Crazy Like A Metaphor

I'm struck by so much in Dangerous Knitting:

My child fell apart. That is what happened in actual time. No speeding cars, no spinning yarns, no old TV characters. Those are just props, mixed metaphors that translate the whole mess into a story that has some recognition, that makes some sense. Back in the actual world, the world that makes no sense at all, my child fell apart. Fell so hard that all action stopped and we literally couldn’t move for months. We all broke down, we all went blind. We found ourselves groping through a glaring maze with no metaphorical nuance: hospital corridors, clinical intakes, treatment programs, therapy sessions, psychiatric appointments, insurance adjusters, all flourescent lights and buzzing machinery. Ravel, unravel, they have the same meaning: to become dis-joined thread by thread. Ravel, unravel, ravel, unravel, it makes no sense. Roll the mess into a ball and knit. What else could I do? Back to metaphors.

I learned to knit that year. My daughter calls it dangerous knitting, for the way I hold and pick the yarn from the very tips of my needles; the way it looks like everything is going to fall apart into a tangled mess. The trick is to wrap the yarn around my left hand, just so, not too tight, not too loose, and keep up a momentum. I always have several projects going at the same time. When one piece gets too tough and confusing, I move on to a softer fiber, an angora or chenille. But it can all fall apart, accidentally or on purpose. Everything put together sooner or later unravels.

Via Cult of Gracie.