I decided to rip back a book – Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle to be exact.  Now, quickly let me assure everyone that I am not actually tearing up a book!  I am ripping back the book the way I rip back knitting – and for similar reasons.

I began reading Cat’s Cradle last summer (I enjoy Vonnegut), but then I set it down.  I think it was when we headed to the beach for our family vacation and I probably decided to take some lighter reading.  Anyhow, Vonnegut stayed home.  And then it was September and Vonnegut did not seem to fit my autumn mood.  I read other books.  Same with Christmastime, Winter, and now it is Spring and Vonnegut has sat untouched.

Now, I rather feel like reading him again.  So, I picked up the book and opened to the bookmarked page and felt all at sea.  Whereas I knew exactly the page  I had left off, I had only the barest shadowiest memories of what was going on in the book where I had left off.  And skimpier ideas about what had gone on in the previous pages.  I knew if I started reading, I would start to remember – enough, at least, so that the current pages would make sense.  But I would lose out on Vonnegut’s brilliance because I would not be reading the book in any kind of consciousness of the book as a whole.  I could finish the book, but I would have lost a lot of the meaning.

So, I pulled out my bookmark and “ripped back” to the beginning of the book.  I will start over — and so I will get the fullest experience of the book that I am capable of having.  And Vonnegut is worth that.

Before I became such an avid knitter, I doubt I would have “ripped back” to the beginning of any book.  I would have felt it to be a waste of the time I had spent reading already.  And I would have felt that I was entitled to be where I was in the book, that I had earned it by the hours spent reading. And so, I would have had (and did have!) inferior and probably unsatisfying reading experiences. 

In knitting, I have ripped back a lot. Sometimes there was really no other choice.  More often, I did so because I knew I would be happier with the final product if I re-did a section.  And while it is never a jubilant experience at the time, I am always glad I did it.  I have made peace with the “wasted hours.” And this peace – and patience — is extending to other parts of my life.  Like reading. 

Sarah and I like to call ripping back “freeing the yarn.”  But it is really freeing the knitter.  I am not held to a poor choice in stitch pattern or a mistake in arithmetic.  I am entitled to do my work the best I can – even if it means starting over sometimes.  And I am happy to bring this philosophy to the rest of my life.  Knitting gives me the courage, patience, and confidence to re-do, re-read, re-consider, re-arrange.

And I only hesitated briefly and flinched mildly when I had to rip back four very long rows of garter stitch (and the pick-up-and-knit stitches) on my baby blanket this evening.  I had begun a block in the wrong color (oops!) and I could have left it – but I realized that the color arrangement of the blanket would look better if I used the correct color.  So, zip!  Out it went. 

I respect my craft enough to invest the time to correct an error.  I can be humble about my mistakes.  And the ideas that seemed workable at the time, but weren’t, I can accept as learning experiences.  Wow.  I can thank knitting for a lot of life lessons!