Free-Range Knitter Read online

  Your humble servant,

  Stephanie

  This Is a Test

  I think I am understanding it now. This is a test. A test of my character or my will or something. Some higher power has decided to find out what I’m made of, and lo and behold, my test has come not in the form of a child to be rescued from a burning building or a choking stranger who needs the Heimlich maneuver. Nor has it come in the form I most feared: I took French until I graduated and was congratulated on that day with the knowledge that now that I had completed grade thirteen French, my government considered me bilingual. I feared that my allegedly bilingual nature would be recorded, that my name would be written on some large official list of people who could be counted on to translate French in a pinch, and that all of this would culminate in some incredible nightmare of an afternoon when a desperate police officer pounded on my door and dragged me into the street to perform a French-speaking function to save thousands of lives—something like defusing a French bomb. I have imagined this moment ever since that day, and in this horrible vision I imagine myself horror struck, finally realizing that the moment of testing is upon me, and all I think of in that terrible moment is that my final grade in French was only a 64, and that means I am only 64% bilingual, and it’s been years since then so it’s probably much, much less, and I try to explain that to the police. I try to tell them they should get someone else, and they just won’t listen because my name is on the list, and I do my best but kill us all through my pathetic lack of French, and the last thought that passes through my mind as the bomb explodes is that it all could have been different if I had done just a little more homework. That would be a character test with some drama. That is more in keeping with what I thought the ultimate test of my self would be, but no. The same way I was disappointed to discover that parenthood is really mostly about washing things, it turns out that the test of my character that I have felt was coming for forty years turns out to be a tiny cream baby bonnet.

  I have, at the time of this writing, ripped it back out no less than eight times, and I swear to you in the name of everything I hold dear that if I had not promised my sister-in-law that I would work this out (and if I had not been cocky and self-assured when I did so), I would have shoved the whole thing in my mouth by now, gnawing at it until my eyeteeth were sharpened with rage and I could spit sodden bits of it upon the dirty ground until my revenge felt entirely sated. The last time I was this frustrated by something this small it was an eight-pound newborn human who had invested in a personal mission to keep me awake for days on end and then puked on me to make the point. I didn’t take action then only because I loved the thing, and it took me thirty-seven hours of labor to get (other than that, I would probably have abandoned it, at least for a little while).

  I owed this bonnet no such allegiance.

  It had started, as all the best tests of character do, with a pretty ordinary event. (Tests of character are like that. The person who is to be tested seldom has any warning.) My sister-in-law Kelly, who, despite how it went down later, is actually a very nice person who (I think) bears me no malice, showed me a small thing and confessed an obsession. She produced, out of the things her daughters had when they were babies, a wee bonnet. It was cream-colored plain wool. Fine wool, too, the weight called “baby” that always seems so perfect for tiny new beings, and it was a little felted and worn from frequent and affectionate use. It was garter stitch, plain knitting every row, it had a wee peak that dipped down onto the baby’s forehead, and it tied under the chin with ivory satin ribbon stitched to the front bottom corners. The hat itself, as much as it was simple and charming, was rather queerly wrought, and this was the challenge. It was knit side to side somehow, with short rows to shape the crown (I thought) and subtle casting on and off to make the peak. Kelly felt in her heart of heart that this hat was the best and possibly only thing that she could knit for an impending baby, but the pattern had been lost. Kelly had received that hat while she was living in Denmark with her babies, and she had been so enchanted with this style of bonnet, so unlike anything she’d ever seen before, that she had asked the knitter for the pattern. She’d received it, not in the form of a book or a leaflet, but handwritten on a piece of paper. Kelly had cherished it for years, this heirloom pattern, but as time passed and they moved from country to country, she had misplaced it. Now she needed it so she could carry on this time-honored tradition and bless a friend’s new baby with it. Was there anything I could do to help?

  I told Kelly that I would figure it out, and I examined it thoroughly, took careful notes, and began what I thought would be a simple matter of reverse engineering. I’d done it before with vintage knits that had no patterns, and although this looked a little tricky, rescuing this Danish folk pattern from extinction seemed like a worthy endeavor.

  The first attempt was half a misshapen blob. I had the sense to abort the mission when it was obvious that I wasn’t even in the hat department. The second improved markedly and was a whole, shaped blob. The third one began to resemble a bonnet, although only to me, and I admit I had insider information—I knew I was aiming for a hat. The fourth one was the first attempt that looked like a hat to another person. I asked the kids what they thought it was, and they said, “A bonnet.” Well, it wasn’t their first guess, but they ran through the possibilities (“Doily? Sleeve? Doll scarf? Booties? Bonnet?”), and it was at least on the list. I realized I had a lot of work to do on it, though, when Amanda chastised Meg for her guess. “Bonnet? Holy cow, Megan, do you even have eyes? It doesn’t look anything like a bonnet.” Bad sign.

  After that fourth attempt, I took a little break. I had been knitting this one demented hat for more than a week, and all I had was the memory of my failures. I felt like I was in Groundhog Day, that movie where Bill Murray has to wake up and do the same day of his life over and over and over again until he gets it right. Actually, no. If it was the same day over and over, there wouldn’t be more laundry piling up around me while I sat for days on end fiddling with a bonnet. I thought about quitting, but I was the arse who had told Kelly that reverse engineering this hat would be simple, and there was no way I was going to her and admitting that I had failed this test of character. Especially not to Kelly. She really was bilingual. It was very overwhelming.

  The fifth hat was a breakthrough. It was actually hat shaped. It wasn’t shaped like the hat in question, and I was still having big problems with that peak, but it was so nice to see anything like headgear at all that I thought about buying more wool and having that one bronzed. The sixth one had a peak, but it was totally too long, and instead of dipping fetchingly over the baby’s brow, this one would have covered eyes and nose and doubled as a pacifier. Still, it was a peak, and I was so thrilled and relieved about it that I thought about calling Kelly and telling her that I was getting closer. Then I decided I would rather the thing looked effortless. There was no reason anyone needed to know about any of this. They certainly didn’t need to know that I had developed an odd habit of chewing on my lower lip every time I saw baby wool, that the kitchen floor was so dirty that I was starting to worry that the cat would get stuck down to it, and that when I thought about it, I wasn’t sure I had seen my youngest child in a few days.

  The seventh one was a wonder to behold. It was exactly right. I trembled a little when I slipped it off the needles. The charming peak was perfect. (I had to remember to call it charming, because that’s what Kelly had said it was. I had come up with other adjectives that I shall not repeat here.) The shaped crown in the back was shaped like a head, and a human one at that. Yes. I wiped away a tear of joy. This one was just about right, except for the part where it was so much bigger than a newborn’s head that any pregnant woman who received it at a baby shower would have fainted dead away at the prospect of what lay ahead for her. Number eight sadly swung the other way and would have been at home on an orange rather than a infant. Too small, much too small. That one would have only raised the pregnant woman’s
hopes and given her false confidence.

  Number nine, number nine looked good. Really good. Really beautiful, really the right size, really almost perfect. Almost perfect, except the shaping at the crown wasn’t quite right. It didn’t match the notes I’d made about the original, and I wasn’t sure why. Another decrease, maybe? Sew it up another way? I was so frustrated, I wanted to walk away. I probably needed to walk away, but the more I thought about it, it felt like giving up, and when I had 99% of it licked that just wasn’t right. Moreover, it seemed a shame to have developed this nervous tic, the lip chewing, and the heart palpitations the doctor said were stress all for nothing. That was this morning, and that’s when I decided that this was going to go my way. If I was going to come out of this a changed and shattered knitter, I wanted Kelly to get a pattern that was as perfect as the original. I could meet this challenge without quitting. The trouble was, I was at a loss. The strategy I had at that moment, thinking up revenge strategies against the wool, was hardly going to be productive. Whoever came up with this little hat in the first place clearly had more mental resources than I did, especially since I’d taken to drinking in the afternoon since about hat four. I needed help if I was going to pass this test of character.

  I dragged myself upstairs to my pattern library. I have half a million knitting books, magazines, and leaflets; one of them I thought, has to have some help in it. I began thumbing through them, making piles around me, sitting on the floor. I hadn’t brushed my hair in a while. I had little wisps of cream baby wool stuck to my pants. By the time I’d pulled about half the magazines and books off the shelves hoping for even a shred of inspiration, I had developed a tremor in my right hand that was probably caffeine withdrawal, and not even the cat would make eye contact with me. I toyed with the idea of “good enough” and imagined the moment that I showed my reverse-engineered heirloom baby hat to Kelly and gave her the pattern that was almost right. I imagined her dejection, and then I picked up another book. I’m not good at much, but I could be good at this.

  As nighttime came, I was beginning to lose hope. I’d been through all the magazines and read all the articles with promising titles, and I’d started to feel as if the only solution to this was going to be changing my name to Lola, moving to San Francisco, and taking up papier-mâché to erase all shreds of my previous identity. (I probably would have felt less strongly about that in the morning.) I pulled another book off the shelf and started flipping through it. On page 38, I stopped, and suddenly I could hear the blood pounding in my head. My heart was beating irregularly, I’m sure of it—and if there was ever a time that you could apply the word “ashen” to someone’s complexion, I feel it was mine. The air rushed out of my lungs in horror.

  The pattern for the heirloom hat, the old pattern passed on by Danish grandmothers for generations, wrought by memory and intuition on the needles of a Danish knitter and passed on to Kelly on a scrap of yellowed paper, long lost now, this charming expression of Scandinavian history and style that I had been trying to reverse engineer for more than a week in order to provide Kelly with a way to carry on the tradition in her own life so that this pattern didn’t die out and be lost to all of humanity …

  It was on page 38 of an American knitting book. It wasn’t old at all. It wasn’t historic at all. The knitter that Kelly knew in Denmark must have written it out from the book when Kelly asked for it, and Kelly had inferred the rest. I stared and stared. If the roof of my house had caved in at that moment I would have done nothing to save myself. I just would have sat there, the full pattern, clear as day, laid out in front of me.

  It had truly been a test of my character. That was the only possibility, and I couldn’t even tell whether I’d passed or failed. Damn, I thought, looking at the pattern. At least it wasn’t in French.

  Mother Says …

  Parenting is a really odd racket. It encourages a human being to become flexible, quick thinking, strong, and resilient, even under the worst or most challenging circumstances. (We will pause now and silently reflect that this is also the goal of the Navy SEALs.) Each moment could bring utter delight, a test of your patience, or an engulfing house fire.

  In exchange for stretching the absolute limits of human endurance by depriving you of sleep, cash, and warm meals, there are no performance appraisals and no corporate board to take the human rights violations to. I don’t know how other people do it, but I personally have managed to survive parenting by accepting each moment for what it is. A tiny slice of life. A little jewel of human experience. Potential for a court case or the reason that my kids will someday say that they are in therapy. When I am an older woman, my children will be grown, and I will lead a boring, simple life filled with things like novels, clean pants, uninterrupted knitting time, and long soaks in the tub. I’m sure when that day comes, days like this one will seem almost sweetly sentimental in my recollection.

  In thinking of that, I have decided to take a few moments to put down my knitting and write a few of the things that I have found myself saying out loud over the years.

  I don’t know if skunks are vegetarians. Wait, are you going outside? Why do you need to know what skunks eat?

  Cats don’t eat coffee beans. (Correction for the sake of accuracy: It appears that most cats don’t eat coffee beans.)

  Where is the toilet paper? (I know this doesn’t seem significant, but when you have ten rolls in the morning and none at dinner, it bears a little investigation. They were eventually discovered hidden and unraveled in various locations. Six rolls were salvageable.)

  Yes, I’m sure that blocks won’t go down the toilet. (Every well-trained mother knows that all toilet questions should be followed by immediately arming yourself with a plunger and proceeding to the nearest bathroom.)

  Where is my pen? (I once took a message by writing on my arm with mascara. It was neither my message nor my mascara.)

  Because Barney is stupid, that’s why.

  Because it can kill you. (Why they can’t live without grownups.)

  Stop looking at your sister.

  Do you still have two eyebrows? (Eyebrow plucking on a fourteen-year-old never ends well. Don’t hope for anything but disaster.)

  Hey! Birds can’t do that!

  You need a job.

  What happened to your hair? (Repeat after me: “It’s not my hair, it’s not my hair, it’s not my hair.” If you still feel upset, repeat, “Hair grows back, hair grows back, hair grows back.”)

  Because it can kill her. (Why they can’t lower their sister down the railing of the stairs using my yarn as a rappelling rope.)

  Why do you sound like money?

  Because I think knitting is relaxing, not stupid.

  I told you not to look at her.

  Where would I get three fluorescent light bulbs and a length of hose at midnight? (I hate science fairs.)

  He’s a teenage boy. We all know what he’s thinking.

  Because it can kill you. (Why you can’t play hide-and-seek with the dryer as your hiding place.)

  I can’t make a bike bigger with the power of my mind! (This really did seem like the only appropriate answer. I have never been given a reasonable explanation for what my children think I’m going to be able to do about an outgrown bike at 10:12 on a Sunday night.)

  Why is this so sticky? (Lemonade concentrate is not paint.)

  Just because I’m not here doesn’t mean I can’t see you! (Okay, so I was coming a little undone.)

  I don’t care what Linda says. Thunder is not God bowling.

  Because it can kill you. (Why drying your hair while you are in the bath doesn’t save people time.)

  Because I need to lie down. (Why I’m lying down.)

  Because I’m having a bad day. (Why I’m taking my knitting with me.)

  Because my head hurts. (Why I’m lying down with my pillow over my face.)

  Because there’s no point. (Why I’m getting up.)

  Fine Qualities in an Adult

  Dear Amand
a,

  On this day eighteen years ago, I was feeling pretty cocky. You were born, and I sincerely thought I was equipped. I really did. Even though you were my first, I knew my way around babies and wasn’t afraid of them, and I was even pretty sure that I had fantastic baby-tending skills. Moreover, this parenting thing seemed to me like it was going to be pretty straightforward. I knew motherhood would have its challenging moments, but overall I thought I was going to be really good at it, and that it would be something I excelled at. I was pretty sure that with all the books I had read and how much research I had done, I would have a great grip on it. I thought that those parents who were losing it all over the place were just not working hard enough at it. I was going to be a relaxed mother.

  I think, darling girl, that we can both agree that I have been the exact opposite of relaxed in every way that there is to be not relaxed, and now I really don’t know whether to apologize or demand thanks for that. I don’t know what went wrong with my plan—my plan for how easy it was all going to be—but when you screamed your way through your first night on this Earth, despite everything the midwife and I could do to comfort you, I started to wonder if I hadn’t received a standard-issue baby.

  This was confirmed when you screamed your way through virtually every moment of the first four months of your life (thanks for entirely skipping sleep, too; that wasn’t at all challenging) and then spent the next several years trying to kill yourself in a new way every thirty-five seconds. At nine months you walked. At ten months you climbed to the top of the fridge and sat up there eating bananas. The moment I walked into the kitchen and found you up there is one that will likely be the last image I see in my mind’s eye as I depart this Earth. Sometimes at night I still try to figure out how you got up there.

  At eleven months I thought about tying you to the family bed so I could fall asleep without worrying that you would do all of this while my guard was down. At eighteen months you had a full vocabulary with which to add insult to injury; your favorite words were “No,” “Not Mum,” and “Me do it.” Everyone agreed that these choices were very telling. About the same time that you got verbal, you developed a proclivity for biting other children and taking off all of your clothes in public. (Really, no one could help but be impressed with your stripping skills. Fifteen seconds with my back turned in the grocery store and you would be bare-bummed by the apricots, chatting with some stranger. I can’t stress how glad I am that you outgrew that.) By age two you had the temper tantrum down to an art form that defeated even your “I’ve had four children; just try taking me on” grandmother, and you had discovered that your powers had their most devastating effect when you alternated incredible happiness with tornadoes of poor mood so that I was continually off balance and nervous, never knowing what would hit me.