Easy knitting

I've been working on a couple of different projects lately, but over the past few days I find that I've been reaching, almost compulsively, for Surf and Sand, our March First Friday project.  It's easy as can be, and lately that's exactly what I've needed. 

I have a monkey mind.  I wish it weren't so.  I would love to be someone who could sit quietly and mediate on the nature of the universe with a serene smile, radiating peace and tranquility, her mind a tranquil pool.  But that is not me. My mind is more like a hurricane, or a tidal wave that threatens to drown me.  I can't sit quietly, but bounce up as I suddenly remember what I was doing before I sat down.  Or I'm doing what I should be doing, but never finishing because...oh - look, that other thing that needs doing.  Then I am distracted by -- oh, look something else over there.  As a child there were exhortations to "work on your own," while another group was doing something ever so much more interesting than writing my numbers to 1000.  What purpose that particular aspect of arithmetic torture served, I still fail to see. 

Anyway, back to the whole calm, inner peace, sitting still thing.  Knitting.  Knitting is my meditation.  As I give in to the repetitive motions, my monkey mind begins to settle.  Even just a moment makes a difference.  Insert the needle, wrap the yarn, pull it through, and off.  Over and over and over again.  My hands know what to do, and my brain seems to tell them, "Okay - you've got this.  I'm going to ease up for a minute."  Little by little, as my brain lets go, I begin to relax.  All the generalized anxiety of my world lifts, stitch by stitch, breath by breath.  I can see what to do, and I know how to begin.  I am calm. I am knitting.