Waterwoman Knits

Amid the anger, grief, and caring I witness in the world, I’ve been reflecting on how my sense of purpose in life has changed over time. Many days now, simply remaining alive and witness to the time I am on Earth feels enough.

Four threads of what is me make up my life path:

Uno – Enjoy physical endurance challenge, usually way beyond what I should.
Examples: a) – My first boyfriend in my 20s owned two sea kayaks and our first date involved paddling three hours straight on open ocean. Was I in condition to do that? Heck no. I couldn’t move my arms for two weeks. But my brain always thinks I can do anything. I proceeded to do the same paddle Seattle to Bainbridge Island each weekend for a summer and ended up with Popeye arms. b) – Last year, I signed up to walk two days, 40 miles of the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for breast cancer research in San Diego, which involves sleeping in a tent overnight with a group of strangers/fellow breast cancer survivors and walking 20 miles each day. Now six months out from the event, what was I thinking?? Funding travel and minimum amount for participation in a poor economy is the biggest hurdle but I’m not so sure I have it in me, despite having walked full marathons a decade ago.

Dos – Voracious interest in learning. My job has made me a human information sponge.

Tres – Strong impulse to be of benefit to others.

Cuatro – Identity as a creator rather than a consumer, the core identity of my capitalism gone rogue culture.

It has taken me years to stop feeling horrible about myself for not doing enough to use my life force to benefit others. And that only if I had the wherewithal to develop into a leadership role long ago, I could have found a greater sense of purpose with my paid work that might actually support a life with breathing room and vacations.

I mean, who do you know that has been an invisible transcriber of human voice for 30 years, and continues despite AI and despite being told 30 years ago technology would outsource the job tomorrow? There are a few of us dinosaurs in existence, but not many.

I’ll list here my volunteer work over several decades to perhaps remind myself I possibly haven’t been as much a laggard as I think, even if none of it has been compensated in money but instead in rich experience.

• Five years in my 20s tutoring English as a Second Language to immigrants and refugees.
• Provided homework assistance after school to children in Japan as well as in low-income housing in Seattle.
• A decade intermittently at my local food bank, especially during times I was a recipient.
• Two years apprenticeship on small farms, food bank gardens.
• Two year commitment to a family advisory board of a major children’s hospital.
• Fundraising speech for the RMH Charities of WA/AK.
• Fundraising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and CureSearch for Children’s Cancer.

After my own cancer, I thought I could finally step into more leadership to help others by completing a public health degree to focus on improving cancer care supports for low-income folks, but it was too heavy a lift while working FT last year. I proved to myself I could get decent grades and am finally done with being disappointed in that choice’s outcome.

I don’t need to punish myself any more than the school loans I’ll be paying the last decades of my life, now that no income is too low for those income-driven repayment plans, apparently.

It has been a long road toward self-acceptance over and over again. It never ends, and I intend to keep trying.

Now, I am taking a few practical steps to strengthen my ability to afford my life by seeking shared housing and taking opportunity to do weekly work-trade on my day off work harvesting for a CSA (community supported agriculture) to cut my grocery bill, as long as my body cooperates.

Creator rather than Consumer

That’s what knitting is for me and what this blog is all about. Nature nurture and knitting are the ways I am created moment by moment by the generative properties of Earth’s bounty and being creator with my own two hands.

This is the direction my future lies. I’d like to write a novel or at least a short story, and I would like to knit every single human on Earth a welcome blanket. (Beautiful group: Welcome Blanket)

If fortune has it, I’ll figure out a better system for making tutorials so the teacher in me can teach until such time as I can find a way to offer in-person classes in a dog-free zone.

I am aware no one is beating down anyone’s door demanding knitting classes, but I have heard the motivational speech too many times that if you keep being you no matter what, somehow it will pay off. Remember that old self-help book What Color is Your Parachute? Mine’s mosaic knitted in green and white bamboo fiber.

Knit On!