How to Knit a Sock

I have been an occasional knitter since high school when my mother and I made an afghan together. She let me choose the colors. I chose three shades of blue. We were both very proud of it. It was a mess.

Since then, I have also knitted two sweaters and many, many scarves. Scarves are my best thing. I can hear all you real knitters laughing out there, exclaiming, "What a poser!" You'd be right. 

Nonetheless, with the approach of winter here in Maine, I began thinking of all the accessories that could help us bear up against the cold. Socks seemed like a really good idea. 

The pattern I chose results in thick booties, more like slippers than socks. To do it you make the sock way too big, then "full" (shrink) it in hot water in the washing machine.

To my way of thinking, knitting a sock would be a lot like knitting a scarf. Just like a scarf, a sock is a small, simple accessory, right? Small yes, simple no. 

Only after I began my adventure in sock knitting did I realize that a sock has many parts. Each part requires its own unique approach and set of skills. And somehow these disparate parts need to come together to make an integrated (and wearable) entity. 

Consider with me the anatomy of a sock. First, there's the leg, then comes the heel flap, then the heel turn, the gusset, the foot and finally the toe. (Interestingly, Europeans start at the toe and work back to the leg. Wonder how that affects the psychology of the sock?) 

For each of those elements, certain rules must be followed so that the whole thing has some remote chance of coming together. To make things just a little more interesting, you've got to use four double pointed needles in order for it to form into a tube. 

Lucky for me, perseverance is my strong suit. It came in handy as I ripped out and started over four times. Here are two of my failed attempts. 

The first time I goofed, I had gotten through the leg but messed up on the transition to the heel flap. The second time, I got through that and messed up on the heel turn. Each time, I became more proficient with the earlier steps. Two steps forward, one step back.

It reminded me of practicing the piano. When you hit a difficult passage, you tend to start at the beginning of the piece to try to make your way through the difficult part more smoothly. When it is all said and done, you are far more proficient at playing the beginning of the piece than the middle or the end, simply because you've played it so many more times!

By now you know me well enough to know this isn't about socks. It is about perseverance.

So many people believe that someone who gets things done or is willing to tackle difficult tasks has some special gift. That's not the case. It's all about sweat equity: putting in the time, getting up after falling down, starting over. 

How does one acquire perseverance? The truth is you acquire it by pushing through on just one difficult task until you reach the end. Having done it once, just once, you know that you can. Then you can apply it to any task before you. 

And expect moments of frustration and misery. Those feelings will pass. And don't expect perfection. You don't need to get it right, you just need to get it done. Getting it right will follow in time.

Finally, if you don't know where to start, you can always try knitting a sock.

Copyright Starfishdoc 2008

What's Worth Doing?

Here is my favorite "zen" question:

What is it that you are not doing
while you are busy doing
what it is you are doing?

I like this saying for at least two reasons. The first is that I made it up myself! The second is that when I reflect upon it from time to time, it helps me tweak my priorities.... and I'm needing to tweak right now.

As you have noticed, I have been posting less frequently. What I have not been doing (writing a post each week) is because of what I am doing (teaching three social work classes at USM).

Both pursuits are extremely important to me; and yet, at times I find myself torn and wishing I could spend lots more time doing both. (I've also not been quilting, but let's not even go there!) Since my students are my newest readers as well as my current responsibility, I write today's post for them. It's about priorities.

On the first day of class, their faces were as bright and shiny as the blank pages of their new notebooks. But now, with pages of scribbled notes they may not be able to decipher at exam time, they appear to be asking:

"What am I doing here?"
"What's this all for?"
And above all, "What am I missing out on while I'm doing this?"

In other words, the realization of the enormous commitment they have made to becoming professional social workers has hit them hard.

All of us, students or not, face the challenge of what's worth doing. The greatest struggles arise when two or more vital pursuits compete for our limited time and energy.

The usual advice - to "examine and adjust your priorities" - never works for me. It suggests that if you were to examine your heart, you'd see that one priority has more weight than another. But my heart holds dear many people and many pursuits. It would be a Solomon's choice to pick one.

When two or more pursuits are equally compelling in your life (and I believe that this is often the case), you need to understand how the two are related: how they complement and inform one another. When you do that, you are less likely to feel that you are stealing from one to do the other. When I write, my teaching improves. When I teach, my writing improves. When I'm doing one, I don't have to feel guilty about not doing the other because, in a way, I'm doing both.

Now that may sound like compromising the quality of both endeavors. But my thinking is guided by something William James once said:

"The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it."

Applying that principle, teaching and writing are both worth doing. And I don't believe that James meant spending your life doing some one thing that would make you famous or for which statues would be built in your honor. You see, he also said:

"I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions, and big successes. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets..."

So, I think I'll tend to my rootlets. Maybe one of them will lead me back to quilting.

Copyright 2008 starfishdoc