Waterwoman Knits

Lessons From My Journey Toward Worthiness

You know those moments when you encounter someone or something that shifts your perception of yourself and what you thought was worthless becomes worthy? These moments have been swirling around me lately as I revisit past fragments of light from parts of myself and allow them to shine like the reflective surfaces in a kaleidoscope tube.

For most of my life, I have struggled with a sense of shame or failure simply because I have not cracked the code of how to live in the monetary system into which I was born, no matter how hard I work or how much education I have. So many of us carry this weight of personal shame or failure inside a system that is itself broken. IMHO, capitalism works at small scales like farmer’s markets, but in what it has become now, we are all ants inside the billionaireverse through no fault of our own.

You can be the most creative, thoughtful person and still not be “successful” in terms of commodifying the gifts you entered this world with. You can have decades of life challenges and wins and hard work behind you and be asked to remove it all from your resume due to age discrimination.

I push back on that because I want to be a whole person who values her journey just as any person on the planet deserves to.

The term neurodiversity was not known when I was young, but now in my fifth decade of life, I appreciate the gifts I have expressed into the world as fragments of self I can look back to reflect my own light and hold onto. My brain may work slightly differently than whatever is considered “normal.” I don’t know about you, but to me “normal” is not looking very healthy right now.

I do not find diagnostic labels helpful and thus I have not pursued forensic diagnosis. Instead I choose to focus on any gifts I can share from my tendency to hyperfocus long periods of time and requiring a lot of alone time to reset my nervous system.

Piano, Poems, Community, Living Earth Connection

Four pillars, four beams of light reflected.

• My teenage cassette piano tapes digitized: SoundCloud
• Self-published book of poems and will sprinkle other poems through my podcasts. Holding on and Letting Go: A Book of Poems
• Soup-Luck and Knit Chat hosting: Each month, I make a giant pot of vegan soup and invite folks I know to join me for a meal by bringing to share anything small to feed three people. Standing invitation, no RSVP required, as the soup can feed at least 12 and whatever is leftover I freeze for future meals. Beautiful conversations happen and community is strengthened. Starting monthly Knit Chat Zooms open to my “automatic family” of knitters anywhere.
• Self-published book of nature connection exercises are one expression of my constant awe of being a human who can gain nonverbal support from the natural community around me inside such an amazing planet. Naturography: Exercises to Waken Our Senses and Reconnect Us to Nature.

Knitting

I wish I could knit you a poem
like the sweaters that fly
from my hands remembering
the silk of your fingers’
embrace as you pulled me through
stiff motion unlearned
until the yarn could warp around,
under and through
its own loops.
Each loop replays
your hands’ grace
the angle of a gull’s wings open;
your long hands that knew the shapes of years
of Birthday cakes, plum tarts, and surprise
cookies just warm like the storybooks said.
You wove stories of war, of leaving Germany,
of surviving growing,
giving as if to compensate
for what you also shared with me
and no one else: a curve in the spine.
You were cased in plaster one summer for this
and hung from doorways while brothers teased
your dangling feet.
I acquired a plastic shell to keep the world out
for four years breaking
free one hour each day.
The last stitches your hands held
the week you stopped living with cancer
are a patchwork of saved colors:
Squares that cover me in winter
and help remind me whose fingers
pressed into mine, leaving
the gift of keeping others warm.

~ Erin Waterman