knitters will save the world
I'm not sure why, exactly, but this year I've noticed a distinct connection among a sequence of spring 'holidays':
International Women's Day: March 8*
Earth Day: April 22
Mother's Day: first Sunday in May
Call me a curmudgeon, but
ONE LOUSY STINKIN' DAY for HALF the human population?
One day for all the women who hold the toughest-yet-most-satisfying job there is?
24 hours for the WHOLE ENTIRE PLANET on which we depend for our very survival?
Sheesh.
I'm with the venerable Zimmermann on this one:
I deplore Mother's Day. Mother has it good and if anyone loves her and wants to show it, one measly day in the year is a pretty squinchy space of time in which to do it.from "Woolgathering," Issue #4, reprinted on p. 27 of The Opinionated Knitter
So now that we're on the other side of the celebrations, calendar-wise, do we move on with a sigh of relief? Having sent the cards and the flowers, is it back to business (where women have more training and still earn 85% of a typical man's wage)?
I could get cynical here (and what with the election season in full swing, it'd be easy to do so), but I can't.
You see, I do firmly believe in my blog's tag line: I believe that we live better because of knitting.
The content here may ramble from the knitterly from time to time, but because I'm so lucky as to do this for a living, I get to spend a lot of time with knitters, and a lot of time knitting...
and you know what?
I really believe that knitters will save the planet.
And it's not just the visible way we rally around a cause, as "super-givers" in fund-raising parlance: viz. our amazing response to the Yarn Harlot's drive for Doctors without Borders/Médecins sans Frontières;
It's not just the way we lavish hours and yardage to knit up hats for preemies, scarves for the homeless, and the countless pieces of charity knitting we do every year;
It's not just the way we forge connections with loved ones and with community as we sit and knit things for those we love …
It's in the very nature of knitting itself.
Making things from string is a revolutionary act.
Work with me on this one.
In the coming weeks, I'll be putting together a series of posts on this topic.
Come the end of summer, I hope you'll be with me, stitching away to rescue the planet from the brink of environmental disaster – while getting your holiday gifts finished on time.
* How many of us remember that the March was chosen as the month for IWD
in commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911?
akabini
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