For Better or Worse

"And love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience
And the synergy of a kind of symbiotic empathy or... something"
- "If I Didn't Have You" by Tim Minchin


I think it is safe to say, that the first blush of love, or a crush, is a universal experiend. The warm cocktail of brain chemistry that results in a flush of well being, and somewhat, maybe, obsessive thoughts of the object of your affections. It is probably also a shared expereince, that when you have a new object of affection people notice.

Yesterday, a coworker commented that I seem "smiley." And it's true, and I have an object of my affection. It isn't a person, and it isn't new.

I have been a knitter for about eight years. (I have no idea how that happened.) In recent years I have been distracted from my knitting. With good reason, I moved from my home town, across the country to tackle a a dual degree graduate program. During most of that time I have also been working nearly full time.

I believe I have finished one project in the past three years. A pair of socks for the other object of my affections. They were intended to be a Christmas gift, but I finished them in July. Just what every man wants from his girlfriend, a pair of wool socks in the middle of a steamy New England summer. To top it off the first sock had already sustained moth damage.

The past month has been different. Leaving your loved ones behind, and travelling, suddenly refreshes a relationship? How good is it to get home, and have your things and your partner there. A trip together can do the same thing. The change of scenery reminding you to notice the little things. A couple of weeks ago I took a trip, and I left my boy at home, and took my knitting with me.

The project is a lace shawl, knit in Hempathy. Hempathy is amazing for knitting in high humidity. I bought the yarn last year, in the hope that it would spur me onto knitting, something, anything. It didn't happen. But this year the knitting is gorgeous.

Something else has happened, I'm fantasizing about knitting patterns. Patterns of my own design. I've always thought about designing, like many always think about writing a novel. Now, however, ideas for patterns are spring unbidden, begging to be written down, and then onto the needles, and into the world. After eight years, I'm in love with knitting the way I was when I first met the craft. A little bit fluttery at the idea of everything I could do. This would be the for better part of my long term relationship with sticks and string.