Your post moved me. I was diagnosed with breast cancer last October and have been undergoing intensive chemotherapy since then. I’ve got two more to go and then I’m done. Like your friend, I have been living every day as best as I can, and I intend to continue to live every day that I am alive. That includes sewing and knitting as much as I can, because yeah - the act of creating is helping me get through these tough times. Thank you for sharing ❤️
This has come at the best time. Just received one of those messages from my MD to have another image taken after my recent mammogram. Not something I was prepared for... but here I am, preparing to teach a Yoga & Yarn class at my new favorite local yarn shop. I knew that along with breathing and stretching and relaxation, I wanted to talk about how our fiber activities help us to maintain and heal our beings. It's been an ongoing topic for me in the past ten years, and even more as I expand my Yoga Therapy practice to different populations. Thank you so much!
Thank you for sharing what gets you through. I knit, and I read a lot of fiction. It reinforces my empathy and keeps my mind limber. Also daily walks, but that’s been on hold this week as I battle the flu. Also making nourishing food brings me joy. Be good to yourself, however you can.
I’m so happy I found you! The timing is funny..just last night I came across a video of AOC talking about what’s going on, etc. and while she was talking she was knitting!!! O did not know she’s a knitter.
Thank you so much for this excellent post! So many things hit me, and girl SOLIDARITY on the ExxonMobil boycott! I can hold a grudge. Also look at BlueSky as a possible IG replacement and thanks for the DuckDuckGo suggestion. Here us my current thought on getting through the craziness: I don't have to see the entire path, I just need to take the next faithful step.
Your newsletters are so thoughtful and this one is no exception. Thank you for making a safe space and offering suggestions for this time. Reading a poem each evening in bed helps creates a peaceful end of the day for me. I appreciate the link to the Goods that Unite Us too.
Thank you for your ideas to help live through difficult times. I knit every day for as much time as I have: sometimes only an hour, oftentimes longer. While I knit, instead of watching the volleying of outrage/opinion, I’m catching up on streaming series and old movies. Distractions that don’t leave me exhausted or more worried than I already am. Lunch out with friends, Pilates classes, and bedtime prayer that we come out of this miasma in one piece. Thank goodness for a large stash and an even larger Ravelry queue! And, most especially, knowing these times are shared by other sincere knitters (and crocheters). We will hold on and make it through.
Thanks so much for the moving story of your friend, who sounds brilliant. I appreciate your encouragement every time you write.
Lately I’ve been thinking about beginner’s mind; I have been knitting off and on since 1985, but my husband of 33 years is just starting to learn! He took the plunge after accompanying me and his sister to a fiber festival this fall, and since then he’s made the obligatory scarf, a ribbed cowl, a möbius cowl, and a hat; now he’s making his first blanket. In all of it, while guiding and observing him, I am re-thinking how to do things that I have been doing by reflex forever, and getting reinspired by his joy in learning. I am trying to approach routine things as though doing them for the first time, and truly being present in the moment as the fiber moves through my hands.
It seems like a tiny thing in these hideous times, but it does seem to give us both a foundation of peace and usefulness that we take forward. Your words do likewise, and I am grateful.
I read Heather Cox Richardson’s daily (free) blog post. She is a historian that writes for future historians. It’s all the news I need on the new administration!
I couldn’t respond to your post last week because I needed to sit with it. Knitting helps?? Really?
Then the next day, I read a post by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg about how we need inner practices (each of us define for ourselves) to “fortify ourselves.” We can’t do the outer work if we’re not grounded.
Okay. Two of my favorite writers saying the same thing. Then in an effort to get outside my whiteness, to listen to other voices, I started reading James Cone “The Cross and The Lynching Tree.” In one section, he talks about how Blacks living during Jim Crow, seeing daily the terrors of lynching, having no power—they would go Fridays and Saturdays to the juke-joints and listen/sing the blues: “Despite such terror, however, blacks did not let lynching completely squeeze the joy out of their lives. There was always a lot of excitement and joy at the juke joints, a people swinging with sexual passion on Friday and Saturday nights because then they could express themselves fully, let themselves go with no thought of tomorrow and the white man’s dehumanizing disregard of their humanity.”
Damn. The universe is really talking to me.
Fight the fight. Make good trouble. Find joy. Reclaim our humanity. Ground ourselves. If it’s mediation, do that. If it’s listening to music, do that. If it’s crafting, do that. Fight again.
And learn from those who’ve lived it.
— The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone, p. 38
Thank you, thank you for the wonderful post (I look forward to your posts so much, each week) and the suggestions for coping. You've made me think about the yarn in my stash and pulling it out and finding a purpose for it, just for the joy of using it and making something wonderful in the face of all the "ugh" going around lately.
I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend, and thank you for sharing the lesson for living for all of us.
What a lovely post. Thank you so much for this lift.
Your post moved me. I was diagnosed with breast cancer last October and have been undergoing intensive chemotherapy since then. I’ve got two more to go and then I’m done. Like your friend, I have been living every day as best as I can, and I intend to continue to live every day that I am alive. That includes sewing and knitting as much as I can, because yeah - the act of creating is helping me get through these tough times. Thank you for sharing ❤️
Friend, I am holding so much tender space for you. This is a hard life experience. Big hugs and smooth stitches.
I look forward to read by your Substack every week. Your words always resonate with me.
This has come at the best time. Just received one of those messages from my MD to have another image taken after my recent mammogram. Not something I was prepared for... but here I am, preparing to teach a Yoga & Yarn class at my new favorite local yarn shop. I knew that along with breathing and stretching and relaxation, I wanted to talk about how our fiber activities help us to maintain and heal our beings. It's been an ongoing topic for me in the past ten years, and even more as I expand my Yoga Therapy practice to different populations. Thank you so much!
Sending you a bit of extra 💙. I often have to go back for extra imaging and it’s always hard on the nervous system.
thank you! still figuring out what is going to get me through, but knitting, good food, snuggles with my dog, good friends are definitely on the list.
Thank you for sharing what gets you through. I knit, and I read a lot of fiction. It reinforces my empathy and keeps my mind limber. Also daily walks, but that’s been on hold this week as I battle the flu. Also making nourishing food brings me joy. Be good to yourself, however you can.
I’m so happy I found you! The timing is funny..just last night I came across a video of AOC talking about what’s going on, etc. and while she was talking she was knitting!!! O did not know she’s a knitter.
Thank you so much for this excellent post! So many things hit me, and girl SOLIDARITY on the ExxonMobil boycott! I can hold a grudge. Also look at BlueSky as a possible IG replacement and thanks for the DuckDuckGo suggestion. Here us my current thought on getting through the craziness: I don't have to see the entire path, I just need to take the next faithful step.
Thank you for sharing about your friend, your memories, and lessons shared 💖
Your newsletters are so thoughtful and this one is no exception. Thank you for making a safe space and offering suggestions for this time. Reading a poem each evening in bed helps creates a peaceful end of the day for me. I appreciate the link to the Goods that Unite Us too.
This was lovely to read, thanks. I don't know how to knit but I can definitely crochet more!!! Have a great day.
Thank you for your ideas to help live through difficult times. I knit every day for as much time as I have: sometimes only an hour, oftentimes longer. While I knit, instead of watching the volleying of outrage/opinion, I’m catching up on streaming series and old movies. Distractions that don’t leave me exhausted or more worried than I already am. Lunch out with friends, Pilates classes, and bedtime prayer that we come out of this miasma in one piece. Thank goodness for a large stash and an even larger Ravelry queue! And, most especially, knowing these times are shared by other sincere knitters (and crocheters). We will hold on and make it through.
Thanks so much for the moving story of your friend, who sounds brilliant. I appreciate your encouragement every time you write.
Lately I’ve been thinking about beginner’s mind; I have been knitting off and on since 1985, but my husband of 33 years is just starting to learn! He took the plunge after accompanying me and his sister to a fiber festival this fall, and since then he’s made the obligatory scarf, a ribbed cowl, a möbius cowl, and a hat; now he’s making his first blanket. In all of it, while guiding and observing him, I am re-thinking how to do things that I have been doing by reflex forever, and getting reinspired by his joy in learning. I am trying to approach routine things as though doing them for the first time, and truly being present in the moment as the fiber moves through my hands.
It seems like a tiny thing in these hideous times, but it does seem to give us both a foundation of peace and usefulness that we take forward. Your words do likewise, and I am grateful.
I read Heather Cox Richardson’s daily (free) blog post. She is a historian that writes for future historians. It’s all the news I need on the new administration!
Same!
Me too! I appreciate that she gives historical context with the news.
I couldn’t respond to your post last week because I needed to sit with it. Knitting helps?? Really?
Then the next day, I read a post by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg about how we need inner practices (each of us define for ourselves) to “fortify ourselves.” We can’t do the outer work if we’re not grounded.
Okay. Two of my favorite writers saying the same thing. Then in an effort to get outside my whiteness, to listen to other voices, I started reading James Cone “The Cross and The Lynching Tree.” In one section, he talks about how Blacks living during Jim Crow, seeing daily the terrors of lynching, having no power—they would go Fridays and Saturdays to the juke-joints and listen/sing the blues: “Despite such terror, however, blacks did not let lynching completely squeeze the joy out of their lives. There was always a lot of excitement and joy at the juke joints, a people swinging with sexual passion on Friday and Saturday nights because then they could express themselves fully, let themselves go with no thought of tomorrow and the white man’s dehumanizing disregard of their humanity.”
Damn. The universe is really talking to me.
Fight the fight. Make good trouble. Find joy. Reclaim our humanity. Ground ourselves. If it’s mediation, do that. If it’s listening to music, do that. If it’s crafting, do that. Fight again.
And learn from those who’ve lived it.
— The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone, p. 38
Thank you, thank you for the wonderful post (I look forward to your posts so much, each week) and the suggestions for coping. You've made me think about the yarn in my stash and pulling it out and finding a purpose for it, just for the joy of using it and making something wonderful in the face of all the "ugh" going around lately.
I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend, and thank you for sharing the lesson for living for all of us.