What makes you feel most alive?

Or, avoiding the doomscroll of an anxious mind

Me, during a self-photo shoot of a newly refreshed sock pattern while Molly, my beagle, insists on modeling with me.

One of you asked me: What makes you feel most alive?

¹

This question has been with me all week, and it’s a gorgeous one.

My answer is twofold.

Memories make me feel both alive and connected to the pain of my own particular life and hurt places, some healed and some that may never be fully healed. This feeling of bittersweet and happysad (a word coined by artist Elliot Tan) makes me feel the ache, longing, beauty, and joy of being human.

And there, embedded in this reader’s question for me is also the opposite: Where are the places that feel dead or devoid of hope? Learning how to move from exhaustion or flatness to hope is, I think, the essential work of being alive right now. I think we’re all trying, in ways both big and small, to connect more deeply with our aliveness, to turn from apathy to caring, and to carve out a life that is meaningful to us.

For me, the very thing that makes me feel most alive—feeling bittersweet—can also, sometimes, become my own personal doomscroll—where I turn the thoughts or memories over and over in a way that is deadening. When (or if) I start falling into that old rabbit hole, I turn to the other thing that makes me feel most alive:

Doing something that puts me in a state of flow.

Finding flow—that state of intense concentration where it feels like time stops—even in just a small moment of my day, pulls me back from anxiety, worry, or rumination, and re-connects me to feeling deeply, beautifully, wholly alive.

Simply put, I do something creative. I lose myself in doing a thing I love.

Lately, I love to look deeply at what’s happening right now in my back yard. The tree buds that are pushing. A flower that’s blooming. Small mushrooms growing out of a decaying log. I breathe, deeply. I readjust my eye to see the small, beautiful moments: a hand-wound ball of yarn. A steaming mug of coffee on Sunday morning.

It’s also knitting. Sometimes, it’s the easy, soothing knitting of a sock. Sometimes, it’s the complex knitting of a cabled sweater that requires all of my concentration to read the chart and translate it into my stitches.

I wholeheartedly recommend you ask yourself, too: what makes you feel most alive? My answer might not be same as yours, but asking it may take you to some deeply human and beautiful places.

If you want to delve more deeply into these ideas, I recommend:

• Author Susan Cain’s most recent book, Bittersweet (a New York Times bestseller and recent Oprah pick)

• This Ted Talk with the psychologist who named the concept of flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

• These songs by musician Joy Olakokun, whose lyrics and melodies are magic

A free sock pattern to introduce you to my style of knitting creativity

Garden Sprinkles was the first knitting pattern I ever wrote, and I have been at work behind-the-scenes to knit a new sample (👆🏻this one), refresh the instructions, and have the pattern fully tech-edited. It’s always been a free pattern, but I wanted to refresh it and show what it’s like to knit or shop or hang out with me now.

Redoing this pattern most definitely put me in a state of flow, and I’m slowly doing likewise with all of my patterns.

If you love knitting socks or if you’ve never knit socks but always wanted to try, Garden Sprinkles is a simple sock pattern that is a gift from me to you.

It has:

• A little story with the pattern's "why"

• Clear, line-by-line instructions that have been newly tech-edited by the expert @beginswithac, plus an easy-to-follow chart for more experienced knitters

• Beautiful photographs

• Helpful schematic

• Multiple sizes to fit most feet, from narrow to standard to wide

• Links and hashtags to connect with me and our full community of quiet progressives

More yarn is in the shop (because counting is hard)

Counting is surprisingly difficult when you’re doing a shop update that includes yarn that’s ready-to-ship. Now that all of last week’s California Street kits and yarn orders are shipped, I discovered 14 more skeins that I had neglected to list. If you missed last week’s update and would love a skein or two or more of this rosy, peachy, lavender sportweight yarn palette, please visit the shop.

I also poured a few more candles and made a fresh batch of avocado hand balm. (Because I wanted some for myself and y’all bought everything last weekend, so I made more but remembered to reserve a bit of each for myself. 😁)

As before, all orders during this second-stock weekend come with the California Street pattern + playlist.

A well-wish

These next two weeks, I’ll be production dyeing, reskeining and shipping my Kindred Spirits yarn club, which means I will be deeply in a state of flow. My wish for you is to, also, find a moment, an hour, or more of flow for yourself. An activity that absorbs your creative attention, where you lose track of time, and where you can be deeply curious and soothed.

With love,
Anne

1. This question came via my anonymous “Ask Me Anything” virtual mailbox. I’d love to know your question(s), too! You can ask me anything here.