elizabethlevett

I have a ball of yarn on my dresser. It’s waiting there when I come home from work. Just the sight of it evokes a feeling of relief, of contentment. There’s a modest length of simple knitting attached to it – just garter stitches – about 5 inches or so. It’s a gorgeous variegated merino wool from Peru. The colors that run through it are silvery pale olive, indigo, midnight blue, and a deep eggplant purple – perfect for a scarf this time of year – mid winter into early spring. It is softer than silk, as soft as the fur behind a kitten’s ear.

Last week I was out for a girl pal lunch date and my girl pal decided she needed to visit the yarn store on 18^th Street. She wants to crochet a sweater. Now a sweater is a commitment. It takes lots of yarn and lots of work. It can also take lots and lots of time to pick out just the right yarn. I’ve made plenty of sweaters in my time though it’s been years. (How the heck am I nearly two years into a pandemic and haven’t knitted a single row? How is it possible – not a stitch? I ask myself these questions as if I never seem to accomplish enough to satisfy my inner judge.)

So I try to help my friend. She wants black with little flecks. I slowly scan the lambswool, the alpaca, the merino, the cotton blends. I’m no help. She’s on her own. She knows just what she wants even if she doesn’t see it right away. She’s sure it must be here. So I decide to poke around on my own – so many textures and weights, such a dizzying array of colors in every imaginable hue. I notice an empty chair near the front window and just sit for a little while. This is dangerous. The chair is deeply comfortable. I close my eyes. Soon another customer begins winding several skeins of yarn one by one into balls using the lovely, bony old wooden contraption that stands just behind my chair. The soft, slow rhythm is enough to lull anyone into sleep – especially someone who ate like we did at lunch. (You wait that long for a table in the sun, you eat everything!)

No, this won’t do. My friend is still looking, still estimating, still deciding. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to just check out that intriguing display of merino color blends over in one corner. And why not? There are only two skeins so a large project wouldn’t be possible. Besides, do I really want to come home after trying to teach disturbed children all day and start admonishing myself for not making enough progress on some massive and complicated project? Who needs that? No, too daunting.

On the other hand, a scarf is easy, predictable, comforting. Just imagine encircling my shoulders with softness and rich, soothing color? It’s a pricey yarn – something I’d struggle to rationalize if I need six or eight skeins. I wouldn’t spring for it under normal circumstances. But since when have circumstances been normal?

So I picked out one gorgeous skein. “Are you sure that’s enough?” my friend asks me in the car. “It’s enough,” I tell her, “it’s perfect.” And it is. Like Baby Bear’s chair it’s just right – a perfect sphere once I got the skein untangled and rolled into a ball. A perfect orb of swirling color. An attainable luxury. A gentle and unchallenging project to find waiting for me at the end of the day. Best part is, there’s no rush. There’s no need to mark my progress and worry about getting enough done – just a few rows each evening after dinner and something lovely to wear around me while dreaming of warmer times to come around again.