Chains

One, two, three, four, five, six...

"How are you doing, honey?"

"Shhh." seven, eight, nine, "Ten. Sorry, Grandma. You can't interrupt me when I'm counting."

"It's only to ten, Mandy," Mom laughs.

"I lose track after three." Which is why I can't have people around when I'm trying to bake and my cookies are sometimes missing a cup of flour, I add silently. I return my focus to the swirls of yarn and the silent slide of the hook.

I wonder, sometimes, why it is that whenever my grandmother visits, I end up with a hook or a needle in my hand.

She clucks over my knitting, trying to understand how exactly I think I can create a scarf holding the needles as I do. She sighs over my missed stitches and gasps over my slipped loops. She is a champion knitter and crocheter, turning out scarves in an hour and blankets in a day. Her bag is crammed with glossy sheets in foreign language:

With A, ch 4. Join with sl st to first ch to
form ring. (See diagram on page 2).
1st rnd: Ch 3. 11 dc in ring. Join B with sl st
to top of ch 3. 12 dc.
2nd rnd: With B, ch 3. 1 dc in same sp as last
sl st. *2 dc in next dc. Rep from * around.
Join A with sl st to top of ch 3. 24 dc.

"Oh no!" Mom gasps in dismay.

"What?" I ask, absently. One, two, three...

Frantic typing meets my question and I know she's talking to her hundreds of online friends, trying to save fifty dogs in Las Vegas or six goats in Clovis or a rat in Bakersfield. She speaks in half sentences, "Criminal! They should all be taken out and shot!"

I know she's speaking of the animals of the two-legged variety and hold my tongue. Four, five, six.

"I just love purple!" My eyes go to the pink yarn in my grandmother's hands to the smile on her face.

"It's pink, Grandma."

"I know that!" she says as if I were a child of four rather than a woman of thirty-eight.

"I need to call Wendy," Mom continues. "Times like this I wish I had air conditioned kennels."

"You're doing real good, honey. I just love purple!"

I look at the silver yarn in my hands and realize I've lost count. I slide the threads across the hook and start my count over again. One, two, three, four, five, six...is that seagulls?

"Hello? Did you see? Who can we call?" Her bluetooth in her ear, Mom works logistics. I listen to a moment, hearing the passion that so often seems like obsession. I lift the swirl laying lightly across my legs and measure the length.

I think of the long chains I crotcheted when I was Joseph's age. I never had the patience or the knowledge to make more than a chain or half a scarf and it wasn't until decades later I attempted anything bigger. I watched Rachel and Becky churned out blankets, scarves and hats by the dozen, their needles and hooks flying, the knowledge passed through them from the white haired woman with a bag of yarn always at her feet. By the time she moved close enough for lessons, I'd already left home.

I watch her show Elizabeth how to tie a slip knot and start a chain. Wrinkled fingers guide hands stained by art projects and no longer holding the plumpness of a toddler. Her quiet instructions are a reminder as I continue counting.

One, two, three, four, five...

And maybe that's my answer. As I continue my count on a pattern spoken, not written, I absorb knowledge passed through the women in my family for generations. I listen to the laughter in Grandma's voice as she talks about her own grandmother making cable knit sweaters. I picture them, loops and links of soft yarn, stretching and giving to form a chain.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Single chain. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Single chain.