Washington: Michelle Obama says it helps to focus on what you can control when you feel out of control. Among the things, she could control during the death and isolation of the pandemic, the racial unrest, and threats to democracy were her spools of yarn and her knitting needles.
She labels such thinking the “power of small,” and she writes in her new book, “The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times,” that by focusing on a small task like knitting she was able to get through the worry, anxiety, and stress of the past few unsettling years.
“The interesting thing about knitting and using your hands and making something is that it is meditative,” the former first lady said Tuesday night at the Warner Theater in Washington, where she kicked off a month-long, six-city publicity tour to promote the book.
“In so many ways, it is like a faith,” she said, seated on stage with a friend, former daytime talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, who engaged Mrs. Obama in nearly 90 minutes of often humorous conversation. “It’s a thing that shuts your worrying mind and lets your hands take over.”
And therein lies the power, she said. “I think about the knit and the purl, and the knit and the purl, and a row and a row and a row,” the former first lady said, naming different stitches and techniques used in knitting. “And if you keep it up, and you’re focused, you have a sweater.”
