Nurturing the seeds with knitting

I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot lately.  She died three years ago this week, and that tends to dredge up all the feels. I miss her wisdom.  She understood human nature better than most and was always able to see right to the core of a difficult interpersonal situation.  Even so, she could be one of the world’s most challenging individuals, demonstrating her own maxim  When we are the hardest to love is when we need it the most, but that’s a story for another day.

One thing she always said was When the worst possible thing happens,  it always contains the seeds to salvation.  Somehow it feels a little less sappy than the whole silver lining cliché, because you don’t just break open a bad thing and find a pot of gold in there.  You have to work for it.  You have to look for and find those seeds.  You have to plant them and water them and tend them carefully.  You have to find the right light and the right soil and the right everything for it to work. But without the crisis, there would be no seeds. 

This whole Covid thing has been about as bad as it gets.  People are suffering not just from the virus, but from the  isolation that dragged from weeks to months, and now onto a year.  Humans were not meant to be isolated from family and friends. We were meant to live together in community, as we have since the beginning of time.  Especially knitters. 

So about those seeds.  For about as long as I can remember, I’ve been promising virtual classes. Promisig them to shop visitors who live far away; to military members and spouces who’ve moved to their next duty station, and others.  They’ve been waiting.  They’d probably be waiting still, as real life gets in the way of virtual life.  I’ve said, oh, I’ll do recorded classes, which I have, but it was not until Covid shut us down, and everyone retreated to the safety and isolation of home, that I realized I had to get busy and do something. 

The something started as daily gratitude posts on Instagram, soon replaced by live broadcasts that viewers could watch in real time and be part of the conversation.  But it’s not quite the same as being there, is it?  At first Zoom and all the rest were in the category of too challenging and only for important business meetings, but as the whole mess dragged on, everyone got on board and Zoomed (pardon me) into the future of virtual get togethers.

These are the seeds I’ve been watering since the summer.  We are half way through a knitalong I did as a trial run for the zoom class concept.  People like it.  It’s connecting us, in real time, which is what we’re starving for--seeing other people’s faces, hearing them talk, and all of us laughing together.  These are the interactions we have missed, and the virtual classes are filling in so well, that I am filling the schedule with them. 

In some ways zoom is better than in person.  People I haven’t seen for a long time are right there, face to face - connected. It has the power to make us better, broader, stronger, and I like that.  I  I hope you will join me to water the seeds and help cultivate our virtual community .

I look forward to seeing you around the virtual table.  You are always welcome here. 

Warmly,

Ellen

Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments ~E