Life crashes down around me and I become an obsessed woman. Nothing stops me. I begin cleaning, cooking, knitting, sorting … keeping my hands busy working outside as I internally work on accepting the reality of life’s crashing moments.
I think I surprised my husband the first time a dramatic change fell on our household. Shocked, but unable to sit down and process the loss, I walked into the bedroom and began emptying the closet shelves. Down came the trinkets and clothes and just plain junk that seemed worthy of keeping at one time, but no longer. Out went the unmatched socks, gone the hope of matching them again. Stripping the shelves bare, I began packaging it all up to pass along.
About a year later, my grandmother died and I saw the shock of her passing on her the extended family as I helped clean out her home. Family pictures left the walls, her once valued mementos emerged from their cupboards and collectibles shook off the dust of the years. Each person gathered up a pile to take home and then departed, leaving behind the debris of the unwanted and the no longer needed paperwork and odd little things of no import to anyone else.
The rest were finished for the day, but I went through the house, gathering up paperwork to sort later. I pawed through her stash of yarn, threads and knitting needles and patterns removing papers tucked beside them. Made my way into the basement to search out other artifacts and swept up the detritus of a long life. I could not stop. The minute I thought about leaving and joining the others talking outside beside their cars, I would see another pile to sort and gravitate toward it.
It certainly helped speed up the process of cleaning up the house. and I found corners of my late grandmother’s life that I had not realized before, but it left me exhausted and wiped out for a week afterward.
Years later, we had an abrupt and drastic ending to sharing our home with a series of persons, leaving us quite disillusioned and disheartened. I had the perfect solution. I began cleaning up everything they had left behind. Sorting out my sadness lead to my organizing and compiling everything into a few boxes.
I think I preferred my reaction after my father’s death.
If only I could choose my distress obsession. In the weeks following his death, my mind longed to feel yarn slipping through my fingers as I clicked the needles.
Definitely not my usual craft. Sure my grandmother had pulled out yarn and needles to teach her granddaughters how to knit. I even finished a pinwheel pillow of simple knit and purl. But since then I had only accumulated a failed attempt to make mittens for my children and a miserable attempt at a baby afghan.
I still bought needles and yarn at yard sales to pass along to my sisters, but I gave up on knitting and stuck with cross stitch until that fall when the need to knit haunted me. My hands needed the activity.
I found used needles, some funny looking yarn and began counting off 20 stitches per row to making scarves for grandchildren in cold climates. A long white scarf, a purple scarf or two and a tiny turquoise scarf.
In the midst of my knitting frenzy, an experienced knitter told me that knitting provides a therapeutic release, a soothing exercise for the knitter. I understood completely. The hands need to be busy while the mind sorts out what to do with the unacceptable events it encounters.
Still knitting ferociously at the Christmas gathering I managed to finish and hand the last scarf, a red and white striped scarf to the last minor grand-child. Envious, a couple of the older family members mentioned specific colors of scarves they would like to have.
Obligingly, after the Christmas visit, I collected the yarns, counted out 30 stitches, did a dozen rows and put the needles down. I did not want to knit. It had absolutely no appeal to me. The compulsion had dissipated. I gave most of my leftover yarns to my sister to pass along to an organization that provides crafts for third-world women.
Fortunately for me, processing shocking information also includes writing and writing. I find it quite therapeutic. One drastic change in my life resulted in 80 pages of single spaced typing that will never be released from its long lost floppy diskette.
During the years of working at the paper, I have encountered a few such times. A couple times, I took in the information, packed my clothes and some handwork, arranged my work for others to fill-in while I was gone, then sat down and wrote a feature and a column before I left. One time I wrote three columns, including a humorous one, to cover the time I expected to be gone – all from a pool of ideas that had been waiting to see the light of day.
I knew this job was good for something. Thanks for reading as I continue to sort through whatever life hands me each week.