2023/19. CROCHET LESSONS

Auntie Annie teaches Anna how to crochet.

The two Ann’s sat hip to hip on the raised hearth of the cottage fireplace. Two skeins of yarn, two crochet hooks, one heart, and one mind. I watched them as I cooked supper, peeking up through the steam rising from a pot of boiling water. The kitchen was close enough to recognize the song of their voices, Aunt Annie carrying the figurative melody and sixteen-year-old Anna adding occasional counterpoint. It was such a lovely song and dance the two of them created on that lazy summer day. 

When you have a settle-in kind of place for your vacation, where people can come and go at their leisure, rotating from beach to lunch to board games then back to beach without having to ask permission, it allows for that emotional space where blank stares and nothing-to-do’s become “Would you like me to show you how to crochet’s?” One needs a good chunk of non-obligation down-time, in the presence of someone who knows how to do something, in order to discover there are things you never thought you’d want to do that you end up loving. Sometimes those simple things end up changing your life for a while. 

A few years ago Aunt Annie invited Anna over for a lettering party. Annie, my ADD girl, was focused at that time on artistic hand lettering. Anna fell in love with it, and still today does lovely hand lettering in her cards and posters. Last summer it was crochet lesson #1 at the cottage in Michigan. Lesson #2 was at our kitchen table back in Farmington. From there Anna and Annie have created multiple items with thick threads. It’s a delight to see them create in their own spheres with the same tools and skill sets. 

My Annie thinks her ADD is a curse, but my old lady ADD brain sees the gift in it. She delights in all sorts of new and exciting ventures, her interests pinging off the walls of her creativity and her focus intense when the project is interesting to her. She accomplishes so much with her fragmented creativity. Her generous heart pulls her adoring niece along with her.

Last week, in honor of Dave’s retirement, both Annie and Anna crocheted gifts for Dad/Gumpa.

Annie created, without a pattern, a darling little Judge Connors Doll, with peppery gray hair and a little tie and adorable black judicial robes. It even has a little pair of mini glasses like Dave’s. It is so cute!

And Anna decided to crochet a collar for Gumpa’s real judicial robes that matched Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s.

The RBG collar Anna made for her Gumpa.
(Dave didn't wear his robes at his retirement open house)

Justice Ginsburg wore her famous collars to signify many things. But she said they first and foremost represented the power of the feminine to make well-reasoned choices. As only the second woman to sit on the US Supreme Court, she broke the common social tradition that women would wear suits, like men, to represent equality. She, bless her, insisted that the feminine which is often prominent in women is an asset to the court and should be celebrated rather than hidden. I love that David’s daughters and granddaughters understand and applaud how he has been, and continues to be, a champion for equity as well as equality, and that, at this time in history, we need to bend a little further to lift and encourage the feminine in the field of justice. Dave happily wore the collar Anna crocheted for him, with not even an inkling of “Eww, this is a GIRL thing”, just as comfortably as women have learned to wear suit jackets that were traditionally men’s wear.

It takes a confidently humble man to recognize  and rejoice in the divine and majestic nature of the feminine, which is often (but not exclusively) prominent in women. Dave is a nurturer of divine gifts. My girls, and boys, are eternally blessed by his example and tutelage.  And so am I.

Tess adores her Gumpa, in all forms.