Held Together by Knitting

Last week was horrific: bombings, explosions, the death and maiming of innocent bystanders and volunteer firefighters. On top of it, the weather was dismal—grey for days on end, nearly 5 inches of rain in 24 hours resulting in flooded homes, and north of us there as a snow storm. Nature didn't offer the respite we needed after days of manmade horror.

I was supposed to go to my aunt's house for her 87th birthday, but decided to put it off until the weather was more favorable. It's not as though I didn't have plenty of work to fill those delayed days, and not as if I didn't know that it was unhealthy to watch the endless news coverage on television and online, but I found myself drawn in. I heard the media's reports on the dance instructor, the recently married couple, and the two brothers who'd lost their legs. I saw the images of the Boston bombing repeated in a continual loop. I listened to stories about the volunteer firefighters who rushed into the fertilizer plant in Texas and perished. I even thought of the sorrow of the mother of the Tsarnaev brothers. So many lives damaged. So many lives ended.

And through it all, I knit. I knit back and forth on an Elfin Baby Bonnet in pale pink. I repeatedly knit rows of the 208-stitch-long Dovetail Cowl. When I finished it, I started another. It seemed to be one of the only things that made sense. Creating something in the face of so much destruction brought a modicum of comfort. When so much of life seems so far beyond control, I knit. It's not all I do. But it's what I did last week.