What's the point of creating

anything if there is a war out there?

There is "knitting at the library" today. One of the regulars left me a message to say she didn't feel like coming. What, she wanted to know, was the point of trying to create anything if there is a war out there. This morning there was a similar tweet by a well known author - but her response was a great deal more positive.

When my mother was dying I did almost no knitting. It wasn't because I had stopped wanting to create anything. There were other reasons. Now our much loved Senior Cat is also slowly leaving us and Middle Cat and I are taking the responsibility for the extra care he needs. It takes time and energy. I don't resent this at all. Let's face it he has given us love and attention and support for our entire lives. Those words "unconditional love" really mean something. It leaves much less time and energy for creating anything...and there are other things I "should" be doing. 

But I have been thinking yet again about the need, the urge, the desire to create.  It's important. 

At the last state "Show" in 2020 a piece of weaving was presented for judging. I cannot remember which class it was entered into but it was one of the more "creative" classes - a "design your own" class. As I remember the piece it looked lively. It was mostly yellow and cream. The judges gave it a prize.

The Show opened and people came pouring through the Handicrafts Section. A group of people turned up from a residential home for the intellectually disabled. They very much liked seeing their pieces on display in the special section reserved for them but where was....? They couldn't find it. It was a huge disappointment. Then we realised that the piece was in the "open" section and what was more it had won a prize! The prize money barely covered the entry fee. We had no idea who had paid that - if indeed anyone had. The whole thing might have been an accident. 

The young artist in question looked bewildered but couldn't stop smiling. His friends were equally pleased for him. They gathered around him congratulating him, being pleased and excited for him. I told him "Well done" and offered him a high five. He met it awkwardly and smiled even more widely. It was one of those moments when I wanted to punch the air and shout, "Yes!" Later I was told that he had given the piece to someone special in his life. She has it hanging on the wall in her office - opposite her desk where she can see it whenever she looks up.

To me this is one of those things that creating something is about. It isn't  about winning a prize. Rather it is the recognition that you have created something worthwhile and others have acknowledged it. It is also about the ability to hand something you have created on to someone else. It is about the ability to tell someone you love them - and hold them when you are not there.