"Is there any special reason why you've become such a domestic goddess all of a sudden?" Man of the House asked as I stood stirring a pot of peach jam. I've been on a knitting, cooking, canning and gardening bender this summer, the likes of which I have never experienced.
I can't recall the answer I gave, it must have been something jokey, but the question stuck with me and I pondered it for a while. I came up with two answers.
Last month, I was given a new position at the company I have worked at the past 13 years. It's a great fit for my analytical brain, but it took me away from the actual handling of product. I went into apparel to make things, to shape something, to see it start out one way and end up another. Now I spend my days analyzing customer spending and satisfaction trends. It is deeply satisfying to the part of my brain that likes to figure things out, but the tactile part of my brain feels ignored.
So I come home and cook and garden and preserve and knit. At the end of a session in mi casa, I have something tangible-- a yummy meal, a row of jars filled with a taste of summer, vigorous little seedlings pushing up toward the sun, a knit cap that'll go to a soldier facing another winter in Afghanistan.
And as the outside news grows bleaker, it is a joy to come home, close the door, and create a serene world where I return to the crafts of an earlier time. My Grandma put up preserves for the winter, my Nana fed her family with simple yet divinely delicious meals, the elderly next door neighbor of my childhood knit socks for sailors in WWI. I reach back to these women and many other of my foremothers and feel the loving warmth of their wisdom and value of the traditional ways. That helps fortify me to return to the stresses and strains of every day life.
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