Life. Paths. Knitting.

Life
is
like
a
hand knitted
scarf.

Ernie wrote me back today. I was fairly floating after I read his email. We were friends in high school. People are so interesting. It's fascinating to hear of their past and I marvel at the paths they have taken to get where they are.

Last week I finished knitting a scarf that I'm overall pleased with. It turned out, may I say, beautiful. It's colorful. It's useful. And best of all, it's one-of-a-kind. Heh. And when I ran up the street to show it to Reta (she taught me to knit) the first thing I did was loudly announce that there were a lot of mistakes in it and the chenille covered them up well, and also I thought the knot where I connected new yarn to the old yarn really stood out. To prove it I tried to find the knot to show her. I thought I knew exactly where it was but it took me a good minute to find it.

Reta, almost 20 years my senior, watched me patiently then she told me in a very no nonsense manner, that no one else will see my mistakes. "Don't worry about them!" she explained. She said only I see every mistake and that's how knitting is. Everyone else will think it's a beautiful scarf. It was she who told me to keep knitting and stop pulling it apart and starting over every time I knitted an imperfect stitch. I immediately felt better about the mistakes that I imagined detracted from my work of art.

And in the very same way, I immediately felt better after I read Ernie's email to me. Ernie is very smart and intuitive. He gave me clarity.

Isn't life like that? Our mistakes are woven in, our imperfections part of the garment, but we can continue and end up with a beautiful life anyway; a life that's colorful, useful, imperfect, and one-of-a kind.