I have boxes of letters, and I’m glad of it, because when I need to, I can go through a box and see and hear my grandfather again, through his handwritten words to me, usually written on the back of a photograph.One such letter, which I’ve read over and over, goes as follows:

I’m sorry to hear that you don’t like school. Never let a day go by that you don’t learn something.

I was about eight when he wrote that, and he died when I was ten. I remember him often, and think of those words equally often.

So I find myself now mired in legal paperwork and bills but also, oddly enough, periods in which I suddenly seem to have a lot more free time than I’ve seemed to have for a very long time – I’m guessing eight years, but it might be longer, because at the time I met The Departed I was a single, commuting parent of a toddler. Which is to say, it’s been a very long time since I’ve found free time. Mostly, for a very long time, I’ve createdfree time, usually accompanied by a heaping helping of guilt for spending the precious commodity on myself when I had so many other things I should be doing, not usually for myself.It’s a strange phenomenon, and has cost me some sleep.

And I learned something: I can knit. Not well, but hey. I didn’t put anyone’s eye out.

I posted my picture of my two rows on Facebook, and learned something else: I have very encouraging friends, many of whom are also knitters.
And something else: it gets a lot easier when you use the right size needles.

So I started practicing and then I started really knitting, making a scarf that wasn’t a screaming success but wasn’t a total catastrophe either, although The Child pronounced it “too small” and declined to wear it. But I was undeterred, as I found the whole knitting thing oddly therapeutic, and better yet, didn’t require quite as much focus as reading, my previous hobby, which I seem unable to do recently, probably due to having so much else on my mind, or else sleep deprivation, depending on the day.

I’ve got a lot on my mind, and have done a lot of knitting. If you picture me kind of like a soon-to-be-twice-divorced Madam DeFarge, knitting long scarves with the names of ex husbands worked into the rows, you’d be kind of right – except my knitting isn’t that good, so I’m not up to names yet.

They’re there in spirit.

I’m sleeping much better lately, and finding I enjoy my quiet, yarny evenings. I’ve learned something relatively big – how to knit – but it’s really composed of a lot of little things I’ve learned every day: How to cast on, how to choose needles, how to read a pattern.

Another memory of my grandfather that I carry with me is a little one: He showed me how to pare an apple. He showed me all the steps – the peeling and trimming – and then we ate the apple together, quietly. I might have been three or four at the time. A small, simple treasure.

Every morning that I get up and do something – almost anything, really – I learn something. Usually, it is  less of a searing insight and more of a pared apple. But pared apples are delicious, if you take the time to savor them – and even better if you share them.