Musings on hobbies gone wrong

And what you learn by rethreading the needle and untangling knots

In Summer

It’s 10:45 at night and I’m enjoying the only alone time I’ve had all week.

Ok, I’m not actually alone. My husband is asleep beside me but it feels like I’m alone because I’m free of questions, complaints of boredom, and requests for untangling knots.

This is summertime with four kids.

Now before this post becomes overwrought with complaints about how challenging the summers can be, gosh, we live in a beautiful place:

An old red brick parsonage with a wrap around porch that overlooks fields and woods, a wooden fence with a creaky gate, and has plenty of room for a kitchen garden and for our chickens to eat all the grass and ticks they want (and there are lots of ticks).

We have plenty of rooms and beds and food on the table and money to spend on hobbies and freedom to leave the country and not be afraid to return.

And despite the ways these summers can weary me, we also have a lot of fun together.

Photo by Lexi T on Unsplash

Summer Hobbies

This year, I insisted that each of my kids pick a hobby for the summer, something to work on for an hour each day. The teens chose woodwork, cooking, and scrapbooking. The seven year old chose cross stitch, and the ten year old chose knitting.

I didn’t fully appreciate that their hobbies would become my hobbies. That the summer hours I thought I could spend on writing would instead be taken up with ping ponging between children: rethreading a cross stitch needle, casting on stitches, helping a teen cook dinner, and untangling yarn.

I think there’s a sermon illustration in there. I’ll offer that to my preacher husband.

What I will say is that there is a certain peace and quietness that comes after the initial frustration of learning a craft.

I can see it in the way my daughter sits on the porch knitting a mystery object (will it be big enough for a baby blanket or too big for a scarf?) while watching the chickens bathe in the dust of my garden.

I hear it when my son cries because he’s lost his cross stitch needle and can’t work on his project—a piece of pizza with a smile on its face.

I feel it when I search on Etsy for my own cross stitch project. I can’t remember the last time I did cross stitch: high school perhaps?

I’ve learned, or rather relearned, a hobby.

And I’m recalling how much practice and humility it takes to relearn these particular kinds of patience:

• the patience of a teacher guiding a frustrated student

• the patience of a new student who doesn’t yet know the rewards to come as a result of her labor

• the patience of a person who keeps having to relearn the same lesson over and over again (It’s me, Hi!)

What would summer be without all the opportunities to learn and grow?

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Two very different books this summer:

• The Color Purple by Alice Walker—I confess that I only had a vague notion what this book was about. But it’s no surprise that remarkable novel won a Pulitzer Prize. Take note that it deals with sexual abuse, violence, and oppression.

• In Want of a Suspect (A Lizzie and Darcy Mystery #1) by Tirzah Price. A cozy mystery that gives us a different—but enjoyable—take on Lizzie and Darcy. Read Price’s Pride and Premeditation first.

Two songs for summer:

• Scenic Route by The National Parks

• Dreamers Dawn by Sam Kelly

What are you reading or listening to this summer?