When I sit down and pick up my knitting, and my fingers start flying through the yarn, my mind becomes gloriously clear. I can think about so many things at that point without having to stop and deal with something else. Just the textures through my fingers and the clicking of the needles, and the smooth progression of one stitch following another. Across the row. Row after row, inch after inch, and before I know what has happened my mind is clear and my thoughts are focused and I feel perfectly centered again.

This is a good thing, I've come to realize. So, now when I have a few quiet minutes here and there, when KittyCat is asleep for an hour or so or when she's down for the night and I'm sitting in bed with my eyes telling me how sleepy I am and how much I need to be doing something else, I pick up my needles again. It's a wonderful feeling. It's a glorious peace of mind that I am learning how to grasp anywhere I can find it.

Sure, I can stop any time I want to. Just like my mom can stop playing Bejeweled, and just like everybody I know can 'put the book down and go to sleep' at 0300.... when they protest “I can stop reading. Just one more chapter, and I'll turn the light out, I promise!”

Yeah, right. This is why I wasn't allowed to take flashlights to bed. This is why my husband has learned to sleep with the covers pulled over his head to shut out the light. This is also perhaps why my eyesight is so bad that my eyeglass lenses resemble the infamous coke bottle stereotype. But it's an honest obsession. And I really love those stolen moments of clarity in my day, when everything makes sense and nothing is out of place. This is where I breathe. This is my Happy Place, and where I want to continually escape to. Where I used to dream of a quiet room with a sunbeam and a book, I now dream of a sunbeam and my needles.

Cotton Candy Pink. Baby Blue. Rainbow Sparkles. These are the yarns I'm working with this week. Yummy.