This last week we have had COVID - all five of us. We were lucky and for most of us on most days it has been mild. But it was a long week. Firstly because of the sickness and confinement, because also because over this last week I’ve also had an essay due for university. Who doesn’t love trying to explain decades of research on complex systematic discipline-wide issue in 1500 words. :) :(
And so I’ve knitted in circles.
The photo above is this week’s scrap project. Not a teeny baby sweater for once but rather maybe a little sweater for a small person - maybe a 1-er? The choice of colours are feeling a bit retro - and like many of my scrap projects, there is something about it that isn’t sitting quite right - yet. It’ll get there and part of the fun is sitting in the uncertainty and knowing that the only way through is to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
And so I keep knitting in small circles.
Small circles because I don’t have the attention to devote to the type of craft that someone with more brain space is capable of. But these small circles have been enough because with each stitch they are visibly moving me forward in some part of my life.
There is a triad of thoughts*, that has been shown be highly associated with depression. About the self: I am no good. About the world: Everything looks bleak. On the future: It’s going to stay like this forever.
We all have these types of thoughts sometimes, but when you have depression you tend to have versions of all three that are more persistent and pervasive.
What I think is helpful about the triad is it points to something important about what we need. And that is that we need to feel like we are OK, that there is something good in our lives, and that there is some forward movement.
Being super reductive, I often think of my craft as a reminder, daily, momentarily, that all three of these things are true in this moment. If I am making a thing I capable of doing (good) things. There is something kinda fun in my life. And my life has possibility and forward movement.
Now obviously someone who was feeling the need to be a bit unkind, could look at my little sweater and say “well if that is all the possibility and fun you have going on, that’s a bit sad”. But that statement is buying into this idea that the moments worth living for are the big ones when something sensational is happening. That what we all need is big flashy wonderful stuff all the time. And we don’t. We wouldn’t want that. It would be unsustainable but it also isn’t what life looks like.
Because daily life isn’t made up of those big flashy moments. Those moments are the outliers. Most moments are mundane. Beautifully mundane, replete with all the small joys and annoyances of the everyday. And by small I do mean really small. Joy can be so simple. A breath, a glance, some sunlight, a stitch.
These moments are what makes up a life, and making makes those moments better.
Because it provides me with evidence of my day. That I am real and here and that my life is tangible. Of my ability to create beauty in that day. And that tiny acts - wrapping yarn around sticks - is what big things are made of.
Life is made up of small beautifully mundane moments, and having visible evidence of forward movement, of not being stuck, are essential for minds that were made to be thinking about survival.
This little sweater has kept me company this week. And I am grateful to have been walking alongside her.
Felicia x
PS. It’s called the cognitive triad if you want to look it up.
