On Knitting (Patreon)

Holiday greetings.  Though opportunities to write have been fewer than I'd hoped, I've still managed to squeeze in a couple of sessions, thoroughly enjoying the hour here and there when possible.

I've written a scene between David and Crystal with which I could use a little help.  I'm using knitting as a metaphor for exploring some ideas of identity, liberally borrowed and adapted from a Crash Course: Philosophy video on Youtube--there, the metaphor is links in a piece of chainmail, but knitting seemed more appropriate for the scene.  In any case, I have to admit: I don't think I've ever knitted a stitch in my life.  Possibly my mother tried to get me to do some ages ago, but if so, it never stuck.  And so I've done a wee bit of digging around online, and asked ChatGTP for some (mostly pointless) help, and tried to keep in general enough -- but is there anyone out there with some experience of knitting that can feedback as to whether it convinces?  Any help appreciated!

As always, this is in its draft state - I'll be cleaning it up in the final edit.

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[...]

“Who am I now?”

Crystal considered for a long moment how to respond. Finally, she reached for her knitting and picked it up and continued the next row. The gentle clicking of the needles pushed back the silence of the room.

David opened his eyes. “Really?” he said, sounding annoyed.

“I’m knitting a scarf. Pretty much the limits of my knitting skills, to be honest. I’m doing it for my nephew,” she said, and held it up for him to see. It was about a meter in length, in bands of different colour: black, brown, blue, green; she’d just started on a new row in orange. A pattern of interweaving lines stretched across its length, uncoiling toward the unfinished end.  “Think he’ll like it?”

He shrugged. “How should I know? Listen—”

She held up a hand. “Just watch,” she said, and knitted another row, and then another, continuing with the orange, switching to black when adding to the pattern of coiling lines. It took her a few minutes, and once done, she held it up for him to see. “Not bad, right?” she said, feeling more than a little proud.

“Yeah, great. I don’t see—”

She held up a hand to forestall further protest. Reaching down into a canvas bag at her feet, she retrieved another colour. Pink, shot through with threads of sparkly silver – just to make the point, she thought. Switching to the new colour, she quickly added a few more rows. David watched her proceed, clearly bemused.

“What do you think?”

“I think I shared something pretty meaningful to me and you’re sitting there knitting.”

She nodded. “A scarf.”

“Sure.”

She continued knitting. “Is it still a scarf?”

He cocked his head to one side. “I don’t follow.”

“I’m adding another row. I’ve changed colour. Is it still the same scarf?”

He nodded.

Stopping, she reached back into the bag and pulled out a hobby knife. Sighing, she extended the blade and brought it to the start of the pattern, to the first stitches she’s knitted and purled. She cut a stitch, and another, and unraveled a strand. Mourning the lost work, she held it up for inspection. “What about now? Still the same scarf?”

“Sure.”

She unravelled a row, cut a few stitches out from the middle, put down the knife and began knitting out another row. “And now?”

“It’s looking a little rough, and I don’t think your nephew’s going to like it much any more, but yeah, it’s still the same scarf.” He offered a little smile, shaking his head ruefully. “You didn’t have to ruin your work, you know. I get the point.”

“Do you?” She put down the knitting. “Tell me.”

“I’m the scarf,” he said. “And just because you’ve added some new bits at the end or trimmed some bits off the start doesn’t mean it’s stopped being a scarf.” He shook his head. “Sorry, but I’m not convinced.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not the same scarf. It’s now a scarf with holes in it, it’s now a scarf with sparkly pink in it, and maybe that’s not the kind of scarf it wants to be.”

Crystal nodded and lay the scarf out on the desk between them. It lay in bands of colours across the solid wood desk, one end cut and frayed, the other unfinished, a meter of wool and hours of effort. “It’s not a bad metaphor for a life, though, is it?” she said, fingers poking through the popped stitches at the beginning of her work. She traced a line through the length of the scarf, drawing out a pattern that led from start to end. Some of the lines went nowhere or ended prematurely. “For me, this is the key to the pattern. It runs the whole length of the scarf, an unbroken line from start to end.” She smiled at her patient. “Can you pick out something in your life that runs unbroken from start to end?”

David stared back at her impassively. Crystal was struck, again, at how… pretty, he looked, the smooth skin and wide eyes, slightly parted lips tinted pink and the brilliant green of his eyes. It was easy, at times, to forget she was speaking with an older man, a violent man with a hidden past. The twenty-year old innocence he so easily projected remained compelling and convincing.

“I don’t follow,” he said.

“Think of it as an essential property,” she answered. “Unlike a scarf, woven to a pattern, so much of life is random.” She traced the lines that went nowhere, and her fingertips hovered over errors she found in the weave, the dropped stitches, gaps and knobbly bumps. “Accidents happen, the unexpected happens, but does it really matter? If you stripped away those experiences, would it change who you really are?” She held up the middle of the scarf, a band in dark brown. “If I’d knitted this in grey instead of brown, would it make a significant difference?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I can’t even remember why I chose the colour.”

She returned to tracing the lines that danced the length of her effort. “But I think something essential would be lost if I left these out,” she said. “Or if I cut out the middle, or knitted it only half the width, or length, or a different shape. At what point does it become a shawl, or stole, or even just a belt?”

David continued to watch and listen, and nodded, but remained silent.

“You say you feel as though you’re losing something of yourself, but are these things essential to you, David? To me, it sounds as though your encounter with this boy twenty years ago truly matters; it was an experience that formed part of who you are. But this kiss with the boy in the hotel six months ago? Had it not happened, would it have made a difference?”

“I don’t know.” He spoke slowly, grudgingly and uncertainly. “To be honest, I don’t like thinking about the past much.”

She nodded. “I understand,” she said. “I think.” And she was careful to tread carefully here. She had a responsibility to dig out as much of this man’s hidden past as she could, but also knew doing so could easily provoke him. Better to draw it out surreptitiously than through direct questioning. “Would you mind if I focused on a more recent incident?”

He nodded.

She checked her tablet. “Can we talk about Dan?”

[...]

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