Why do I knit?

Why do I knit?  It's a fair enough question.

I knit at the moment because I am depressed.  Knitting keeps my mind occupied and my hands occupied.  It helps me to centre and to relax.  In the process I am making things, gifts for other people.  When I am knitting the rest of the world sort of stops.  I think about the person I am knitting for.  I focus on them, I pray for them.

Perhaps this is why my Prayer Shawl remains a work in progress.  Just at the moment, focusing on me and why I am depressed is just a bit too much to cope with. 

Being depressed is.....well it is many things.  It is challenging.  When you have a broken arm, people can see a cast and so they know that there is something wrong.  When the cast comes off, for a while you will wear a sling and a support bangage and so folks are reminded to tread carefully and to be gentle.  When you are depressed there is no plaster to see. 

Being depressed is a bit like a big tangled ball of string I suppose.  The wires in the brain have got confused and they are consuming the chemicals that the body makes to help us cope and be happy all wrong.  As you begin to untangle the string, things improve, you can use that bit of the string.  But then.... you come to a bit of string that is really tangled or in the process of untangling one bit, another bit that was alright gets tangled.  It's all a bit of a mess and it just needs time and paitence to untangle.  Not to fast, but not too slowly either. 

I guess this brings me back to the knitting.  The yarn, a single length of yarn gets knitted into a piece of fabric, be that a scarf or a hat or a pair of gloves.  It is fashioned into something useful. 

In untangling my ball of string, I get the opportunity to fashion it into something that is useful.