Patience is a Virtue

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead. ~Mac McCleary

I am not sure the people around me see me as a patient person. Just ten minutes ago I was yelling at my computer in frustration. An inanimate object was subjected to the harshest criticism I could muster at the top of my lungs. I didn't say it made sense, I just said it happened. In this world of instant news, real time sharing social networking, instant potatoes (not that I would eat them), cake mixes, and smart phones how do we teach patience to the next generation?

Everyday we are all subjected to situations that test the limits of our patience. Market checkers that decide you probably wanted tomato sauce not fresh whole tomatoes, so helped out by putting the tomatoes in the bottom of the bag. Drivers on the road that shouldn't be. The horn is my favorite accessory in a car. So many things beyond our control in modern life that are actually helping us all fine tune our patience every day.

As a knitter, patience is just part of any project, large or small. Where would the creativity and fun derive from if it wasn't a process to make each project? It wouldn't be knitting, it would be shopping (not that I don't participate in that sport). Popping into the local merchant and buying a new holiday stocking isn't nearly as fun nor relaxing for me as making a new stocking.

I have never knit from a chart before. How hard can it be? One box per one stitch. Each box with a different symbol indicating the stitch to use and/or color. After a stressful week interviewing for gainful employment, job offers, and making decisions with life altering ramifications, an afternoon of sitting in the garden knitting away to the sound of birds chirping was just what I needed to regroup. I thought.

I also have very little experience with socks, so followed each word of the pattern directions as if they were commandments from the gods themselves for twenty rows or so. That's when I noticed that the writing on the stocking was backwards. Unless I hang it in front of a mirror backwards, I had to tear out and start over, again. Patience. Hard to believe that this is what I do to calm down, but it is. I was feeling a bit too smug having sorted out my work life and thought I would breeze through yet another UFO in an afternoon. I never realized that my knitting was so effective at grounding me back to reality.

Knitters have a different kind of patience than regular folk. If given a situation that involves a waiting period, we look at it as a break to work on our project. I've whipped out my stitching quicker than the PA system at the airport could announce my flight delay. Most of us knitters and stitchers enjoy these little breaks rather than become annoyed at the wait. It is a skill built into the craft. Still, ripping out something for the third time and starting anew doesn't sound appealing, but today it is.

I've learned (with some research) how to read a knit pattern chart. I realized too, that I am a patient person. I was sitting amongst the flowers and vegetables I had cultivated so many months ago, now blooming in full glory, vines laden with ripening vegetables and blossoms. I truly enjoy not only the the fruits of my labors, but all the steps to there. I am not up to par with, say the African Elephant yet. It's gestation period of 22 months must win the award of most patient mammal. It's a goal. So the stocking continues.