The Connecting Threads

There are many magical things about the South -- the canopies of old oaks draped in Spanish moss, wildflowers carpeting the roadsides in the spring and summer, the sounds of crickets and frogs at night, heat lightning in the summer sky are just a few of my favorites.

While living in Mississippi and Georgia, I was really struck by how most of my natural-born Southern friends were so connected to their family histories and that many of them lived with grandparents and even great-grandparents either sharing their homes or living very close by. First and middle names were passed down from generation to generation and everyone knew the stories of the ancestors who had shared that name. The thread of their family history wove in and through their lives and connected them to a larger extended family of second cousins, third cousins, great aunts, great-great aunts and beyond.

Although I have adopted the South as my home, I don't have the long, connected family history that my Deep South friends cherish. My parents moved away from their families before I was born and I've lived so many places I've lost count. I have cousins I haven't seen in more than 30 years and it's almost impossible to even get my immediate family in one place for Christmas. I've always envied people who were part of that magical family thread.

Last weekend I was shopping in Target for (what else?) more project bins for my Deep South Knitting book projects. The cashier was a young woman in her very early twenties. She asked me what I needed all the bins for and I told her that I was using them to organize some knitting projects. She smiled shyly and told me that she knits a little, too. And then she shared with me that she doesn't really knit projects, she just, well, knits, because her grandma taught her and when she knits, she feels a connection to her grandma. I smiled all the way home.

I didn't learn to knit from a relative; I learned to knit from the lady who owned the yarn shop in my little town. In turn, though, I've taught my son, half a dozen friends, my sister, my niece, my grandniece, and if I ever have grandchildren, I'll teach them, too. The Target cashier gave me a glimpse of some future when my niece teaches her daughter or granddaughter to knit and tells them that she learned from her own (favorite) Aunt Beth. Knitting will quite literally be my thread that connects me to the next generations of my family.

Happy knitting!