When I first drove to Northfield, decades ago, at the edge of town near the Malt-o-Meal plant was a sign that proclaimed Northfield’s motto: “Cows, Colleges, and Contentment.” Awhile back, this classic phrase was revised to “Cows, Colleges, and Community.” In recent years, both contentment and community have been exemplified for me by a small down-town business called Northfield Yarn–whose motto is cleverly “Cowls, Cardigans, & Contentment.” Since 2011, this welcoming place truly has created a community space, a place of teaching, learning, making, discovering, and befriending. Tomorrow, I plan to visit that tempting emporium. This morning, Northfield Yarn founder Cynthia Gilbertson emailed a thoughtful essay on the importance and great value of supporting local businesses for human community and for the natural environment. (It also included a link to a global map of participating yarn stores!)
My own vestigal knitting skills were learned as a child but never yielded anything (not even pleasure). These skills were reawakened during our homeschooling years when another mother offered a knitting class for mothers and children. Each of us made a hat in infant size to donate to the Northfield Hospital to help a newborn stay warm. Building upon that experience, and now understanding how to knit in the round on bamboo needles, I bought a simple pattern for knitting socks at Northfield Yarn. I was befuddled by the instructions for turning the heel, until another mother of my acquaintance (and a master knitter) graciously taught me what to do and helped me decode the runic instructions. I have blessed her name every time I turn the heel on a new sock, and I hear her voice explain, “What you are doing is creating a little box for the heel to rest on.”
Since then, I have made many pairs of socks and even, due to the hand-holding I needed from Cynthia’s “Sweater Academy” and the Knitting Clinic available from master knitters at the shop, knitted two sweaters. I have made other hats and some scarves and mittens, but my comfort zone is certainly socks.
In college, before I had ever knitted one sock, I read with great pleasure a translation by Robert Bly of a delightfully magical and wise poem by Pablo Neruda called “Ode to My Socks.” The entire translation is available on the Poets.org website. It is the celebration of beauty, utility, and friendship, and winds down the page like a bright strand of spun wool. The poem ends with this stanza:
The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.
Pablo Neruda was not a knitter himself, so far as I know, but he understood the intricate craft involved and the significance of the gift of a hand-knit, custom-made pair of socks–and the importance of using the gifts we are given.
Context for Poem “Decoding the Dream”:
Today’s poem was fashioned out of a dream I had about ten years ago that still has the power to make my pulse race. Ah, knitting patterns…and all seemingly straight-forward sets of instructions!
Until tomorrow,
LESLIE
