Most people use the word unraveling as though it's automatically bad. But what if some things need to unravel because they were stitched together incorrectly in the first place?
The unraveling theory, I'll call it. It suddenly seems to fall into place like a well organized puzzle. The legacy systems i trusted are crumbling. 1) Alarming shifts in governments. 2) capitalist systems. 3) revealed histories, and more. They have collectively placed me in drastically different position on the board of life. Like my planned trajectory is in a Bermuda triangle. Its Alarming and initially very upsetting. Its led me to decide to throw away everything I believed in. And follow a path of what transforms my pain to better. Arts and lit, veg and flower gardening. A peasants and people over leaders and legacy systems. Uncharted territory
The knitting metaphor is so apt. I remember when my aunt was teaching me about knitting mittens (and hence socks), if you screwed up somewhere, where a simple crochet hook couldn’t fix a run, then you had to bite the bullet and unravel back down to where you could connect back to the pattern. Even my friends who knit Scandinavian sweaters have to unravel half a project now and then. Once back down there on the raw edge you have to be careful to pick up every stitch and get the new pattern right. This process requires complete honesty about the reality of what screwed up and what has be rebuilt. And doing the work, one stitch at a time.
I’ve been asked many times “don’t you wish everything could be back like it used to be?” My answer always has been and always will be “NO!”
Maybe I remember the past too clearly or I remember too much about the past. I tell my grandchildren these are the good old days. I’m old enough to remember when children died from measles, polio, diphtheria, pneumonia etc. I’ve seen a mother and her children living in an old, ragged tent with no running water, heat and not enough food. I went to school with kids who’s family were camping in an old abandoned house and children who came to school with bare feet and a grownups shirt pinned so it was nearly doubled in lieu of a coat in freezing weather and this was on the white side of town. The conditions on the black part of town were much worse and involved most of the children and adults. This was in a small, oil rich town in East Texas in the 1950’s.
Yes, there were some folks who drove luxury cars, lived in nice houses and whose family wore stylish clothing and some families who had a lifestyle between the two extremes but the majority of this community was suffering though the adults worked daily.
A resoundingly NO I never want to live through this days again.
Yes! Life long knitter here. I've come to accept the fact that I will probably begin a new project several times before it's the way I like it to complete it. My husband used to be shocked when I'd unravel a project and didn't understand my calmness at pulling it apart to start over. It's not really perfectionism -- it's just ok now to experiment with different combinations of yarn fibers or colors, or size of needles, until I'm happy with how it looks and can then commit to the end product.
The unraveling theory, I'll call it. It suddenly seems to fall into place like a well organized puzzle. The legacy systems i trusted are crumbling. 1) Alarming shifts in governments. 2) capitalist systems. 3) revealed histories, and more. They have collectively placed me in drastically different position on the board of life. Like my planned trajectory is in a Bermuda triangle. Its Alarming and initially very upsetting. Its led me to decide to throw away everything I believed in. And follow a path of what transforms my pain to better. Arts and lit, veg and flower gardening. A peasants and people over leaders and legacy systems. Uncharted territory
The knitting metaphor is so apt. I remember when my aunt was teaching me about knitting mittens (and hence socks), if you screwed up somewhere, where a simple crochet hook couldn’t fix a run, then you had to bite the bullet and unravel back down to where you could connect back to the pattern. Even my friends who knit Scandinavian sweaters have to unravel half a project now and then. Once back down there on the raw edge you have to be careful to pick up every stitch and get the new pattern right. This process requires complete honesty about the reality of what screwed up and what has be rebuilt. And doing the work, one stitch at a time.
I’ve been asked many times “don’t you wish everything could be back like it used to be?” My answer always has been and always will be “NO!”
Maybe I remember the past too clearly or I remember too much about the past. I tell my grandchildren these are the good old days. I’m old enough to remember when children died from measles, polio, diphtheria, pneumonia etc. I’ve seen a mother and her children living in an old, ragged tent with no running water, heat and not enough food. I went to school with kids who’s family were camping in an old abandoned house and children who came to school with bare feet and a grownups shirt pinned so it was nearly doubled in lieu of a coat in freezing weather and this was on the white side of town. The conditions on the black part of town were much worse and involved most of the children and adults. This was in a small, oil rich town in East Texas in the 1950’s.
Yes, there were some folks who drove luxury cars, lived in nice houses and whose family wore stylish clothing and some families who had a lifestyle between the two extremes but the majority of this community was suffering though the adults worked daily.
A resoundingly NO I never want to live through this days again.
Yes! Life long knitter here. I've come to accept the fact that I will probably begin a new project several times before it's the way I like it to complete it. My husband used to be shocked when I'd unravel a project and didn't understand my calmness at pulling it apart to start over. It's not really perfectionism -- it's just ok now to experiment with different combinations of yarn fibers or colors, or size of needles, until I'm happy with how it looks and can then commit to the end product.
Love the idea that the unraveling is happening FOR us rather than to us. This gives me an extra ounce of strength to continue polishing my own rock.