Knirvana

We're having a good weather day here in Chicago. The temperature is tropical (low 40s and rising), the sun is out, and there's no wind to speak of. You'd have to have lived through our winter, and know that it's liable to be 22 and snowing again tomorrow, to understand how that feels.

At the end of last week I cast on for the scarf to match the London beanie, and decided that if it's going to be finished on time for Amsterdam, I'd have to start working on it during my commute.

It's extremely simple - just garter stitch - but I'm changing colors to work in stripes to match the hat. The old British military messenger bag I use to hold the yarn while I knit is working so perfectly that I've found I can even stroll up and down the platform stitching away. So far, so good.

It got even better. I was on the Red Line, chugging north to Evanston, when suddenly every last element fell into place. As stitches began to fly off the needle in time with the rocking of the train, Miss Peggy Lee rotated onto my iPod, crooning "Deed I Do," the sun poured in through the window in great bucketfuls, and the passengers around me for once did not smell like a compost heap.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

I hear and read all the time about the power of knitting to calm nerves and to help time otherwise idle time pass, but this was my first experience of it turning a banal and often unpleasant experience into a stolen moment of bliss.

Not a bad way to start the week.