~ :F E R T I L I T Y: ~
Here's something productive I can do in spite of fertility woes. I love to knit and feel I need to do some therapeutic work for the soul. I found this pattern for a womb on knitty.com. Wonderful site with great ideas, wit and charm. I think I want to make one for my OBGYN. The only handmade charm in that office are the crocheted stirrup covers to keep your feet warm. Time for something warmer and funnier, no!? I have almost completed my knitty womb and am very excited. I promise to post the finished product here when completed.
Intuitive Empath, Artist, & Instructor
4 comments:
This reminds me of a piece William Heyen wrote in his book, Pig Notes and Dumb Music--little metaphors for writing and life, a book I love. The piece, posted below, is called Evergreen:
"This evening I saw Mrs. Louis, whose husband just died a week ago, walk out across her back lawn to the blue spruce--her 'feeder tree' she calls it--under which she's always scattered birdseed and into which she's always tied cubes of suet for nuthatches and chickadees. She walked slowly around the tree once, twice, then began tying something into it.
I walked halfway across my back lawn to where I could stand hidden behind the lilacs. What she'd tied to the spruce branch gleamed. It seemed to be a silver or gold bracelet.
Mrs. Louis kept doing whatever it was she was doing. Objects glittered in the branches. It took me a while to realize she was tying her jewelry to the tree, piece after piece, diamond rings and pearl necklaces, earrings, wristwatches.
Later, after she'd gone inside and had shut off her lights, I visited the tree, walked around it in starshine and moonlight. I didn't count, but there must have been fifty pieces of jewelry in the tree...
In the morning, I'll have read this situation more clearly, will have to do something, but what? For now, that evergreen, her poem, is all that Mrs. Louis can do to celebrate her grief."
That's beautiful, Tania. This approach acknowledges the pain without losing your sense of wonder or humor. Celebrating grief is such an odd concept. Knitting this silly womb sure feels good.
When I first read it, a few years ago, I thought it was lovely and interesting; it made me cry, but I couldn't figure out why. And that's just it: there's no explaining our responses to grief and pain. We look for ways to express what we're feeling, ways to make ourselves feel better. It's such a random, desperate effort. And, yes, there's beauty in that struggle.
There also is no explaining the most frustrating question of why we're called to grieve in the first place. WHY, why, why? We'll never have that answer. It's only after I resign to never knowing why something bad happened and just let it all affect me. Really feel it. I knew a guy who never really looked grief in the face - whose solution was to bury himself in work - avoiding sitting at home, looking in the mirror. Anything that would slow him down enough to listen to the pain. When you yourself find another person sad, you offer to them what would feel good to yourself. Very few people know how to make themselves a blank slate for a friend to write upon when they are hurting. I wish I could do that better. My friend did not know how to help me when I lost the baby - his solution was to tell me "not to stay home and sink". But I felt like I really needed to stay home and submit to grief, otherwise I'd make myself sick from holding it all in. In a perfect world, we'd all know just what to say, not to say or how to encourage a hurting friend.
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