Stranger in a Strange Land

Try to picture this, friends:

I was walking through an enormous convention hall filled with vendors. Signs were everywhere. Colorful logos were splashed across every vertical and horizontal plane. There were business cards and piles of swag for the taking. But more than those, this hall was crammed full of two things: ginormous shiny machiney things, and oodles of friendly talking people who want to talk to me about the machiney things or stuff that relates to the machiney things.

To say I felt like a fish out of water would be an understatement.

My dad was a professor and academic administrator, and my mom was a nurse who did a lot of advising and policy work when I was growing up. If you want to talk about academia or Medicare policy, I’ve got the background to make halfway intelligent sounding noises sporadically during the conversation.

I have nothing to contribute to a discussion about machine tooling. I don’t even have the context to comprehend what a CNC thingy even does. (I had to look it up.)

What on earth was I doing there?

Well, I was accompanying Greg as he was making contacts for his business. He was meeting folks and talking, while my job was to collect surveys and attach business cards and generally help keep him free from distractions so he could enjoy (he actually does!) meeting so many new people and learning about them and their businesses. He knows that world and the language, so I watched and listened and picked up what I could, and marveled at my own ignorance.

After several hours of this, we finally reached the display of one of the biggest, shiniest machines in the hall. Curiosity overcame timidity and I actually walked up to a perfect stranger and said, “I’m with him,” (pointing to Greg) “and I know virtually nothing about anything here, but could you tell me, like I’m in fifth grade, what this thing does?”

I’m so glad I did, because I had a fascinating 10-minute conversation with a kind man who patiently and enthusiastically explained the basic function of a very complicated CNC machine. Somewhere in there I shared that I was a fiber artist. He absolutely lit up and shared how a machine very much like the one on display was being used by an artist to create sculptures. We talked about other applications and crossovers between textiles and industrial machining and it was incredibly informative and inspiring.

It would be tempting to just move along and chalk it up to a pleasant and surprising experience. But there’s more and I’d like to share it with you.

I walked away from that encounter happy to have had a nice conversation, but with a different perspective on the things and people around me. I had gained a new appreciation for the work they spent hours on, and the capabilities of the tools they used. I understood, again, how there is space for creativity in all corners of life if you look for them.

That conversation had the effect of making what had felt rather flat and dull to me fill out into something interesting and lively. The subject matter hadn’t changed, of course, but I had. I got to feel my world expand, just a bit, and it’s a lovely feeling.

And what did it take to get there? Being a little uncomfortable and asking an honest question. I don’t want to give the impression that this was something noble because it wasn’t. It came from a combination of curiosity, boredom, and an aversion to feeling stupid. But the benefit to me was real.

So it makes me wonder about how transferable this idea could be. Could I choose to put myself with people and in places that are out of my regular, safe comfort zone? Could I choose to cultivate the kind of humility and curiosity that prompts me to say “I don’t know much about this. Could you explain it to me like I’m in fifth grade?”

What if we took that approach about all sorts of things? Whether it’s shiny machiney things, artistic techniques that appear intimidating, or ideas we don’t understand?

Because I’ll tell you another thing I learned from my new CNC friend. Everybody has their “things.” And when you ask genuine questions about another human’s “thing” and pay attention when they answer, you not only give yourself the gift of expanding your own world, you give them the gift of validating the significance of theirs.

Greg’s Got Questions:

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

LAST WEEK’S QUESTION:

 What would you tell knitters (or their significant others!!!) who are struggling with justifying “how much” to spend on quality yarn for especially meaningful projects like these?

This is such a personal choice! Let me just share how I think of it, and hope it might help someone think through their own choices.

I think of it as a balance between the importance of the project, what yarn the project requires, economic realities of the moment, and what I’ll call the X factor.

Very Important Projects are pretty rare for me. I like using yarn I already have, and when you use stash yarn, it doesn’t feel like you’re spending any money at all. I like having a big stash for this reason! (We can talk about this logic later, Greg. I understand it may take going through it a few times for it to make sense.) Because they are very rare, so is the potential bigger expenditure.

In the case of the sweater from last week’s entry, I knew before we picked the yarn that it was going to be one of those rare occasions. I’m normally a process knitter who doesn’t usually even have a recipient firmly in mind, but for this one, I knew exactly who it was for (me!), why I was making it, and had given myself an informal deadline. Standard operating procedures were out the window.

Economic realities were such that unless I lost my tiny pink mind and somehow thought the sweater simply must be made of quiviut, a soft but sturdy wool blend (which is what the pattern called for) would be relatively reasonable.

The bottom line is I wanted it to be durable, comforting to touch, and beautiful to look at because I hope to have this sweater for the rest of my life.

The X factor in this case was that it was my first trip to Rhinebeck, I saw the display for the Bare Naked Wools booth from far away and fell in love, then felt the Better Breakfast Worsted and heard the fat lady sing. That was it. Done and dusted. All she wrote. Stick a fork in me.

Sometimes, you just know.

Greg’s Questions for This Week:

Here are the questions up for the vote this week. I’ll answer the winner in the next newsletter. (As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: Outside of fiber arts, what is one of your “things” you’d like your readers to know about?

Question 2: Which not-regular, not-safe, not-comfortable area are you excited (and terrified!) to step into next?

Question 3: Would you be willing to share more details about manufacturing meeting art?

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J