Lent and Lint…12 Days ’til Ash Wed.

by sarah pearson

Though I’m not Christian, observing Lent has become a tradition of mine. It began back in Uni, when a dear friend who’s a devout Catholic fasted with me on Yom Kippur (I ended up breaking the fast early. He didn’t). In honour of his trans-denominational gesture, I decided to keep Kosher for Lent that year (which for me basically meant abstaining from meat). I really enjoyed the 40-day challenge. It was enough time to really sink into a new habit, and to prepare and cleanse for Spring.

This was four years ago, and I’m still keeping the practice, though it’s not always keeping Kosher. Last year I gave up Facebook for Lent and it was awesome. This year I’ve decided to give up television.

Yikes.

DVD box sets have become more important a part of my life than I’m comfortable with. My intimate involvement with Buffy and her struggles to fight darkness both in the world and in herself, with Angela Chase and her heartbreakingly-angsty obsession with Jordan Catalano, with Carrie Bradshaw and her tragi-fabulousness…well, it’s fun and all, but it eats up a lot of my time.

So to help make myself give up television, I’ve decided to simultaneously take up…knitting!!! Two weeks from now, I’m gonna go to my very first knitting circle at the Cagibi, and learn to do this nifty craft. The plan is that, in lieu of bedtime episode binges, I’ll knit whilst listening to music or radio. This will engage my senses more, will keep me less braindead, will give me the pleasure of manual work and the satisfaction of creating something lovely. This will give me more time to think my thoughts.

If anyone out there wants to help me learn to knit, jump on board. I’m a knitting virgin (minus the basic stitch I learned back in Brownies). I don’t know where to buy wool, I don’t know how to make squat. Advice, both in person or over this ‘ere blog would be wicked-cool.

And of course, I’ll keep y’all blog-updated throughout my 40-day knitting challenge!!

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go finish watching Season Seven of Buffy before it’s too late.

Listen to this article

Published on: January 25th, 2008

Terms Used: knitting, lent, television

View Related Content »

About: sarah pearson

Sarah Pearson is a writer, singer, and player-of-keys based in Montreal. She loves bicycles, old pianos and Ile Sans Fils cafés.

Visit this Artist's Profile page »

2 Responses to “Lent and Lint…12 Days ’til Ash Wed.”

serahrama proclaims with a mighty roar:

you can learn and work on your yarnwork at Wooden Apples Stitch n Bitch every other Wednesday… this one coming up is one!

Posted on January 25th, 2008 at 5:32 pm [permalink]
Nadine Benny proclaims with a mighty roar:

Thanks for this post Sarah! I gave up chocolate last year, my first Lent experience, and while it was a small sacrifice to make (TV? nice one) the feeling of breaking a habit, good or bad I think, is quite particular. Cheers to knitting and thinking!

Posted on January 25th, 2008 at 8:15 pm [permalink]