Knitting in Public

All of us, I’m sure, wonder about the workings of our minds sometimes. Mine has been in a state of mixed emotions, unsorted projects, and unfinished tasks lately. This morning I decided to celebrate its ambiguity instead of chastising its neglect. I laid my unfinished Bears on the kitchen table, raised my coffee cup and toasted the un-armed, the half-sewn, the faceless, and those still attached to a ball of yarn, their growth depending on two bamboo sticks.

I would have given my mind a “thumbs up” except I couldn’t imagine it nodding approval to the mess. Then I thought of yesterday’s four and a half hours “Knitting in Public” and the boost it gave me to bring order into my knitted entanglements. If I can sit on a folding chair on a busy sidewalk, cars backing into parking spaces behind me, joggers, cyclists, dogs, absentminded cell phone enthusiasts almost brushing against me, and amplified musicians competing with car noises and conversations, I can certainly spend today FINISHING a few Bears.

I still wonder what makes my mind shift so easily from one state to another. Yesterday morning I sighed when I passed the pile of unfinished Bears in the back room. Today I am stuffing heads and embroidering faces. Is there a trick to motivation? Did being surrounded by other knitters make me want to be more organized? I certainly had a good time visiting with old acquaintances and meeting the women and men who sat alongside me, but what I had hoped for did not happen. The “Public” in general did not slow its pace. Did not stop and ask questions about knitting, about the Mother Bear Project, about Africa, about those who are the recipients of the Bears. Occasionally a child cast an interested look toward the Bears in the stroller, one even tugged on her mother’s arm. But the “Public” is in a hurry. No time for an unplanned event. A deadline has to be met. Things need to be done.

The mind is an interesting part of the self. Curious at times. Confused maybe. Slow to respond. Suddenly enthusiastic again.

“Will one completed Bear make a difference?” it asks.

“Yes,” is the simple answer, coming from somewhere beyond doubt. “Yes! And you are the only one that can motivate the fingers to act.”

I am happy to report that the fingers are, right now, racing toward the kitchen table.

"World Wide Knit in Public Day at "Green Planet Yarn"