What gets knitted in

Knitting is nearly always more than the stitches formed when needle meets wool. The knitted object, especially when gifted, also represents our time and our affection for the recipient. The wavy and woolly scarf was a particularly loaded knit.

It was birthday gift for Adam, begun much too late for the actual day, but in what I thought was lots of time before I would see him in September. Adam and I have spent most of the last nine months apart, which does leave me with some extra knitting time but is mostly very hard.

This scarf came to be my late night project. Something I could pick up at the end of my day and work on while listening to the radio. Something to quiet my brain. The late-at-night hours are sometimes hard ones. Days are full and rushed but when it is late it is quiet and there are few distractions and your mind can wander to missing someone. A lot. And I thought and I worried and I missed. I worked on it when I was exhausted and sad. All that went into that scarf. It absorbed a few tears as well.

I'm sure this late-at-night knitting for absent loved ones is as old as knitting . Because the act itself is soothing and a camouflage for day-dreaming and wishing. And hours knit away are hours of separation that are past forever. And when someone wears the knitting then they will know that you missed them. They will be warmer and somehow safer for your efforts. This knitted thing becomes more than the sum of its parts; what happens when needles meet wool.

Or so I hope. Maybe I'm just a knitting romantic. Either way, there is bound to be more late-at-night knitting, but that's okay. There is strength in it.