Knit

Knit.  To take one thing and make it into another thing.  Yarn stops being yarn and becomes something else.  A  sweater.  A scarf.  A new thing.

Something that has been sewn together is always at risk of coming apart at the seams…always at risk of becoming pieces again.  But when you knit yarn into something new, even when things begin to unravel, that yarn never goes back to being yarn.  It’s a sweater that needs mending.  Or a scarf with a loose end.  Nobody ever calls it yarn again.  Ever.

And this is how I know a mother is not sewn.

You can’t stitch together a mother from the bits of the woman that was there before.  A mother is not pieced together from girl, daughter, sister, wife, friend.  A mother is not remnants and seams.  Even the best stitches couldn’t hold those pieces together.

Knit. To take one thing and make it into another thing.  Once you’ve been knit into something new, you never go back to being what you were before.

That woman…she is the yarn that is knit into something new when she becomes a mother.  She never forgets what she’s made of; daughter, sister, wife, friend, but when you knit that girl into a mother she becomes something new.  When you knit that friend into a mother, she is transformed.  Even when things get a bit frayed around the edges and need special care, or begin to unravel and need a bit of mending, she never goes back to being just that woman again.  Ever. 

Knit.  One thing made into another with a careful hand and a practiced rhythm.   Knit.  A new thing created with time and patience.  Knit.  A project started and stopped, restarted and changed but once it is begun it’s no longer yarn.  Knit.  Not pieces stitched together, but a new creation.    

Once you’ve been knit into something new, you never go back to being what you were before.