SPEAK
STITCHING AWAY STRESS
When life hands you a knotted, tangled mess of yarn, make a scarf. by Carolyn Tharp
Each year, as people unpack their clothes for a cold Kansan winter, I get out my purple canvas bag full of yarn and knitting needles. I've been knitting since December 14, 2002, my freshman year and the day my friend attempted suicide. I sat in the hallway of our dorm floor with six other girls while one friend taught us how to knit. We were waiting for the Oliver Hall staff to come tell us if our friend, Allison, was alive or dead.
On Stop Day eve, the night when most students celebrate the end of the semester by getting wasted, Allison, alone in her dorm room, hanged herself. Residents on the seventh floor found and revived her, but the several minutes of oxygen deprivation left her in a vegetative state.
Through 10 floors, gossip and rumors floated that she had already died and people speculated why she did it. Kids talked about seeing her at the bars the night before. Suddenly, everyone seemed to know her somehow.
The six knitters had only known Allison for four months. But in that short time, she struggled with bullimia. She had mixed alcohol and aspirin to the point of being hospitalized, and she missed so much class that graduating seemed impossible.
My friends and I waited somberly in the hallway, quiet except for the sound of aluminum knitting needles clicking together. We focused on each individual stitch and the soothing, back-and-forth motion.
The tension eased as we started talking about Allison. One girl smiled and recalled how Allison always walked around eating a spoonful of creamy peanut butter. Another laughed as we talked about Allison's color-coordinated closet, probably the most organized of any in Oliver Hall. After a while, I could see my tiny bunches of yarn starting to form the shape of a scarf. I was building something out of what seemed like a hopeless situation.
I've carried knitting with me from the dorm to my first apartment, through four winters and into my senior year. Now, I knit to pass the time. I knit to relax. I knit to myself. Whether I'm tired from a long shift at work or upset with a not-so-hot grade, the act of sitting down and focusing on the monotonous motion of pushing the needles back and forth, moving stitches over and adding more yarn, centers me.
I knitted in the movie theater during the third episode of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've knitted on airplanes, at coffee shops, at home on my couch.
Many of my friends and family sport scarves that I made them. After knitting for four years, I'm still not that good. I haven't tried to do much more than the basic square shape. I've attempted hats but don't finish every project I start.
I don't have an owner in mind for every scarf I begin.
I knit because I like the motion of sitting down and making something.
Wherever I am, knitting brings me back to that therapeutic Friday when my friends and I came together in such a painful situation. That day went on and so did the rest of freshman year. After months of struggling, Allison passed away that June.I knitted then, even though the weather was warm, and I'll be knitting next winter, too.
CAROLYN.THARP
04. 13.2006 JAYPLAY <19