My safe word is "Purl"

I have a curiosity about lifestyles very different from mine. I love the idea of communal living. I am perversely intrigued by the concept of sister-wives found in polygamous marriages. And S&M holds me fascinated.

So I was at knitting tonight. My Odd Friday Night Unitarian Universalist Knitting Group. Six of us who get together for hours of hilarious and warm conversation. Somehow we started talking about yarn which felt like we were knitting with steel wool and how only masochists would like this yarn and if we knitted something WITH this yarn we'd have to include handcuffs and the knitter would have to have a "safe word." In S&M circles, a "safe word" is given when the sexual play becomes a little too rough or scary- a word which can't be misinterpreted to mean anything other than "STOP." "NOW!"

I've been thinking about friendships alot lately. About what makes friends and how friends are made.

I'm lucky to have this knitting group. They're my friends. Good friends. We may have started as a church connected group, but we have gone way past that. Initially our UU church-related commonalities gave us a jumping off point. Our conversations, however, have become threads which we gently unravel from each others' lives. We don't indulge in pseudo-psychoanalysis. And we don't bare our deepest, darkest souls to one another while we sip lattes at our coffee house meeting place. But we share concerns about our families, hopes for our careers, children problems and parent problems and travel plans and, yes, knitting patterns.


Thisis the group of people to whom I'd turn to at 3 am in an emergency- (the 3 am call is my bellwether for defining friendships). I'd call these friends if and when I need moral support. If my car broke down and I couldn't find a ride. If I needed an air mattress for an out-of-town guest. If I need a recipe for an appetizer.


We knit and we laugh and we drink tea about every other Friday night. These nights appear in my busy life as a respite. I can count on finding a haven from chaos at least every other week.
When the world is spinning almost out of control, I know I can count on these Fridays when I can be myself with liberal, like-minded folk who share a love of knitting and good conversation. In a sometimes scary and rough world, the Friday Night Knitters are my oacis.


My 'safe word' is "Purl".