I started this ages past. And finished. But debated the posting.
Why? You ask. Because every time I set pen to paper and my fingers to the keyboard of my laptop, I give a little of myself away and... I wonder. Wonder if I should. Or should not.
Some debates are better left unspoken, so here is a posting from the middle of March and a little knitty goodness.
I cast on, the forest green yarn wrapped around my index finger and thumb, reminiscent of norway spruce, the color I have chosen. It reminds me of trees, of getting lost in the wild and leaving the world behind. It carries a mountain of regret and a tangle of broken dreams.
I never thought that I would feel this way. That my knitterly pride would be broken.
But when the sweater curse makes its claim, nothing will stand in its way. And in its most dire form, the creation of a sweater need not be pursued. No. For this version, the stitches have been cast for a pair of mitts, fingerless so that the recipient may use a phone, cabled for a look most elegant.
Dashing.
Oh, he was. The tousled hair. The innocent look. The loose fitting ensemble concealing a body I'd dream of at night. He was a rake. A rake of the first degree.
In a Regency romance, I would be the debutante, a diamond of the first water, and he the consummate rake, never to be tied to a woman. Yet, by some chance, we would be thrown together, our dislike stemming from shared misconceptions. For the man, the diamond is rough hewn, simple, without substance. For the woman, the garden tool is useless, unsuited for the task.
But somehow, I fall for him. I encourage the lingering glances, the meeting of one's gaze across the room, the brush of fingers across heated skin. I conceal my smile behind a hand, my eyes cast down. I blush.
I am rendered speechless and I know not what to do.
But that is a story. A story of another time. Another place. Another century where roses and romance hold sway. Where a courtship is rife with dramas, debacles, enough for a play. Where the players are pawns in the machinations of society.
I sit in bed and knit. My back propped against a bevy of pillows. Turquoise, gold and scarlet. Oh how I feel like the scarlet woman, the one of myth, of stories told. Shunned. Unwanted by those would would have her then...
But now... now a creature of disdain.
I weep.
I weep tears for a broken heart. Tears for time. Tears for the torment I brought upon myself. For what I offered yet did not receive in kind.
*****
It is another day.
The stitches I have cast on are slowly taking shape. Ribbed for his pleasure. For mine.
The yarn rolls in the bag, chaotic movements completely at odds with the rhythmic clicking of my needles, the circuitous loop of yarn around my index finger wrapping round, pulling through.
It is therapeutic. The movements calm the thoughts tumbling through my mind, soothe my ruffled feathers, like the cock tethered to the air conditioning unit behind the apartment.
Knit 4, Purl 1. I repeat the words in my mind, silently counting.
A cup of coffee sits on the conference table, the product of a lunchtime run between two students and the need for caffeine stemming from sleepless nights and jet lag.
We talk. We laugh. We whisper and wonder.
The afternoon passes and we go our separate ways.
Home.
Alone.
*****
The night is more than I can bear. The silence deafening. The dim lights a testament to my emotions, the storm raging within.
I tap and type. These words... these words do not flow. They are not the happy thoughts of the week, the joy of long held dreams. Nor are they the hopes I had of a future now lost.
My eyes are wet. My heart is heavy. And the lights are yellow in this room, casting a sad glow upon my face. Like the man on the moon, I can watch all that passes but feel none of the comfort, the embrace of another.
The first cable awaits. Slip 1... 2... 3... 4...
I slip and knit my way around. Each stitch falling through my fingers, off the needles and out of my life.
How did this happen?
One day, I was still laughing. Lying in bed and loving.
The next....
I hurt.
I feel betrayed....
For, I put my trust in others and I love without restraint.
I give all of myself to those in my life and ask for naught in return.
I do not speak with the words of my lips, my tongue nor my wit. Instead, I speak with my hands and craft with them the shape and texture of what I cannot say.
I sit and I knit. The yarn is a comfort, a salve for the shards of my heart, tying knots to hold the pieces in place. The friction is a welcome rub, the fibers weaving together the rivers of my despair. The music of my needles filling the silent void in my mind.
*****
It is morning. Midweek.
And I cable. The twist in stitches confusing me further. My mind is a knot, a tangle of yarn, a skein left to the paws of a cat.
Nine rows.
One row for each month of the year leading up to our meeting. I saw him then, watching. And I looked back. But it was not to be.
We played. Feet tangled together beneath the table. Fingers locked together out of sight. And kisses stolen in the night.
A knock. And I stop, fingers stilling on my needles. There are other needs more urgent than mine.
*****
I sit. Back straight against the chair. The rooms are empty, patients gone and I sit and knit.
People pass and I smile. Nurses ask and I respond. But my heart is not involved. I speak without soul, without the feelings I possess, the animation I once threw to the wind.
Slip 1... 2... 3... 4
Another cable. Another twist in fate.
Third time lucky.
Third time doomed.
A three leaf clover of fiber, never to wilt, never to die. Always the same spring green, everlasting as the pine in winter.
*****
The yarn... it waits.
I make dinner as the sun sets, the rays of light disappearing behind the shades. Water boils in the pot, simmering gently as pasta goes from hard to soft, the perfect tenderness... al dente. "To the tooth" Such language makes me want to bare my teeth and growl, a testament to the year of my birth.
The smell of bananas and sugar waft from the oven, telling me twenty minutes has passed. I do not pay attention to the time, the passing of seconds... of minutes... of the hours since I walked through the door.
I sit. A bottle of cider to the right of my hand. A plate of carbonara placed before me.
I eat... and I knit.
The stitches have formed a cable, a twist in the fabric of the fiber, the knots of yarn created by each loop of my finger over the needle.
Eight more rows. One for each hour I lay alone in bed that night.
1... I talked.
2... I cried.
3... I dried my tears and lay my head upon my arm
4... 5... 6... 7.... I slept, a fitful night...
8... I woke, wishing it were all a dream, a nightmare from which I would escape
But the tears... the tears they do not not stop. I remember and I weep. I read and I regret. I knit and I know in my heart that I will continue to love until the well of my tears runs dry.
*****
My thumb needs a place to sit. A place to call home.
The next row I count, I wrap the stitches round my hand, gauging.
Knit 14, M1R, Purl 1, M1L.
I continue to knit in pattern, the ribbing an easy task. The next row I knit, I follow the rib, adding the stitches I made. Two new stitches flanking an old. Two for the phones on which we spoke. Two for the hearts which were broken. Two for the time we may yet try again.
I increase. Another row gone. Another two stitches added.
Again and again. I add. I add stitches to the width. I add love to these loops. I add the melancholy of my heart to the mitts. And I add forever to the fingers.
Five times I increase. One increase row for each month I knew love. Each row more than the previous. Each row greater in number... greater in love... in sex and stitches.
*****
It is the end.
The end of the the week. The end of my increases.
And the beginning of the split. Knit 14 in pattern. Slip 11 to a stitch holder. Cast on 1. Continue in pattern. The words make little sense to those who do not knit. But to me, they are a beginning.
The beginning of the end.
The tears... they come only when prompted. But the pain shall remain forevermore. 11 more rows to cover the knuckles, to cover my pain and shift my desires.
I bind off.
Each stitch lying heavier than the last.
Each stitch pulling tight on my heartstrings.
Each stitch I cast off, I close off more of myself until the bleeding is staunched.
I pick up 4 stitches. One for each day that has passed since I last heard his voice. Since I last felt joy.
Knit 4. Purl 1.
The rhythmic chant becomes the salve of my soul, the bandage to the wound I bear. I knit and I count.
5 rows. 5 days since the first.
And I am finished.
*****
One mitt sits lone on the table, surrounded by emptiness.
And I start the other. New stitches wrap round the cable. The same number. The same pattern.
Yet different.
The cables twist wrong way round. Undoing. Undying. Another twist of fate.
