Cleaning Up

 

I've been knitting dish cloths this winter - those colorful squares I mocked when Grandma made them, likely knitted when she was the age I am now.

Grandma knit us an afghan as a wedding gift and I still have it - somewhere. Big knitted blocks of color - red, turquoise, green, yellow, orange - all crocheted together and bordered in black. She created it in cotton yarn which I appreciated at the time and still do.

I see the afghan on the back of the couch in the old pictures – first in that apartment over the store and later in the little house when the children joined us. There are pictures of it stretched over a card table or couch cushion to make a fort with a little delighted face peeking out.

Knitting, creating something tangible, starting with those lovely wooden needles so smooth to the touch, and a ball of tangled color.  The neat, even stitches collecting across the needle, growing, then decreasing. Slowing my breathing, matching the rhythm of throwing the yarn over. Knits, purls, yarn over, casting on and binding off, untangling the yarn as I go.

And the stack of the square dishcloths grows. My dishcloth drawer is already quite full, most of the brighter colors faded from bleach I sometimes add to the load of kitchen linens when they're washed. And perhaps they're an unwelcome gift, much like my Grandma's were.

Would that I could begin to untangle my emotions and reactions to the chaos of our country since January 20 as easily as I have come to untangle those balls of yarn. Straightening out the threads tangled and knotted and sliced by those men who have grabbed the power in our little corner of this world. Their words, their actions leading only to more chaos and heartbreak for no good reason. There is no good reason.

And still I knit. Dishcloths to wash away mud, grime, feculence, filthiness, rottenness, sleaze and slime.