Lifelines, Working WITH a Net!

So much in life is flying by the seat of your pants, with nothing to break your fall, though we’d all prefer to move from one “trapeze” to the next with a net below to catch us from a slip, or at least a safety line. Part of the problem, I think is not that the safety net isn’t available, it’s that we don’t want to take the few extra seconds or minutes to put it in place. Take seat belts, for example. For years, putting them on was a chore, and many people didn’t bother, weren’t convinced of their ability to save lives. Once they became mandatory, and a monetary punishment for not wearing them became law, those few seconds didn’t seem such a hardship, and many, many lives have been saved. But people still fight wearing a life jacket when boating, something that is the equivalent to the seat belt in a car.

Carrying a cell phone on a trip, having the car serviced beforehand, and touching base with the people expecting your arrival if you’re delayed, are all safety nets. The cell phone was something I fought particularly hard, and still don’t love. But I acknowledge its place in providing a sense of security.

So I suppose, under the circumstances, I can be forgiven my very human refusal to use a safety line, my reluctance to spend a few minutes to put one in. Though I certainly should have considered it, especially in light of my partial vision loss a year ago. But I'm still struggling with the vanity issues surrounding that and in spite of reading countless articles and posts, many on Knitter’s Review, I was reluctant to do something that might spare me the headache of frogging! I just couldn’t take the time…

Aibhlinn has taught me a great deal about perfection and security. For the one, I hope I can live with a tiny flaw, a misstep in the pattern that should be ignored and moved beyond, and learn to live comfortably with the new visual challenges that make such missteps the norm. It’s not easy for me to do. But for the eventual major botch-up, I’ve learned after frogging Aibhlinn, then again tinking 6 rows, that using a safety net, the lifeline, is worth hours of my time. At least I learned it before I started knitting lace!