One of the tunes I loved to hear Barry Harris play live was Neal Hefti’s “Repetition”. As soon as I would hear Barry play the intro, a feeling of happiness would envelope me. There was something about that piece that brought me a sense of hopefulness and optimism. Perhaps I could hear the concept of repetition, doing something again and again—but skewed with a belief that repeating something just might be even more satisfying than the first or second or fortieth time.

I’m not trying to be too deep about it, but that piece really resonated with me. Of course there are recordings, but nothing is the same as hearing him play in the moment. A feeling of joy emanated from him, always the same yet always different, and that is the nature of jazz. This was true no matter what country or venue he performed in. I miss that so much.

My life right now does not include much live jazz, not much travel outside of my neighborhood, and not much of my musical life from before the pandemic remains. As I focus on starting this new phase on my own, I find myself drawn to quiet, more mindfulness-like activities at home: collage, bookbinding, painting, crocheting, sewing, and knitting.

I just completed a mitered square throw in garter stitch which brought me a lot of comfort as I was knitting it. It was an easy pattern that I didn’t have to think about very much. No real counting involved, I could just focus on forming each stitch, and on every other row, reducing the center to ultimately form a lovely connected square. This process allowed me to think about other things and that was very healing.

Yes, it was a very quiet creation, just the clicking of my metal needles. As I watched each stitch form and drop from my left needle, I saw how it linked to the row below. I watched how these individual stitches became fabric—flexible, warm, and soothing to touch. I marveled at how each stitch done “in the now” became part of a larger whole. Repetition, but as I used variegated yarn, I never got the same stitch twice, and as I added squares, I could never predict if the new square would be similar to the ones surrounding it, or look totally different. I had no control over the overall pattern. I had to let go of the physical outcome and trust that no matter what it looked like, it would be a warm, comforting reminder of my grieving process, no matter how the squares looked next to each other in the end.

I would like to think my knitting is improving with each repetition but in some ways I’m still a beginner even though I’ve been knitting for most of my life. I feel like a beginner now in many ways.

It’s time to stretch out into more complicated patterns and take a risk on stitches I’m not familiar with. And maybe if I focus on making each stitch better than the last, the fabric, and what I ultimately everything create in my life, will be beautiful, flexible and comforting, to me and hopefully to others.