We life coaches love our metaphors. If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you know that my Mom passed away in August after a two month dance with cancer. I haven’t written much more than journal entries since she passed away, because I haven’t felt like working...or playing for that matter. I’ve been in the throes of Square 1; learning how to live as an adult child without parents. I’ve been hunkering down and just putting one foot in front of the other for 5 months. I’m fortunate that I’m not alone on this journey; I am surrounded by friends and clients. Some of my clients have morphed into friends. One of these earth angels has introduced me to a new hobby: knitting. Suffice it to say that I have never knitted, sewn, crocheted or any number of other crafts that I have heretofore thought were...well, kinda’ lame. I was wrong. Up until I picked up those needles, you would have been hard pressed to get me to stop moving long enough to do anything except read a book or watch a movie. That is my journey: to learn how to be still. In Square 1 there’s not a lot of movement; that’s why I wore it like a hair shirt. But now I crave knitting. Why? Let me tell you how yarn and needles have allowed me to re-fashion the fabric of my life (metaphor alert)!

Knitting is like the journey to my right life in so many ways:

1. Knitting has its own pace; if you try to hurry it, you will drop a stitch and damage the integrity of the fabric. If you try to anticipate the stitch that’s coming up, you might miss the stitch that you’re working on. You may be able to look ahead in the pattern, but you can’t jump ahead 10 stitches…that would leave big holes in your fabric. It doesn’t matter that the pattern changes further down the row, the only stitch you can knit is the one you’re on. If you pay attention to just the next stitch long enough, then you will have something fully formed between your fingers. It’s almost as if your life grows in your hands, stitch by stitch. I’m not quite sure what the finished product will look like, but I do know that as I knit, I love the feel of the fabric in my hands. And I love the thought that one stitch in front of the other join together to make something bigger than each individual stitch ever imagined.
2. In order to produce a work of complexity and beauty, you need a pattern. My life’s work is to work my life, or play my life, as Martha Beck urges. Sometimes, when you’re in the details of the work, it’s difficult to see its shape. Even when it doesn’t seem like your project will look like anything special, if you just keep following the pattern stitch by stitch, you will complete that beautiful project. It may not look just like the picture, because it’s YOUR project. I can try to use someone else’s pattern, but the only one that will produce the garment I want is the pattern of my right life, drawn by my stargazer self and stitched by my essential self.
3. Sometimes when you’re working on a project that has a lot of complexity, you need to use markers to remind you when the stitch changes. It’s difficult to remember each change in the pattern without these little markers; it requires time and effort that are better spent actually doing the work of stitching. My markers are my family. When I see the look of concern in my daughters’ eyes that I’m pushing myself too hard, or the gentle nudge that my husband gives me to slow down, I know that I can’t go on in the same way. My markers tell me when I need to make a change in my style of knitting, because to go on in the same manner would disrupt the pattern of my project.
4. Sometimes you have to start over. Even when you’ve put a lot of time and effort into a project, if you’ve dropped a stitch or split a stitch it mars the fabric of your work. Sometimes you can repair it, but you have to stop and notice where the mar is in order to repair it. And sometimes the only way to maintain the integrity of the finished project is to unravel your work and start all over again. If your stitch is incongruent with the vision of the finished project, you are better off just scrapping it. It doesn’t matter how inconvenient it is or how frustrating or how much your auntie will tut-tut at you; it’s worth the effort to maintain the integrity of a fabric well crafted.

When I’m finished knitting these scarves, my plan is to give them to each of my girls to keep them warm…so that they are wearing something that came from me. They will wear the scarves and know that I love them. Hopefully, they will see that all any of us can do is go stitch by stitch towards the pattern of our lives.