The first time I did yarn weaving with children was at a summer camp when I was in college. Each kid got a ball of yarn and four straws, and by the end of the class there was a spider's web of colorful strings trapping them to their chairs. Eventually they got the hang of it and kept pilfering more yarn to make their belts, or dog leashes, or hair bands ever longer. The next day there was a new project but they kept their weaving going, like a song that never ends. 

When I was in fourth grade my mother taught me to finger crochet, and I kept going until I had a slender string of chains that would have reached New Jersey. There was nothing practical I could think of to do with it, but I had fun making it. Maybe fun is too strong a word. There's just something about repetition that keeps me engaged.

Repetition. Back and forth, forth and back. It can be packaged as consistency. Or boredom. Routine. Or monotony. Yet it seems to run through most people's lives like a weft, branching out, drawing back in. 

Marriage certainly falls into the domain of repetition. John does the grocery shopping. I toss dirty clothes into the machine. He handles emergencies. I listen to the twins as they unwind their day. 

Yet something akin to cloth emerges over time, after a hundred suppers, or clean piles of towels. Even if the actions themselves are unspectacular, collectively they create color, and texture.

It will even keep you warm.