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I agree -- there wasn't a choice in the poll that fit me perfectly either. Perhaps somewhere between the first choice and the second....

By  Mary, at 11:03 PM  

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This week’s Knitter’s Review poll got me to thinking. Here’s the question:

How would you define your current interest in knitting?

And here are the choices:


I am utterly, completely, and shamelessly obsessed with knitting.
I think I'm moving from totally obsessed to a healthy level of enjoyment.
I like to knit, but I wouldn't put a bumper sticker on my car advertising it.
I used to be more enthusiastic about it, but I've fallen into a bit of a rut lately.
I've had to put my enthusiasm on hold for the summer.
I'm trying to see what everyone else sees in it, but I don't always succeed.
I hate to say it, but I think my love affair with knitting is on its way out.
I absolutely despise knitting. What am I doing here, anyway?

Polls, like those darling quizzes, are fun, but no matter how clever the pollster is when she designs her list of questions and the categories into which she slots her subjects, they all share a single flaw - the choices are never quite an exact fit ... and “Other” is too much work to fill out. I suspect “Other” is a fishing expedition for ideas to jump-start the pollster’s imagination. The people who choose other are probably lumped into either the Creative category or the Troublemaker.

Mind now, I adore those people who come up with the questions, be they quizzes or fun, but real data gatherers like the KR polls. They’re clever, often very funny, displaying wit and creativity in their categories and their organizational choices. So this is not a complaint or a rant or grouse or anything like that.

It’s far more a bit of navel gazing into my current status. A checklist into TheQueen to see where her fiberish soul has been spending its time. I’m curious about this, not just because I am totally fixated on HerHighness, but because there is a subtle shift going on in my world. I’m pushing that shift with some serious energy work (I love that term - it can mean so many things but it always means what I mean too), and my little Virgo soul adores the idea of an inventory of myself. My blabbermouth self loves the idea of putting it down on paper and my Diva self is pleased to share it with the universe via this blog.

So. Taking Missy C’s choices as a road-map let us begin the journey.

I am utterly, completely, and shamelessly obsessed with knitting.

Lawasee, I remember how much fun it was to be there. I couldn’t wait to share everything I was doing with someone, to teach, to read, to answer every question posted on KR forums, to belong to several other mailing lists, to start a Blog!! Thoughts about knitting were my constant companion, whispering in my ear wherever I was, whatever I was doing. Like the flush of falling in love, it was, and I suppose, like that crazy wild stage, it couldn’t last. My new yarn was bound to pill. The pieces so carefully knit would pucker when sewn up. The sweater, tried on just before the button band was knit, would be too small...really to small.

This need not be a sad thing. It is usually the next stage in the natural blossoming of true love. But it can also be the harbinger of divorce so let us look at the rest of the choices and see which one fits TheQueen most nearly.

I think I'm moving from totally obsessed to a healthy level of enjoyment.

This is a pretty good choice - mostly because I like to think I approach life in a healthy manner, making good choices that keep me safe and sound. Even my obsessions have something of the wise good choice about them. I like to say I live by the Doctrine of Pleasure and when something no longer gives me pleasure, I stop doing it. At least, as soon as I recognize it, I stop. The whole purpose of my present spiritual activity is to train me to recognize things more quickly and have ready responses lined up for the swift and easy passage back into joy.

But ... I have watched other passions dwindle down to nothing. Could it be that my passion for knitting and other things fiber is actually fading away, that this is just the very dawn of divorce between fiber and me? Let us examine further....

I like to knit, but I wouldn't put a bumper sticker on my car advertising it.

I never put bumper stickers on my car. BD put that Pollard sticker on my car so he could find it among the sea of white cars in large parking lots.

I used to be more enthusiastic about it, but I've fallen into a bit of a rut lately.

Hmm. I am not knitting very much, but I don’t have a/c and it’s summer and it’s the south . . . and I am designing and inventorying things a little every day. No - I don’t think I’m in a rut.

I've had to put my enthusiasm on hold for the summer.

Maybe - this is another good option. I will knit more once the oppressive heat is gone. I’ll be indoors more, sitting more, feeling more cozy. But that steady thrum of putting things together in my head smacks a little too much of enthusiasm to choose this answer.

I'm trying to see what everyone else sees in it, but I don't always succeed.

Cute choice; snappy, giggly and a tad obvious. Of course another person’s obsession is weird. Other people are weird. Only self makes sense and even then, only some of the time. I almost never try to see what “everyone else sees in it”, like all those people who loved the Ya-Ya Sisters book. I just dismiss “everyone” else as ... lesser different beings.

I hate to say it, but I think my love affair with knitting is on its way out.

This is the one that pricks me. I have let beautiful creative flowing energizing outlets shut down in the past. My garden is a mass of weeds that even Frances Hodgson Burnett couldn’t put right. It will take the brutality of a tiller to fix this mess. When BD pushed my beautiful ceramic jar off the kitchen counter, the last little flame of desire to fashion beauty from painted clay went out. I don’t even have a song in my head all the time anymore, much less play either violin or harp. Passions move out of your life. That’s just the way it is. You can try to drum up renewed interest, but it’s as if they have their own calling as well. As if the love of knitting will live with me a while and then go to live with someone else. Knitting’s inanimate, but soulful self might just not have found the fit it was looking for in me.

Knitting is not an independent entity, you say? It can not choose, but must survive within its host like some parasite? It’s inanamateness (Lawsee I love the OED!) is like that of a chair or a rock? One can not have a spiritual relationship with objects, and surely not with activities? I am going wack-o?

Ahh well. There. You may think what you please. Read Asimov. Laugh at me. I will still go upon my way having personal relationships with the universe and laughing at myself as well! And of one thing I am abundantly sure. Nothing that we have loved ever completely leaves us. The act of love is so transforming that by loving we become a newer version of ourselves. We can not be the person we were before our encounter with the object of our love and that very growth, that expansion, reminds us always of the love we once held and the lover we once knew.

And so - I am not actually frightened that my interest in knitting will one day fade into memory. At the moment I imagine I would regret it - but I also know if it were to happen, it would only be to make room for another love to walk in.

I absolutely despise knitting. What am I doing here, anyway?

Well there. You have to have something for people who accidentally clicked the wrong link, or who’s typing is so abysmal they found themselves on this webpage.

As for any conclusions I could draw from this little exercise? At the moment, my designing and pondering and inventorying and touching urges tend to belie any true parting from my fiber-love. Time alone will reveal the future. In the mean time, I will just flow along with my present state of moderate knitting activity and wait to see what happens. I picked answer #2 and I’ll stick with it for the time being.