The importance of creating things

is not to be underestimated right now.

Yes, I am still here this morning. It's just after eight and I have a list of things that need to be done - but that's fine. 

The most important of those things will be to visit the Senior Cat this morning. I will go slightly later than usual and make sure he has some help to eat lunch - if he wants some. I am also taking him the first tomato - a tiny cherry tomato about the size of a grape. 

But I am also taking some yarn for one of the residents who has discovered she can still knit. "I am just doing squares" she told me. Now I know about squares. I see many squares made by people in residential care. A lot of them are not square at all of course. There are wobbly edges and dropped stitches and other glitches. To me that does not matter. These not-square squares can still be put together one way or another. They then get used as comfort blankets and lap rugs. That's important. 

This resident can still knit a square which is a square. Her knitting is beautiful, some of the best I have ever seen. I don't mind parting with some of my own stash in order to encourage her. She is much happier when she is "doing something useful" - her words.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately. Until he could no longer physically manage it the Senior Cat spent time in his garden and his shed. He made things. Almost everything he made was made for other people. My mother made things for other people. Brother Cat makes things for other people. Middle Cat draws the most intricate pictures in which you need to hunt for all sorts of things - a bit like Johanna Basford's colouring books but rather wilder. The Black Cat makes things too - often quirky things from scraps. I make things too - I write books and I design and knit and crochet things. 

The Senior Cat's brother was an artist. He also made the bird bath in the garden, the one I fill each morning so that all the local wildlife can get a drink.  I know other people who knit and crochet and sew and woodwork, build models and do all sorts of other things. I think they are the most content people. They may not appear to be the happiest but there is something there in their lives that seems to make it easier for them to cope with things like the current pandemic.  

When my parents first moved here there was an elderly couple living next door. Well into their 80's they migrated north for at least four months each winter.  They took a slow journey north towing their ancient caravan. I can remember asking C... what he and his wife V... did in the evenings. He smiled and showed me two boxes. Hers contained fine wool and needles. His contained a complex model. 

"I like to make things," C... told me, "I like to know I can still do something. There's a place up there which will take this and give it to someone to look at when I finish it - and then I can start another one."  

They also played board games and cards. Neither was a "reader" but they found real pleasure in creating things.

I know some people feel no need to do such things but I know I get on best with people who create things. We need more of that in our lives.