Alternate Title: InaUGHuration Day

I didn’t want to get out of bed today. The sense of looming dread that has been hanging over my spirit all week reached a crescendo when I woke up to the sound of torrential rain, as if the heavens themselves were weeping for our country, shedding the tears that seem to be trapped inside me.

Every day this week I thought about writing another blog post, but couldn’t quite manage it. I guess I had to wait for the right moment, this one; as I write these words, on the other side of the continent, a ceremony is officially creating a new President of the United States. Fittingly enough, my phone just provided me with a severe weather alert for flash flood conditions – hazardous conditions abound, it seems.

But not everywhere, even today. My daughter, a student at Tulane University in New Orleans, is on a bus heading north to the Women’s March in Washington, DC tomorrow, which fills me with pride and joy. Of course, I had to crochet a Pink Pussy Hat for her to wear; when she went to retrieve that Priority Mail delivery she also picked up two other after-Christmas care packages I had sent last week, then went back to her room to open them all. She sent me a picture of her in her room, surrounded by the loot.

That photo is enough to keep me going today, and to reinforce my belief in the power of love. A pink hat, a box containing a flock of Mardi Gras rubber duckies and a couple of other Christmas gifts (padded with protein bars and cashews), and a dozen packages of the preferred variety of macaroni & cheese probably isn’t the answer to all the world’s problems, but just look at the pure joy on that face. If you ask me, I think that having consideration and showing love for others, doing things to make them happy, would make a big difference in a lot of little ways.

Course Correction

The yarn (Caron Cake from Michael’s)

Central spiral

Each row needs two extra stitches in each of six panels

Pulling beauty out of the Universe with hook, yarn and pattern

Earlier this week, I ended up ripping out approximately two-thirds of the work I had done on a new afghan (pictured above) because I decided that I had made too many errors in passing, and corrections after the fact didn’t really fix it. The pattern demanded that it be done right the first time, no matter how inconvenient that might seem, and so I went back, and back, and back to the first error I had made and did it all over again.

I had fallen in love with this yarn a while back and thought this spiral pattern would complement it perfectly. It’s not exactly complicated, but does require attention to detail in the form of counting stitches; to keep the spiral growing each row has to have two extra stitches in each of six segments. Each error I made was actually two-fold; first in sometimes forgetting to add those extra stitches where needed, and then in not catching the mistake on the next row, before it was multiplied with each additional round of stitching.

Even the second time around, it remained a challenge to maintain the required level of attention, and a few more corrections were needed, but the results were well worthwhile and I finally made it to the outer section, which is straight stitching with no counting required. All in all, I chose to view the episode as a little compendium of life lessons:

• Pay attention.
• Keep track of where you are and what you need to do here and now.
• Admit mistakes and correct them, the sooner the better.
• Take care of the little details and the big picture will take care of itself.

Crochet allows me to literally pull beauty into existence as I work magic with my hook and yarn, following patterns that reflect the Universe around us. If the fabric of our society seems to be unraveling, pulling us backwards, perhaps this is a necessary correction to draw us back into right relations with one another; in any case, it behooves us all to pay attention to our own work, to count carefully as we go, and above all to love one another.

Even though Barack Obama is no longer our President, if we pay attention to the changes happening now, we can find new hope together. And meanwhile, we can find comfort and joy in the little things, even mac and cheese (White Cheddar with Herbs, if you want the best).

March on, tomorrow and always!