First Person
Teaching My Beloved to Knit
“Teach me,” my beloved murmurs, his body pressed close to mine. There is a book in his lap, but he is not reading it. He is watching me knit.
We are madly in love, Michael and me, two middle-aged people who found each other after we were fully formed.
We are both writers, world travelers, lovers of all things New York City.
We share books we read and stories we write; we share our favorite recipes and family secrets.
We do all the New York Times puzzles together, taking turns with who chooses the first word for Wordle, working hard to be Queen Bee, finding the connections in Connections.
But I am the knitter. Every afternoon, while my beloved climbs onto the fire escape of our 411-square foot apartment in Greenwich Village with a book and a cigar, I knit. I put on a British detective show, pick up my needles, and lose myself in knits and purls.
“Teach me how to do it,” he says one silvery afternoon.
“I can’t,” I tell him.
Not because I don’t want to—in truth, the idea of knitting together thrills me—but because I literally can’t teach him, or anyone, to knit.
The first time I tried, I failed. This was back in 2003, a year after my five-year-old daughter Grace had died and I was still deep in the muck of grief, knitting to save my life.
One morning the phone rang and a woman started introducing herself, but she was talking too fast for me to make sense of what she was saying (probably afraid I’d hang up on her since I was known to hang up on people a lot in those dark days). Then I heard her say: “My daughter went to school with Grace.” And I did want to hang up because I didn’t want to hear what she had to say about any of it.
“Please,” she said, slower now. “I lost my little boy this summer and I am losing my mind and someone told me knitting helps you. Please teach me to knit.”
The next thing I knew I was sitting beside another grieving mother, trying not to cry and realizing I could not explain how to knit.
“You just move one stitch from this needle to this one,” I said, which made no sense to her, of course. In other words, she left still not knowing how to knit, but I hope comforted in some way.
Both my kids are left-handed and I couldn’t even teach them to tie their shoes, never mind knit. Which isn’t to say I didn’t try but is to say I failed.
Annabelle learned to knit from a woman sitting next to us on a plane and YouTube videos. And now my beloved was asking me to teach him. What’s a woman in love to do?
On our couch in our tiny apartment, on a bus winding through Cuba, on the screened-in porch of a house on the beach, I tried. Oh! The dropped stitches and crossed stitches and, oddly, added stitches. I tried teaching him with large needles for his large hands, and smaller needles for better control, and round needles because why not? He struggled through failed scarves and hats and Grandma’s dishrags and the cursed 2×2 ribbing.
“Is this a purl?” he’d ask. Or: “Am I doing this right?” Or: “Something looks wrong.” And I’d look up from my own knitting to try to instruct or frog or fix. There was a lot of fixing. His stitches were so tight, so twisted, so split. But that man did not give up. Me? I wanted to give up. How in the world did I knit? What was I actually doing that I couldn’t explain? I have taught hundreds and hundreds of students to write entire novels, but I couldn’t teach one man—my man!—to knit.
Until I heard Arne and Carlos talking about The Easiest Scarf in the World. “This is so easy,” Carlos said. “Very, very easy,” Arne said. “You need to know a knit stitch, that’s it.”
This scarf is knit long ways—knit a row and turn. That’s it. You don’t even weave in the ends; they become the fringe. I gifted Michael some mini skeins, and after only a few mishaps, he was knitting without mistakes. I’d look up from my own knitting and see him there knitting and I would swoon. I have grown dizzy watching this man knead bread and spatchcock a chicken, but there is nothing quite as sexy as watching the man you love knit.
Six months later, he had a finished scarf. A beautiful finished scarf!
Somehow, I’d done what he asked: I taught him to knit. To some, their love is like a red, red rose or a summer’s day. But to me, my love is a man with The Easiest Scarf in the World wrapped jauntily around his neck and a pair of knitting needles tucked in his pocket. In other words, a man who knits.
My children..Waldorf students…learned the rhyme in first grade:
In through the front door,
Circle round the back.
Out through the window.
Off jumps Jack.
If you knit as you say it, it makes sense and 6- year olds knit very successfully. It could work for adults….especially such lovely-sounding motivates men. Good for you for persevering.
Ah, Ruhlman! I first discovered him on the first iteration of “Next Iron Chef” then as a foil to Anthony Bourdain on “No Reservations”(a candidate for “Knit to This”). I have many of his books. First I read “The Making of a Chef”. Anyone who can write 20 pages on consommé should find knitting a piece of cake…or bread as I religiously use his bread recipe/procedure (I loved the app!). I knew of Ann, but did not realize the connection. What marvelous dinner conversations they must have! Thank you for sharing!
I will let him know!
I tried to teach my sister to knit after her beloved husband died. I wanted for her what I had discovered in knitting: the slow rhythm of the work and the captivating creativity that takes you to a happier place—or even just a not-so-sad place. She managed the knit stitch but she never felt the magic. So to quote the Old Chief in the movie Little Big Man, “Sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn’t.”
I hope she found something that brought her comfort.
This is lovely piece. I really enjoyed reading about how much you love this man. And now he knits! How much better can this get?
I love this. What a romantic story. And I must say here that “The Stolen Child” is a wonderful book! Thank you for your writing.
Thank you, Mary Ann!
So thrilling to see your beloved’s excitement with his scarf. Your post about his journey was most heartwarming.
This is beautiful! I love that he wanted to share a hobby that brings you joy. Thank you so much for sharing
I am about to embark on my first session with a group of high school aged students. None of them have ever knit before. This story gave me courage.
Good luck, Sydney!
One summer, in a rented cabin during an unfortunately rainier week than we had expected, my husband asked me to teach him to knit. We found some yarn at a discount store, variegated shades of blue, and he worked hard to produce a single wobbly looking dishcloth. That was his only knitting experience and he’s still very proud of his never used dishcloth. You did a much better job that I was able to do!