EZ I Never Knew You

I’ve been interning as a chaplain at NYU Langone Medical Center since September, and I’m sorry I haven’t posted more about it. It is hard to blog about these personal and still unfolding experiences. But I did write a midterm paper that included the following work of fiction. Apologies to EZ’s daughter Meg Swanson & anyone who was lucky enough to know her while she was here – I’m sure she was much more eloquent.
I was asked to “Select a passage from Scripture or your own faith tradition and write a brief verbatim with a dialogue between you and one of the characters.” I don’t have scriptures for my faith tradition. So I chose to have a chat with Elizabeth Zimmerman, a famous knitter who died in 1999 at the age of 89. Her motto was “Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises.”

In her 1971 classic knitting text Knitting Without Tears she begins with these words:

“Most people have an obsession; mine is knitting.

“Your hobby may be pie-baking, playing the piano, or potbelly-stove collecting, and you can sympathize with my enthusiasm, having an obsession of your own. Will you forgive my single-mindedness, and my tendency to see knitting in everything?

“If you hate to knit, why, bless you, don’t; follow your secret heart and take up something else. But if you start out knitting with enjoyment, you will probably continue in this pleasant path.”

And later in her introduction:

“Now comes what I perhaps inflatedly call my philosophy of knitting… Its main tenets are enjoyment and satisfaction accompanied by thrift, inventiveness, an appearance of industry, and, above all, resourcefulness.”

I imagine that like many prophets whose words are later used to hold up ideas about how and why to behave in one way or another, that Ms. Zimmerman had no idea the impact her words would have on the knitters who came after her. Her approach to knitting is empowering, she admonishes the reader over and over in her texts to use her own intelligence and ingenuity to figure out how to do things, even as she gives helpful and careful instructions about everything you might want to know about how to knit. Her approach is based on the quality and value of the act of knitting as much as it is about the pleasure and sense of accomplishment that comes from making something well.

Nothing would give me more pleasure than to have the opportunity to speak with her. I imagine her where many of my conversations take place these days, in a hospital room.

EZ is 98, female, retired knitter, widowed, three children. She has been admitted for chest pains.

Her room is full of colorful flowers and cards. She is sitting up in bed and quietly knitting a gray wool sweater. There are knitting tools and extra wool on her nightstand. There are no visitors at the moment, though her room has been mostly full of visitors coming and going all day. EZ looks tired and thin, with boney hands that move in a relaxed way over the wool and needles. She looks up as I enter and smiles. I smile too.

C: Hello Ms Z. I’m sorry to interrupt your knitting. I’m Callie, one of the chaplains here. Is this an ok time to talk?

EZ: Oh heavens, the chaplain! If you can bear such a heathen you are more than welcome to sit while I knit.

C: Thank you. I guess you are feeling ok if you are up to knitting.

EZ: If I weren’t up to knitting one could only conclude that I was dead! Ha ha!

C: (I laugh too) I have to tell you, it is really a pleasure to see you, even if it has to be here. I’m a big fan of your work.

EZ: Well that is most kind of you.

C: I’m sorry, I’m supposed to be focusing on you and how you are doing, but your work has inspired me in such a way that it has actually brought me here, to this moment in the hospital. I’m actually a little twitterpated.

EZ: Well that’s just foolishness my dear. I am just like all your other patients here, waiting for results, waiting to get well, waiting to die.

C: Forgive me Ms. Z, but I thought you died in 1999.

EZ: Oh well yes, I supposed that’s so. But still, what’s so special about being dead?

C: Hm, well, you tell me.

EZ: It is quite marvelous you know, to be one with everything in the universe. And just like I expected I might add.

C: Really?

EZ: Oh yes. Now I can knit rivers as easily as I knit yarn here now, I’m afraid it is all quite the same thing, dear.

C: How so?

EZ: Well I don’t have to tell you that using your own creativity and ingenuity in knitting is quite like practice for being a decent human being. It isn’t really so much about WHAT you make in this world, it is about HOW you make what you do manage to produce. Do you think the homeless child you donated a knitted hat for sees that imperfection you were so worried about? No. She sees all the other stitches dear, every imperfectly personally made stitch is like a hand stroking her hair. Or you own sweater, you made it yourself didn’t you?

C: Well, yes.

EZ: I knew it. It suits you perfectly. You know a woman glows brighter in a garment she made smartly for herself. This sweater, how long did it take you to make up?

C: Almost 8 months, I’m afraid I put it down for a while when I was not feeling so happy.

EZ: And why would you do that child? Knitting when you are not happy is just as important as knitting when you are happy.

C: I guess I didn’t want to put my bummer energy into the knitting. I’ve always thought that what you feel when you are making something somehow infuses the end result.

EZ: Exactly! And this is just why you must knit through your sadness, despair, anger, and confusion. Think of it this way, what kind of world would it be if all the wool in the world were gray?

C: Kinda lame.

EZ: Precisely! Without the white and navy and red sweaters, that favorite color of yours would be quite dull now, wouldn’t it? The same is true of all things dear. I’m certain those sad stitches are what make your sweater sing. You really mustn’t let your difficult feelings get in the way of your knitting.

C: Is this what you do?

EZ: I’m afraid so. The universe is a complicated place. Sorting out all the bad from the good would just take too long, and I’m much too lazy for that sort of thing in any case. I just gather it all and make use of the lot. I wouldn’t want to waste any perfectly real feelings by not knitting them in.

C: And then what happens to the difficult feelings?

EZ: Well they are the pattern stitches of course. Whenever I have something to use that I hadn’t planned on, I find a way to make it work out to my advantage. You can too dear. Just look at this lovely color pattern I’ve knit into the hem here. (I can see that she has just finished her sweater and has somehow knit in a border of red snowflakes while we were talking)

C: Wow.

EZ: Now, would you please give this sweater to the lady in the next bed? She hasn’t had a single visitor while I’ve been here and I think she might like to know I’ve been thinking of her.

C: Oh, I’d be honored (I’m tearing up a little here). Thank you so much for taking with me Ms. Z. Really, this has meant a lot to me. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?

EZ: Just keep knitting dear, you know there really is just so much to learn, you’ll never run out of things to keep yourself full.

C: Thanks again Ms. Z.