Community and Connection
When the world came to a screeching halt a few years ago, as a teacher I had to jump online and learn to Zoom and use MicroSoft Teams in order to teach my students. MBC set up a Sunday zoom for anyone who needed to see someone they didn’t live with. Our local guild met monthly online, and now that I think of it, they may have met weekly for social knitting too.
We figured it out. We adapted. We remained together–even while apart, but it didn’t fill all of the aching holes we had that were longing for our community.
As the world is opening up again and we are learning where our own comfort level is with regard to gatherings, it is starting to feel like the before times. Smiles, sometimes without masks covering them brighten our days and our tiny circles of community are slowly enlarging.
Since 2016, with a short Covid break, I’ve hosted a small, private retreat that we like to call Craft Camp on the Down Low. It’s a tiny community that gathers at a children’s camp and hauls in all of the crafting supplies you’d expect to see at a big box store, and we knit, weave, sew, paper cut, spin. . .and snack and chat for the weekend.
I knit up some new booth samples. Looked at the 2023 calendar and made some plans. Took some naps. Felt inspired by the friends I haven’t been able to see much for the past few years.
We got together a few weeks ago and it was every bit of rejuvenating as always, and when we returned to our homes? Things accelerated. Some might even say things went to hell in a handbasket.
There have been health crises, a death, a conference for school, snow days, more bad news, and still, even in the chaos of it all. . .the planning and prepping for what 2023 will bring for MBC happening in the middle.
I have a plaque on my desk at school with an Elizabeth Zimmermann quote on it, “Knit on with confidence and hope through all crises.”
I don’t expect that life will be without bumps or spend time longing for life without problems. I do know that the community of crafty people that surround me truly lifts me up. I know that the time I spend in quiet contemplation with yarn or fabric in my hands is calming. The radical act of making one small stitch after another eventually adds up to a row. The rows add up to a motif. And before long? You’re ready to bind off.
As I’ve been finishing up booth samples, it feels very much as though I’m in community. With Mary, the shepherd, and the folks who work at the mill, and Sarah and Julia. . .and even with all of the customers who have admired the wool we’ve had at events. A few friends have a group chat that regularly shares photos of the works in progress that are holding our attention and help encourage each other pick up their project and git’er’done! It may sound a little corny, but the movements that my hands make feel like an echo of the people before and after me who are working through similar issues. I feel a whole lot less alone.
If you’re in the thick of things yourself, head to your “Shrine of Sacred Yarn” and pull out the skein you’ve been holding on to for something special. Cast on something simple for yourself and let yourself join in community with the rest of us who are “knitting on with confidence.” I’ll bet you won’t feel quite so alone.