This is mourning knitting; rote, predictable, back and forth, mindless, rythmnic. Taking some pressure off my brain, an enforced breathing exercise. Sometimes when you don't know what to do next, you forget even how to breath, and you need to do those dumb knee-bend in/out breaths, to move forward to the next moment, to move forward to the next month, to get to the next hour, the next week, the next year. When I divorced my husband and broke up with boyfriend, I had mourning knitting; blankets and shawls and dark things. I love the colours and texture of Noro Silk Garden, and the distraction of waiting for the next colour combination, so I'm not exactly swathed in black right now. But I when I think of my Dad, I think of blue, blue for conservative, blazers with gray flannel trousers, blue eyes, noxzema hand cream, Italian wool navy business suits, mariner themes, blue sea water, and winter skies in Vermont. When the blue pokes through this blanket, I feel him. In my minds eye, he is moored in an inlet just around the bend. A good supper finished, he's on the deck with a big cigar watching and thinking. And I just knit, knit, knit, knit