The Knitting Debacle: When an Armhole Full of Judgment Destroys Your Happy Place

“Okay, look at me. Stop what you’re doing and look at me. In order to knit this armhole, we have to figure out how many stitches we need. So, what’s half of 32?” the calm and gentle knitting instructor with the perfectly toned arms asked. 

“Half of 32? Half of 32. Wait, I know this…hold on…umm…”

Why are you not getting this? What’s wrong with you, you idiot? Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry, Hali. Just…don’t!

Grabbing my haystack of a hairdo (too much sun-not enough conditioner) tightly between newly tanned fingers, I wished I could just rip my whole head off and end it all.

“Half of 32? It’s-um-I went to college, I mean…“ I said, desperately scanning for any intellectual thought to come through. 

As the “ladies who knit” gathered their expert level pieces and wished me luck, I sat there, paralyzed…unable to answer a question that, under normal circumstances, I would know.

“It’s 16.” the strawberry blond instructor finally said, her hair pulled into tiny buns behind each ear. “Okay, I don’t want you to get frustrated. Since class is over, why don’t you go out on the couch and try this armhole again and I’ll come by and check on you.” 

Without saying a word, I unstuck the backs of my legs from the plastic chair, gathered my things, and assumed the all too familiar low self-esteem position. Head and eyes down, vocal chords silenced, shoulders slumped.  And, I was invisible. Only I wasn’t. I was being followed by the “I’m Inadequate”spotlight.Just bail, Hali. Do it fast and they won’t notice. But I refused to give up. I needed to prove to myself that I could figure this shit out.

I plopped down on the couch in the front corner of the store and stared at this blob of partially knit “thing”, this “creature”. Once beautiful, soft, navy blue balls of cotton yarn were now transformed into some kind of wretched net, something you’d get caught in and trip over. Stretched out and ugly, I couldn’t even decipher which end was up as I attempted to once again“pull” 22 stitches to create an armhole in my very first sweater for the fifth time. I didn’t even know what “pulling” meant! So, you thought you’d try an intermediate piece, did you? You’re not a knitter, Hali. You’re remedial. You need remedial knitting, idiot. 

As customers chatted behind my head about which yarn would be best for knitting a baby blanket, I sat there …in my summer sanctuary… my no judgment zone and started to cry. 

“I have Wildfiber Tuesdays and Thursdays”. That was my response anytime someone wanted to hang out over the summer. What’s that? You’re running a marathon? You’re winning a Pulitzer? Sorry, Wildfiber Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

Working on a knitting project allowed me to lose track of time. I would get so into a project that I’d forget to binge on Trader Joe’s Sweet & Salty Trail Mix! 

Excited for this summer’s project, I had selected the Loopy Mango Cropped Cardigan using 9 balls of chunky cotton yarn. An actual garment. Something with sleeves. I was terrified but reassured when looking at the pattern that I knew all of the stitches. Maybe there’s a shot in hell I can actually do this! 

I soon realized that I could not in fact do this. With the combination of using circular needles but not in a circle, changing stitches each row, and incorporating my nemesis, the magic loop (don’t ask), the result was a feeling of total inadequacy. Although my instructors and classmates expressed reassurance and a “don’t give up” attitude, having to constantly undue this project was causing me to constantly undue myself. I was becoming undone. My inner yarn was unraveling in an ugly, ugly way. 

And now, being banned to the corner couch, all I wanted to do was inhale ding-dongs in this place that was supposed to make me feel my very best. I time traveled back, as if in a rocket plummeting to my past, to a nine-year old Hali, frizzy-haired, short, trying to fight back tears in Miss Bromberg’s four/five combination class when she asked to see my homework that I didn’t complete. Miss Bromberg, the teacher notorious for making even the most confident kids burst into tears with a single look from her navy blue eye shadow caked on covered eyelids. Her fuzzy face slathered with so much makeup you could take a chisel to it and not make a dent. Let’s just say, she was not the soft-spoken and nurturing Miss Horne who I had in third grade, who serenaded the class with goofy songs and rewarded us with fake money for being on our best behavior. I had excelled with Miss Horne, earning the most money by the end of the year, no thanks to Derek DeBrall who was a constant annoyance, putting his boogers on the back of my chair. But now, in this witches brew of a class, I constantly wanted to disappear. Her method was pure torture, ridiculing me with her screechy, witch-like voice, pointy black boots to match. I dreaded watching her ice blue Chevy Corvette circa 1979 pull up in front of Lunada Bay Elementary School every morning, clouds of cigarette smoke seeping out her car door. This woman single-handedly killed any drive I had built up with Miss Horne to do my best, as I quickly became devoid of a brain that functioned properly. 

“Hali-what’s the answer!” Miss Bromberg shrieked in my face. My hands shook as I stared at my social studies workbook, clutching it to my chest.

“Answer the question! What’s the answer? You have the book right there!” She continued.

“The page is blank, Miss Bromberg.” The kid next to me admitted. Probably to put everyone else out of their misery.

“Oh! So, that’s one check mark for Hali on the board.” She yelled, walking swiftly over to the chalkboard, her witch boots clicking and pounding in my brain. It was my first check mark ever from The Brom. It wasn’t the first time I showed up without my homework but it wasthe first time I got caught. Two more and it was a call home.

Here’s something I learned. When I’m terrified by someone or something, I evacuate the premises. Sure, my body may still be there but everything else has been flushed out and emptied into some Twilight Zone secret door where only morons are allowed. So, no, I hadn’t done my homework, thank you very much!

That year Miss Bromberg sucked any sense of who I was or could be into a vacuum containing my soul. For the annual end of year tradition, initiatied by The Brom herself, yet paid for by parents, students showed up to her classroom wearing white baseball t-shirts with red sleeves, the words, “I Survived the Brom” ironed across the center. My mom had ordered special versions for us that read, “I Barely Survived the Brom”. 

Since then, The Brom has reared her hideous face, making a cameo appearance every time I feel completely deflated intellectually. She showed up when I couldn’t figure out how to enter someone’s food order into the computer system my first day as a waitress. She popped in when someone asked me to create an Excel sheet using formulas. Formulas? What?I’ll get a whiff of her perfume while riding an escalator in the mall and immediately shrink into myself and begin to sweat. And now it was happening where it shouldn’t be happening. At Wildfiber! So, what do you do when your safe place becomes unsafe? 

I had to get out. No one look at me. Don’t ask me anything. Just walk, Hali. Walk, damn you! 

I plugged my ear buds in and listened to Depeche Mode and The Smiths on my walk home. Depression had entered the building and all I wanted to do was eat the entire bag of peppermint patties that I was stashing in the bottom bin of the fridge while watching Real Housewives. Any city would do. 

Back home, I instantly shoved the “project” in a corner swearing I’d never look at it again. I plunged my ass into my sunken in corner of the sofa, turned on Bravo and played Solitaire on my iPhone for the duration of the night, occasionally wiping chocolate out of the corners of my mouth. Thank god my husband wasn’t home. It was not a fun household to be in right now. Even the cats bailed on me.

The next morning, I woke up with an odd feeling. It was determination.  Determined not to feel like a failure. Determined to prove to my instructor that I, in fact, did know the answer to half of 32. Determined to prove to myself that I couldmake things.  That I hadmade things. I quickly lined up everything I had made over the last month:  4 purses, 5 pairs of booties, 3 bowls, and 2 cat beds (now used for storing yarn as the cats ignored them). See?Look what you did! 

But I needed one more thing. Something that challenged me. I had to rinse the taste of cropped cardigan disaster from my brain asap. 

Two hours later, I was holding “something.” Here’s the thing…I don’t exactly know what I’m doing the majority of the time. These things I create on my own are often riddled with mistakes and it’s the covering of the mistakes that seems to give it that Hali stamp. Well, Hali, it looks like what you got here is a little hanging basket. I threw some succulents in it and hung it up outside, taking pictures and sending them to my husband texting, “I did something”. He texted back, “Wow! How cool! You’re naturally talented.” I knit two more baskets and three hacky-sacks until it was Tuesday again. 

Okay, it was Tuesday. Sitting up in bed, I eyed the corner where I had shoved the “project”. It had been five days since we last interacted. All right, cardigan. This is it. It’s showtime. You’re not gonna get me. You hear me? I’m gonna get you. You will not destroy me and turn me into that nine-year-old, frozen, child.

 I made the bed and set out to find my version of a power suit. Well-fitting cutoff jean shorts and my favorite blue and green button-down shirt with the bow in back would do. I strapped on my Tiger’s Eye stone necklace, the crystal a psychic once told me to wear when I needed to feel empowered and unclouded by emotions. Spotting a dusty bottle of Ginkgo Baloba in the medicine cabinet, clearly leftover from the 90s, I popped one in my mouth and hoped an expired Ginkgo wouldn’t have the opposite effect.

With “Shooting Star” by Bad Company blasting through my ear buds, I burst through the door of Wildfiber, head held high, ready to knit a fucking arm on this motherfucker. 

“Let’s do this.” I said, throwing my supplies on the table. 

Three hours later, I had an arm and the beginning of a second arm. That’s right, the answer is 16, motherfuckers! Look who survived the Brom now!