Heather (the author of the excellent "Furryness!" pattern (N.B., .pdf file) and who left a comment yesterday) now has a blogspot blog.

And on it, she has a post that made me think: Interconnectedness

She talks about sometimes feeling like the people in her town are zombies, or that she's invisible, some days (and oh, I know that feeling. And I think it only gets worse with age, unless you're mega-beautiful like Sophia Loren [seriously, if I could look like ANYone in the world....] or unless you really have the cranky old lady thing down pat...)

And she says:

"Sometimes when I pick up my needles at night, I feel connected to other people who are doing the same. I go through these motions knowing that I am not alone-- these motions are being echoed across the continent, across the world. You're stitchin' with me, babe."

And I love that mental image. It makes me feel less isolated, less lonely. I feel less like I am The Only One In The World Who Feels This Way. (and actually, that's partly why I keep up with the blog, even though it's not made me rich or famous or have men fall at my feet or anything like that).

And so I'm going to hold that image in mind - that as I sit down at night and pick up the Kenobi jacket front, or the fitted-u-neck vest, or one of my many ongoing sock or scarf projects, there will be other people in the world knitting. Probably the people in my time zone (dragonknitter, and Jennifer, and Charlotte....) and possibly the people in the time zone one hour ahead of me will still be knitting (Bess, and Devorah, and Grace, and TChem...wait...TChem, are you Eastern or Central? I forget what Madison's on...). And the people time zones after me...Diann, and the people in Portland like Michelle, and the people in Washington State, and the people in Hawaii...

And if I think about it...probably all around the world, every moment of every day, someone is sitting down and picking up his or her needles...it's like there's a whole global relay-race of knitters going on...people are ALWAYS knitting.

And that makes me smile. To think of a whole world held together by a silent, unseen, cloud of knitters who pick up their needles as the globe revolves around to their own personal sliver of free time, and then who put those needles down again when their free time ends (or, if they're like me, it's their bedtime), but that there's someone a couple time-zones over who is just picking up their needles.

It's kind of like the old Peanuts cartoon where Lucy said she was comforted by the fact of knowing about the International Date Line, because, as she said, "The world can't end today, because it's already tomorrow somewhere else."

So I'll think of you, fellow knitters, tonight, when I pick up one of my projects. And I'll smile, because I'll kind of feel your invisible cosmic presence, and I'll feel less alone.