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Envy and socks. I haz both.

True to form at chez yarn, we are now on day who knows what of ignoring the suffering in Haiti. I am catching glimpses of it when the Hubster puts on the news here and there, catching the cover of a newspaper at the gas station, hearing an interview on NPR.

It seems like the world is really coming together to help Haiti and the pessimistic cockles of my heart are warming. What I am left with is my internal struggle. Because, ya know, the Haiti disaster is all about me.

You mean you didn't know? It's about how I am incapable of facing it. How I am incapable of being the person I should be/should have been on the one hand, and in the other hand, how the world is inadequate, deserving of my inert, self-righteous scorn.

I am as helpless in this as I am in my knitting. A mute passenger on the Morticcia express. Someday maybe I'll learn how to transmogrify my shortcomings into strengths, as I have begun to with my knitting.

Ginger Waves
Ginger Waves Socks

I spent a good portion of last year wanting to be the sock knitter I am not and found I was a lace knitter I never knew I could be. I so wanted to knit socks, and I so wanted to knit socks on tiny needles. The heel of my first attempt at Monkeys on US 1s/2.5mm stewed for four months before I realized I should move on.

Licorice Monkeys

I didn't enjoy it and why should I mold myself to some aesthetic I don't enjoy? Normal people learn these things in childhood. I missed that class. Too busy navel gazing.

Inside the four months it took to knit and frog one half of one sock, it took me two months to cast on and frog two Clothildes, as well as complete my first one.

Indecision Clothilde
Flickr Tag: Indecision

I accepted my limitations and moved on, and with that the knitter's block dissipated: I've begun the second sock, of my second pair of socks, all in less than three weeks.

sundara socks.  yum.

Comfort knitting. Nothing fancy schmancy. (It's interesting seeing how the two patterns, knit on the same size needle, both with Sundara sock yarn, have considerably different gauges. Ponderosa.)

So there is hope that one day I may be able to effect change, help others in need, rather than lock myself away in a bell jar of flabby indignation.