Knitting

Daylight saving begins and leaves me surprised, as usual. It will be so light tonight at dinner time that I will not even believe it is time to cook dinner. However, even though daylight savings time has arrived, presumably because we have entered the vernal season, it does not feel like the vernal season. It feels still like winter and, yesterday, we were treated to high winds and a little snow, followed by hard sunshine and temperatures in the high thirties. Today, it is even colder, but we are spared the snow.

In honor of the reality—as opposed to this vernal fantasy--I was reading today about the bankruptcy of Iceland. It is not clear to me how a country becomes bankrupt (as opposed to a business or a person), nor what it is like when that happens. Presumably, the article on the topic in this week’s New Yorker is going to explain it to me. Alas, after an hour’s work on my part, I am informed as to how the banks all failed (pretty much the same as here), but not quite clear on how Iceland itself failed. (The New Yorker article may not be available on the net without a subscription.) (Update: Vanity Fair also has an article about Iceland's state of affairs, which is available without subscription. )

What I do discover, however, is how at least some Icelanders feel about living in a bankrupt country. Some, of course, are furious, and go out and march about with signs and demand that heads roll. Oh, where is the guillotine when you need one? But others, and in this I recognize some sparks of myself, think it is all for the best. They think that Iceland’s recent spree of easy money risked the loss of their basic character. Now, they can go back to being the kind of people we know, here in Point Roberts, are basic Icelandic stock. (Those of you from Away will recall that Point Roberts was originally settled (after the Native Americans/First Nations, of course) by Icelandic farmers who came here by way of Vancouver Island. The old families were Magnussons and Thorsteinsons and I suppose some Olafsdottirs, but I’ve never heard any ‘dottirs’ names in my local history reading.)

Says the New Yorker writer, as if it explains all, ‘there is talk of knitting.’ Ah, now we are talking business, character business. Icelanders are going back to knitting. I suppose that would be the ‘dottirs’ who are doing that, whereas the Icelandic men will be going back to their boats, where they engage in the partner word, ‘knotting.’ The New Yorker writer speaks of knitting here with some level of contempt, I fear, but also some level of understanding that knitting is the most basic of home-like things, a bed-rock of character activity.

In the days before steam engines and gas motors, girls and women of all ages, knit socks for their family, and knit socks to sell to others. It was like butter and egg money, the socks money. And hard earned in the way of time, since knitting a pair of the simplest kind of adult socks is something that takes about 8-10 hours, at least, even for an experienced knitter. I doubt if anybody paid a lot for women’s work, but they paid enough so that socks were not a disposable commodity as they are now. Folk had few pairs and when they wore out, people (again, mostly women) knew how to darn them. And they were darned regularly because they were valuable.

Valuing that which is basic to our lives: what a good idea! Perhaps that is what the Icelandic people are talking about as the something that they want to go back to. Sounds good to me, especially since I am myself a knitter. And a darner of socks, on occasion, as well. Perhaps with our Icelandic connections, Point Roberts could become the knitting capital of the newly bankrupt/newly restoring world. Perhaps that could be our economic development plan. We could have a slogan, ‘The community that knits together, fits together.’

A limiting factor, of course, is that we have no sheep. Goats, chickens, cattle, horses, burros: but no sheep. So, getting sheep could be the first step in launching both our economic development plans as well as our character restoration goals.

(Sterling Bank got down to penny stock territory this week, where it joined CitiGroup.)