I’m not a fan of Mothers’ Day.  I was seven months’ pregnant for Saoirse when I vowed to put a stop to the madness.  I saw it all as a giant pyramid scheme, with the youngest, newest, most exhausted Mom in the family line at the highest point of suffering.  Because, while it was a day to supposedly indulge Mom, I felt like I was supposed to inhale any indulgence on the fly and express copious gratitude,  while at the same time running around doing things for my mother; and, of  course, for my grandmother, plus all other maternal figures in my life who may not have children of their own to honor them.  With all that pampering and honoring to do, I concluded that it was mathematically impossible for a mom to actually take what she needs from the day:  rest. 

So I choose not to observe it.  I tell the girls to treat it like an ordinary Sunday, hoping that when they fall into the motherhood slot, they don’t suffer with the guilt and sense of endless obligations that plagued me.  

We have crepes for breakfast, Ula has a playdate, Saoirse goes for a jog, and I sit out in the sun, intent on finishing a sweater for Bob that’s been over two years’ in the making.  I’m determined that he should have it for the opening day of the farmers’ market, where the misty dampness of the Catskill Mountains renders nearly every summer morning sweater weather.

I’m finishing up the collar, considering what feels like a monumental decision:

That maybe I should quit knitting.

I became a knitter when I became a mother.  From the time the girls were in diapers, I always had a project going.  In fact, I couldn’t finish a knitting project without having the next one lined up and ready to start.  Without it, I felt untethered.  I needed my handwork.

I knitted while drinking coffee with Bob in the morning.  I knitted on long family car rides, and while waiting through endless doctor and dentist appointments.  I knitted to pass those endless hours when I needed to let my children play, but had to keep them under a watchful eye. I knitted while hanging out in homeschool groups.  I knitted while I taught the kids math and listened to them read.  I knitted when the anxieties of balancing motherhood with writing and the farm became so overwhelming, my body rejected nearly all but the most basic of foods.  Yarn became my hand candy, filling my body with sensual pleasure when chocolate was not an option.  I knitted to chase away my demons.  I knitted to calm my body and soul. 

Yet knitting projects are taking me longer and longer to complete.  I’m not as neurotic as I was a few years ago.  While driving in the car with Bob, I find myself more interested in looking out the window, or enjoying aimless chatter than studying the endless knots around my fingers.  When we drink coffee in the morning, we sit in the woods or beside one of the nearby ponds and watch the wildlife, my mind and body too enamoured with the world around me to be bothered with clicking needles.  And when I sit with Saoirse and Ula to homeschool, or just to hang out, it’s no longer the trial it once was to give them my complete attention.  

I feel like knitting matters less since we opened the cafe and I took over at the helm of the farm.  I feel so justified and validated by all the “important work” I now face:  handling the finances, taking care of customers, running the cafe kitchen. When a quiet moment presents itself, I feel fully entitled to embrace it.  

And therein lies the thought that troubles me most on this Mothers’ Day.  Knitting made me feel like I was doing something valuable during that period of my life when I was immersed in a vocation that our culture under-values:  Active motherhood.  

And now that my children are more independent, I can turn my attention to doing those things that our culture does value:  running a business.  Suddenly, I feel more entitled to my rest and moments of passivity than I did for the last 16 years.  I literally catch myself thinking I can sit and do nothing, because I did so much important work today.  Or, I have the right to ask for help, because the work I do is so important.  

Where were those thoughts when I needed them for the last 16 years?  They were buried somehwere in my knitting basket, I suppose, that symbol of productivity that made me feel like I was doing something while the world behaved as though I was doing nothing. 

I finish the collar on the sweater, weave in the loose ends, and ask Bob to pull it on to check the fit before I wash it and block it.

He pulls it over his head, pushes his long arms through the sleeves, and the girls and I stare at him, amazed. 

 

Daddy has a sweater that fits him. 

In the twenty-plus years we’ve been together, Bob has never worn sweaters.  They are too short for his long arms, too short for his torso, the collars don’t sit where he wants them.  

This sweater is his, blanketing his wrists, reaching down to the top of his hips, surrounding him in love and color.  I wash it and block it, setting it out to dry on the rocks in the warm afternoon sun.  He comes around repeatedly to check its progress.  The moment it is dry, he pulls it on with unbridled joy.  This will be his only sweater.  Ever.  It won’t be stored away for special occassions.  It will be the thing he grabs every chilly morning. And I realize something:  it all mattered.  Every second of parenting, every stitch in the sweater.

That evening, we all sit together to watch the light fade on the surrounding hillsides.  Bob and I have cocktails while the girls drink seltzers, and we’re laughing and dreaming.  This, I think, is Mother’s Day as it should be.   Our daughters are funny and smart, and none of us can stop laughing.  Our thoughts turn to the southwest, remembering our train trip there two years ago (when I started knitting Bob’s sweater).  And we all decide we want to go back.  But this time, we don’t want the shelter of a posh rental house.  We plan a road trip:  just our car, our backpacks and our tiny backpacking tents.  We’ll pull out of the driveway and go.  We’ll sleep in the desert, opening our tents to gaze up at the stars.  We make a list:  Canyonlands.  Bears Ears.  Escalante National Monument.  We even set the date:  October 2019.  

This is freedom as I’ve never known it.  This is adventure as I’ve never experienced.  This is what all those hours of motherhood and knitting have earned me, and I want to taste every bit of it.  While the girls start figuring out how long we’ll be driving, I consider whether I’ll bring a knitting project, or look out the window the entire drive.  

And I decide to toss a few skeins of yarn in the car.