Susan Gordis
I’ve already said that Native New Yorkers are truly unusual people. That’s demonstrated in numerous and varying ways, among them the fact that we are so accustomed to being crushed together that we retool those situations into opportunities for inclusion in each other’s activities and for making a connection with other human beings.
Since I really like to talk with people, and as the multitude of people talking (loudly and ceaselessly) on their cell phones on the buses has increased, I sometimes have difficulty concentrating on reading as I’m making my way around Manhattan by bus. As a result I frequently take my knitting with me, and that leads me into conversations about knitting. Much like a visit to the veterinarian leads to talk of animals, working on a handcraft leads to discussions about handcraft.
One of the things my fellow knitters (or crocheters) want to know is where the yarn I have came from. As yarn shopping is an activity unto itself, much like fabric shopping for quilters or pigment shopping for painters, I end up learning a lot about where other people shop, and I share what I have learned about where beautiful yarns can be procured. One woman who was smiling at me across the bus aisle while I was working on a scarf finally was unable to contain herself any longer. She had to bob and weave in order to catch my eye, as there was a nervous teenager holding onto the pole near to the inquiring woman, first balancing on her right foot, then on the left, then shifting the position of her feet slightly, and generally just being an obstacle to interchange. But the knitter across the way was determined. “Where did you get that wonderful yarn?” As I told her how I came to have that yarn between my fingers another woman, four seats away from the other, burst in, “Oh, I saw yarn like that which I really liked but it was too expensive. Would you mind telling me how much you paid?” I told her. “Ooooooh, you’re a very good shopper. Is it cotton?” “Yes, it is,” I told her, “I don’t prefer to work in artificial fibers.” “May I see it?” she asked. By then the previously antsy teenager had become involved in our cross talk, and she volunteered to pass the yarn across the aisle from me to the other woman. After that lady had petted it and cooed over it, she wanted to pass it to the lady with whom I had originally been talking. That required that the three people in between take it and pass it, which they did. These complete strangers had all become part of our yarn discussion.
Recently I was in the subway (where cell phones are not operative, thankfully) with another scarf. A woman boarded the train at the next stop and sat down next to me. “Oh, I just love what you’re working on.” “Thank you, it will be a gift for the winter holidays. Do you knit?” “Yes, I do. Where do you buy your yarn?” Had we had that conversation in depth I certainly would have missed my destination by a number of miles, but when I stood up to be ready to get out another woman swooped into the seat I had vacated, and I was able to hear the beginning of the continuing conversation they were now having about yarn and knitting.
I was heading back home with the same scarf project and I was at a bus stop where three different buses pick up passengers. I was standing and knitting. An elderly woman said, “I love to see that you are knitting. I wasn’t sure anyone actually does that anymore.” I said, “There are more of us than you might think. Do you knit?” Indeed she is a veteran knitter, and she asked me where I had purchased my yarn. I knew she would be disappointed when I told her that I had bought it online, but when I started to tell her about my favorite local shops she told me that she lives in Queens so it was unlikely that she would get to visit the stores I was mentioning. Her bus came and she went off with a smile. Another woman stepped right up to pick up the thread (no pun intended) of the conversation that had just ended. She asked me to continue with my recommendations for local yarn shopping, so I listed my favorites and what I thought were good values at each of those locations. She sheepishly (ooops – another pun!) told me that she didn’t have a computer so she was limited to shopping “retail,” but she was very grateful for the information. Then my bus came, and I wished her good yarn hunting and boarded the bus.
I settled myself in a seat and resumed my knitting. A woman was sitting across the aisle from me, and when I happened to look up in her direction she smiled and said, “I love what you’re working on. It must be so nice that you know how to do that.” I said, “Do you want to learn?” She seemed surprised, but I waved her over and she sat down next to me. I told her I was going to demonstrate two basic things, knitting and purling, and once she learned them everything else would fall into place. She seemed skeptical, but curious. A man sitting perpendicular to the two of us leaned in; he wanted to learn, too. So I held an impromptu knitting class on the #7 bus, which included a woman a couple of seats away who said she knew how to knit, but she was part of it anyway.
Another woman who had boarded the bus and taken the seat which my first student had vacated was nodding when I said (again) that knitting is easy. She said she is an accomplished knitter and was glad to see that people were still doing it, teaching it and learning it. When my primary student was getting ready to get off the bus I told her about my favorite new yarn store, and she repeated all the information back to me to show me she was listening. (Students of all ages want to demonstrate to the teacher that they were indeed listening.) When it was my turn to get off the man who had also taken his first knitting lesson said to me, “Thank you so much!” I responded, “Thank you for talking. It’s so nice when the men talk, too, since we women do so much of it.”
On a bus I was sitting across the aisle from an older couple. I was working on the bottom of a rather small sweater that’s intended for a two-year-old. The woman asked me what it was I was making. I showed her the little bit that was already completed and she began to chat with me about the use of circular needles, knitting in the round, and her preferences for her knitting projects. We agreed that it’s interesting to use other people’s patterns as reference, but we prefer to make up our own designs. She told me that she had done a lot of knitting in years past but then had not found the time. Her twenty-four-year-old daughter, though, has recently become an avid knitter so that has served as inspiration for her and she was knitting again. The lady told me that now that they were retired (indicating herself and her husband) not only was she knitting again but her husband thought it would help him to keep his fingers nimble and she was teaching him to knit.
Children tend to ask me, “What are you doing?” I make sure to tell them that I’m knitting, I’m making a sweater (or scarf or baby blanket) the old-fashioned way, by hand. One little girl asked me right then and there to teach her how. I showed her the most basic concepts while we traveled, and then her aunt promised that she would finish the lesson, as she knows how to knit, too. One five-year-old boy said, “Why don’t you just buy a scarf?” and I explained to him that I find it relaxing to knit, and I like handmade things. He considered that carefully and then said proudly, “That’s why I paint pictures.” Smart little fellow; I feel sure he’s destined to be a successful artist.
Once a white-haired gentleman told me about how he learned to knit during World War II, when he was too old for military conscription and already had a family but was trying to find a way to do something for “the war effort.” He knitted things for American soldiers, as many people were doing, and he so loved the activity that he knits to this day, although his hands are slower than they used to be, according to him. During that same trip, although the first gentleman had gotten off the bus, another man engaged me in conversation about the crocheted items he has made, and seemed sorry that he didn’t have his current project with him to show to me, an intricate lace tablecloth for his daughter’s engagement, complete with their names.
I continue to be pleased and warmed by the information I learn from and share with my neighbors in New York City. We are a hearty group, able to withstand blackouts and garbage strikes, onslaughts of United Nations representatives and even the 11th of September. Except for crises of this nature, where we show our mettle even more brilliantly, we mostly go about our individual lives secure in the knowledge that we are surrounded by friends in the persons of other New Yorkers, and we share our experiences and our feelings and our lives.
© 2007 Susan Gordis
