Knitting Socks: Sanity Saver!

Last weekend was a particularly rough one. Friday evening my dear little 70-plus aunt took a particularly nasty fall; she broke her nose and wound up being airlifted from her home (about two hours driving-time away from me) to the hospital only 3 miles from my apartment. I'll get to the important part first: she lost a frightening amount of blood (she's on blood thinner), she's terribly bruised and awfully sore, but she's back home now and the doctors say she's going to be okay, thank goodness!

Oddly enough, fate had prepared me better than normally. My little car was full of gas, I had plenty of cash on hand (well....plenty for me, anyway), and my Kindle was in my purse. As I ran out the door to try to beat the helicopter to the hospital, I grabbed a partially-knitted pair of socks from the basket beside my recliner and dropped them into my purse.

Because the socks I threw into my bag were my favorite "plain vanilla" socks, I was able to stand outside the trauma room while waiting for procedures to be done and knit away. (Knit 3, purl 1 on top of the foot, plain knit on the sole.) Round and round, over and over. The repetition helped center me, and I was able to be calm and reassuring when I spoke with my aunt.

Circumstances were such that she had to be transferred to another hospital; I stayed with her all night and until late Saturday afternoon. Knitting helped keep me awake and available at a moment's notice each time she needed anything. It had been YEARS since I'd pulled an "all-nighter", and knitting those plain socks was unbelievably helpful. As I told a nurse in the wee hours of the morning Saturday, knitting is cheaper than therapy. Not to mention the fact that you get some pretty interesting socks in the deal!

I'm strongly considering keeping a project bag in the car from now on, just in case of an emergency. As much as I love my Kindle (in fact, I keep tons of knitting patterns on it), reading wouldn't have been an option during a lot of the situations we dealt with over the weekend. I could knit and carry on conversations with my parents, nurses, and doctors. In fact, the knitting actually started several conversations with people, as it always does when I'm knitting in public.

If you've never knitted in public, please try it sometime. Not only is it fun and productive, you meet lots of interesting folks who are either:

1. knitters,
2. crocheters,
3. would-be knitters or crocheters,
   
4. folks with friends or relatives who are knitters or crocheters, or
   
5. folks with memories of mothers or grandmothers who were knitters or crocheters.

And so, fellow knitsters, I leave you with this advice: Knitting is therapeutic, cheap, and non-fattening. Who can ask for anything more?