Nanowrimo - Knitting

I blocked this today:

Which led to chapter 19 -  Here is an excerpt:

There was a technique in complicated knitting where you put in a lifeline.  You would thread a contrasting coloured yarn though a row and then continue to knit a difficult bit of the pattern.  If a mistake was made you could easily rip out the knitting and pick up the stitches again from the lifeline. 

She wondered if she needed a lifeline. 

Could she stop right here, today, and pick up a thick colourful piece of yarn and weave it through her life? 

And then, if the 30th of November came and the to-do list was a mistake could she just rip back to November 19 and start again?

Talk about magical thinking.

But she did start to imagine weaving that thread through to today – she would weave through her childhood, her teen years, being nineteen, first loves, and heartbreaks, a marriage, children, her many careers, her struggles, her illnesses, her retirement, and end up here, today. 

There would be some extra yarn hanging over the edge and she imagined the yarn would be golden, probably made out of blue-faced leicester wool (her favourite sheep wool).  Every stitch of her life would be connected to the next by this soft, golden thread.

This reminded her of a poem – and she quickly (squirrel) turned to Google. Yes, here it was, the poem by William Stafford:

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

 Don’t ever let go of the thread.  Her eyes welled with tears. How had she forgotten this? 

While you hold it you won’t get lost.

You. Won’t. Get. Lost.

She was weeping openly now, but again felt like something huge had shifted. She picked up her knitting.  The cat curled up beside her, he sensed this was not the time to yowl for food.

She slipped the right needle into the left and brought the yarn forward. 

Knit one front and back, knit to end of row. 

Knit to end of row.  And then?

Then transfer the needle full of stitches to the other hand and begin again.