Setting it Aside

It's not that I didn't knit when we were in Maine, because I did. At night, when the kids were tucked into their beds in the sleeping loft, I would knit on the New England sock as Mr S read. On the plane and on the interstate, I cranked through Potato. I made some significant progress on each; I got through the heel and into the foot on the sock, and I got far enough on Potato that I finished it up this week (and will have the FO to debut this weekend).

But Maine, for me, was about putting aside everything to engage. It is hard to admit this openly, but we all know that knitting can distance you. Like TV or a good book, it can mediate the way you interact with the present, a shield against intimacy with your loved ones. It can be like a giant, flashing neon sign saying, "Leave me alone." Sometimes, I need that flashing neon sign. Sometimes, I need to be left alone, and knitting provides me with some solitude. Sometimes, you really do need to shut up because I really am counting.

But on this trip, I wanted to be alive and awake to my surroundings. I didn't want to miss one call of one loon on our pond. I wanted to hear the leaves rustling, and the sound of the kids playing in the woods. I wanted to watch the fog lift over Cadillac Mountain and hear the sound of our canoe gliding through the waterlillies. There was no TV, no radio, no newspapers or internet or cell phone. It was remote enough that there was no hum of air conditioners, no road noise in the background. (It was also close enough to civilization that is was just down the road from a yarn shop, but that is a post for another day.)

There were moments when I wished I brought my sock. I regretted a few missed photo ops for the blog: the sock on top of the mountain, the sock and a lobster, the sock at the Clam Box and the Great Maine Lumberjack Show.

But then I wonder if I brought the sock to the lobster pound, would I have been too distracted to catch this:

My husband is at his happiest eating lobsters.

Would I have been taking pictures of my sock on top of Cadillac Mountain and missed this:

Rosebud was truly moved by the experience of being on top of a mountain for the first time.

Would I have built this Fairy Bed in the woods with her if I was busy with my sock?

Would I have avoided sticky fingers and gooey kisses to protect the yarn?

So I don't have a lot of knitting to show you, but what I do have is (shhhhh) better.