Because

It's a bit of madness, creativity is. It's the kind of thing that makes you spend 3 hours on a rainy Friday afternoon trying to knit with foodstuffs for the pure enjoyment of it. You catch yourself ramming your head against a problem repeatedly, clock ticking, heart beating a little faster, fingers dripping with olive oil and reeking of onions - and enjoying it. For what? For nothing, really. And for everything. For taking your ideas and making them live, for seeing if it can be done, for trying something you've never done before, for using the element of us that is divine - the ability to create.

Somewhere along the line, some people learn to say I'm not creative because their own breed of creativity doesn't match what they see as the "right" kind, or because someone told them that, or because they tried something once and failed, or because, because, because... Sometimes I think it's because the madness is frightening. Because you do end up spending the afternoon with skewers, chopsticks, knitting needles and mutilated vegetables and the all-important question of life and death becomes "How can I weave in the ends of this spaghetti without breaking it?" And then because sometimes you discover after all of your effort, you can't. Not today, not with the materials you have, and you chuck it in the compost and go back to that first square and start again.

For what? For itself. That's what. But it's a bit of madness. It's irresponsible, it's unproductive, it's unprofitable, it's impractical. This bit of madness has changed the face of civilization repeatedly for millennia. Because somebody looked at the mold on bread and wondered about its properties, we can treat illnesses that used to kill. Because someone wondered if they could fly and crashed and crashed and crashed and then flew. Because somebody wondered why apples fall from trees, we now have vehicles that go into space. Because.

I'm not a Fleming, or a Wright, or a Newton. My dressing up a fish hasn't changed the face of civilization. I will likely pass into oblivion when I go, not to be studied by school children who would dress up in overlarge jeans with holes and muss up their hair so as to impersonate me on "biography day" at school. But I would argue for the civilizing effects of dressing up a fish.

 Because I met so many new people this week that I would not have otherwise: fishermen, shop keepers, artists, authors, actors, impersonators. I wandered parts of my city that I usually overlook. Because I spent a lovely afternoon with my daughter and my friend, basking in this small segment of our community who come together once a year out of a love of books and and food. Because I discovered that leeks knit better than green onions. A sole is related to a halibut. Cilantro doesn't knit at all. Crochet with noodles is easier than knitting. Because I gave away my sole to a strange man in impossible cowboy boots. Because I get to end my day with the reinforcement of faith that people are basically nice and strange and encouraging and unique and creative and I am part of that. You are part of that. Because.

Just because. "Knitted Comforts for the Sole"