Admire Your Work

My knitting friend, Becky, likes to say “You should stop often to admire your work.” Which is to say every once in a while it’s a good idea to look over your knitting to find mistakes while they are easy to fix. It’s a lot easier to rip out a few stitches than to tear out many precious inches of work to fix the glaring hole of a dropped stitch that you (or anyone else for that matter) cannot unsee. I say this from the perspective of a person who just had to tear out an entire I-cord edging on the left front of a sweater vest because it did not match the other side, due to the fact I somehow knit it inside out. As I pulled stitches and exercised my patience muscles, which reside primarily in my jaw and fists, a thought took hold: this could be a great metaphor for life. What if I took time every so often to examine the tapestry of daily life, to “admire” my “work”, to stop what I am doing and look for any mistakes I have made? To use the time to make little fixes before they become so far gone as to become regrets along the way? I have a bag of unfinished knitting projects when as a beginner, I ignored mistakes, got frustrated and gave up. I keep them to look back on the journey and remind myself how far I have come. Life is like that. I think most of us can take out our bag of regrets from time to time, usually around 3AM, the time I find most conducive to self flagellation. I’m thinking maybe my friend Becky’s advice would be best followed during the day, once a week or so, and at best I could recognize a mistake or misstep early enough to correct it – with an apology, or a kindness, or at worst, some personal effort to not make the same mistake in the future. A life well lived is like a complicated afghan knitted with love and given to a person you care for beyond words. It will have one or two mistakes, and maybe you will be the only one who can see them. Then one day you see that person on a zoom screen, wrapped in the warmth of your gift, like the hug you cannot give in person,and your heart will sing with joy and gratefulness that you overlooked the little mistakes, and persevered to fix the bigger ones and finish the work.