Whittlin' and Knittin'

Still knitting, and trying to write. Or at least figure out what I want to write. Today I took apart an unfinished knitting project that I finally admit I never will finish. Completing the project requires thinking about it. Thinking about knitting interferes with thinking about writing. Knitting anklewarmers requires no brain power.

I wonder sometimes how men find the time to think about their writing. Back in the olden days, men sat and whittled -- I remember a frequent scene from my childhood when all the males in my life, my father, my uncles, my grandfather, and any stray males who happened to wander down the road, would be sitting in an informal circle somewhere out in the yard, sitting on a stump, or leaning on a fence, the blades on their pocket knives flashing while they all whittled away on a stick or a twig.

My mother complained that none of them ever actually made anything, they just kept whittling a point on the stick, until it was nearly gone. I can understand. If they'd been whittling an object, a cooking spoon, a wooden doll, a little bird, they would have had to stop to think, and that would have interfered mightily with their gossip talking.