ROBIEWANKENOBIE

back in my youth, i was a folk dancer. see above? yeah, that's how i rolled. english. contra mostly. a little american folk. occasionally some danish. but never. and i mean never. square dancing. the horror! one evening my skeptical teen hooligan friends and i got roped into a western square. honestly, i have no fucking clue how that happened.

at this particular dance week, there were two callers. one who did appalachian running squares, and this western caller. ah, i think i might remember how we got into it now. it may possibly have been an opportunity for my friend to flirt with the caller's son. who is now my minister. but i digress...

this was a lesson in faith. and surprises. there was passing. and spinning. and turning. and a request to stop thinking, and keep dancing. at the end of a series of complicated instructions, we were told to turn around...and swing with our long lost partner. lo and behold? long lost partner was right there. i remember that moment. that moment that trust paid off, and the joy that it brought.



i'm knitting a joyful sock right now (fibertrends walking away...the middle one). didn't know socks could be joyful? or knitting? i'll admit...neither did i. one of my frustrations with knitting is that i can't retain a pattern in my head. it doesn't matter how many times i knit a series of stitches, they just don't come into focus. i understand the concept. i can see it in my head, but i can't replicate it with my fingers. although this pattern isn't terribly complicated, it does take its fair share of concentration, and i have put it down and picked it up several times this summer. tuesday i started approaching the heel. and i began to get truly excited.

the heel, my friends, is the western square of knitting.

first of all, heels? scare the crap out of people. i remember when i first started driving the stick shift...people had me so darn scared of the hills? i can't even tell you. you know what? the hills? just the same as start on a flat surface. don't think about the hill...proceed as normal, folks. heels are just like that. not scarier than any other part of the sock, really. as with everything else i knit, i tried like hell to understand the concept. i do, in fact, understand the concept. but, as with everything else i knit, it doesn't translate to my hands. then one lovely person (and i can't remember who it was) said the most brilliant thing...don't think about it, just knit. so i did.

a twist. a turn. picking up stitches. decreasing. turn around. and there, out of nowhere, is the heel.

for the first time since i made the leap of faith last year, i have faltered. i've kept leaping. but the faith part? notsomuch. this parenting thing on no financial guarantees? scary. but i've got to keep remembering that when i finish my complicated set of steps? my partner is there. that starting up the hill? is the same as starting up a flat surface. and that if i keep working through the pattern, even if the concept isn't translating, that i will find joy in the turning of the corner.