Why I think you should knit more

Content note: Below, I share a story of the death of a loved one and how she lived with cancer. I trust you to make good choices about whether reading this, or not, will feel okay for your heart today.

Me, in a particularly luscious handknit hat. The colorway is Blue Christmas, from my collection of Wardrobe Essentials.

When my best friend and I were in our mid-30s, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. From the age of 36 until her death at 46, she had only a scant 18 months without daily management of that cancer. She lived, day in and day out, for so many years, with grim news, ups and downs, changing medications, side effects, and well-earned pity parties.

But the most important part of her story is that she truly lived.

My friend spent the last month of her life in a residential hospice, and the staff had never known anyone like her. She went out every day in her wheelchair—trips to a nearby beach or just outside to the garden on days when she felt worse. She lived each day as fully as she was able.

After she died, my job was to close her financial affairs, and in her well-organized box of papers, I found an article the medical social worker in her oncologist’s practice had given her. It was about how to live with a life-altering “terminal” illness. The point of the article was to live each day. It wasn’t trite, as this advice can so often be. The point was to really understand that every feeling, even bad or complicated ones, can be felt. They don’t need to be ignored or pushed aside. They are part of the wonderful, hard, amazingness of being human.

In these times, when the news is so grim, I’ve been remembering my friend often. I’ve been thinking about how she showed me how to be present to all of it. To acknowledge the hard things and to feel them—no one could enjoy a good cryfest and pity party as we could! And also to feel the things that are good and are still happening: sunshine on our faces, a delicious meal, the sound of birds.

Craft and knitting remind me of this, too. Although she and I never crafted together, I did quite a lot of knitting with her in hospitals and emergency rooms. I think she’d approve of how knitting has brought me to the same place of presence she found in spite of her cancer.

I don’t knit to forget that times are grim. I knit while knowing they are. I know that a difficult stitch can be learned and worked with skill. A miscrossed cable can be fixed. A wrong choice in garment-making can be fixed. And the process of making stitches, loop after loop, can be enjoyed. Regardless. In spite of. Because of.

I’ve been working on a few practices to help me not freak out in these grim times, and I thought I’d share a few things that are working for me. I’d love to know what’s working for you—please comment and share!

• Daily yoga and meditation. My experience has been that anything you can do to get into your body and out of your head will be helpful. A reminder from one of my favorite Substack writers, Tanmeet Sethi, “brains want to know and brains want to do.” I am trying to give my brain something to do other than ruminating.

• Aligning values with attention and dollars spent. I am the kind of person who loves a boycott. I can keep that shit up forever. Seriously. I’ve been boycotting Exxon gas stations since 1989 and the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Maybe you’ve noticed that I haven’t been around Instagram much lately. Yep, that’s because I’m limiting my time there and planning how to exit altogether. You might find it interesting to visit Goods Unite Us to learn how your favorite brand or shop spends its profits—profits that are just your dollars.

• Limiting my intake valve for news. I am not a fan of the ostrich approach to life: sticking one’s head in the sand and declaring that it’s too complicated, remote, or hard to figure out how to contribute to the common good. But I am a fan of regulating the intake valve to keep myself from becoming overwhelmed. I’ve installed Make America Kittens Again in my internet browsers to replace pictures of the current president with kittens. (It doesn’t always work, but every time it does, it’s just kinda awesome.) I’ve also switched from Google Search to Duck Duck Go, and it’s giving me 1998 Internet vibes in all the best ways. I have to be more precise with my search terms, and it’s leading me toward curiosity and away from clickbait.

• Daily knitting. I’ve been increasing my knitting time simply because it brings me joy. I’m saying “yes” to playing with color and fiber and stitches. I’m using the good yarn. I’m taking my time to play with sizing and swatching and trying new things. I remember that knitting is play, joy, excitement, and hope.

Does any of this turn the tide away from oligarchy or fascism? No. Does it help me be a little more balanced and present so I can assess what small action I can take? Yes.

Tell me something that’s working for you. Or maybe comment on something that’s working for someone else.

FYI: Our community is growing quickly, so if you’re new or new-ish, please be mindful of this community norm: This is a firmly liberal, No-Tr*mp space. We’re all doing the work to figure out how to be anti-racist, drop out of diet culture, and counter the -isms that make life hard.

At some point, I’ll need to restrict commenting to paid subscribers (because that’s how it goes when Internet spaces start to get big; folks who aren’t invested begin to leave drive-by comments that feel “off.”) But for now, comments are open to everyone. Please help me keep this one of the cozy, safe spots on the Internet, where we center the needs and feelings of those most endangered by all that’s happening in the US right now.