself thinking of taking the kids somewhere by myself without abject terror.  On Friday, we met some friends at a park, and I realized how bad the anxiety had been (though I kept it to myself fairly well) when Pip goes, "Oh! Pem has never been to a park before!" Which is not true, but it has been like four months.  

Now I am a little over a foot and a half of rows into a 7'x7'ish afghan made of double crochet and blackberry stitches in the most exquisite Monet water lily hued acrylic homespun.  It is so soft!  I hope to finish it in a week or two.  I try for at least two rows/day.  

Here is how it worked.  I would slip the hook in and remember the harsh words of old friends - the suggestions so active on an anxious mind that I did not have nor could I keep real friends (despite math and all other evidence to the contrary).  Wrap and pull, wrap and pull, and a few rows later, I would realize that I had somehow remembered my real friends, forgotten the words of false ones.  Or I would think of the scariest times with my dad or the horrors faced by my baby sister, and wrap and pull, wrap and pull, I would forgive and pray and ask with every stitch for light to pour upon my sister's mind, for grace to flow into her situation.  Oh, friends!  If I could stitch your hearts back together in this way, it would be done.  

So, I find that I have not only three scarves, a progressing afghan, plans for two gloriously colorful blankets for my tiny shinies, but also a growing dawn in my own soul.  One scarf dulled the pain, and two presented real grace, and three made me aware that I had somehow, in the pulling and planning and counting and weaving, stitch by stitch, forgiven and offered all.  

P.S. I am praying healing into the works now.  I pray that the one who warms herself in this afghan will experience relief from pain, increase of peace and joy, and that she will know when she feels the soft blanket around her, how very much we love her.  I will post photos of the afghan when it's done.