Needle Notes

I have laughed many times about my schedule this year, at one point I had six Maddalena’s on the table. Rigoletto seems to be the recession opera of choice and as even my mother will tell you, I play an excellent whore. So there is was. With a Carmen or two thrown in, a Jo here and there, and a little Man of La Mancha for flavor, my year was set and I needed to get serious about life outside the business….or I thought I may loose my mind. It takes about one three hour rehearsal, maybe two to stage my whole role, and then what? After going to the gym, going to a yoga class, having my three hour rehearsal call, paying my bills online, talking to my fiancee on the phone – I pick up my needles and I find me some fellow fiber enthusiasts.

In Tulsa OK, in my most recent production of Rigoletto, I found an amazing little place called, “Loops.”

After dropping the requisite and impossible to avoid load of money on the softest, funkiest, most luscious yarns ever, I turned around to find a group of amazing women chatting away on plush couches and dragging chairs over to an ever expanding circle. A little timid at first I asked if I could join them for a bit and their reaction was overwhelming. They invited me in squishing each other to fit another chair, offering me coffee, and even giving me a gift! They asked me all sorts of questions about who I was and before I knew it three hours whizzed by. What struck me about these women (and later, one lovely man – who, by the way, is an AMAZINGLY talented knitter and taught me a thing or twenty) is their warmth, openness, and kindness, even to a stranger. They were married, single, healing, healthy, grieving, glowing, working, and home bound, but they were all coming together at the end of the day for a few hours of sharing their lives, their work, their troubles, their joys, and their art.

The first day I went to the loops group was a tuesday night and there was a sweet, quiet, white haired lady sitting on the end of the couch. Is was subtly clear that she was the kitting equivalent of Yoda. All hail the master knitter. Numerous times in the evening someone would come to her with a question and very simply and quietly, she would demonstrate, ‘like that’. The light in the struggling knitters eyes was always brilliant. Being that struggling knitter more times than I can count, when someone explains something and you GET it – it’s like waking up from the nightmare where you show up to work naked, an realizing it didn’t really happen. I learned how to knit from Selma, Molly and Pearl. Molly was my grandmother, and Selma and Pearl were her cousins. On the top floor of their duplex in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Selma handed me knitting needles and pulled out a bottle of Kettle One vodka and said, “audrala, I want you to meet the blender” (pronounced, blenda). So, sucking down Piña Colada’s I learned how to knit, I was 13. You can see more on my website “about” page – www.mollyspurl.com – but after I was taught a few basics, Molly and Pearl died and Selma lived no where near me. I grew up in LA though most of the family was still in Brooklyn. When I finally moved to New York, Sel left for Florida, was it something I said? All to say, I lost my knitting gurus, and here, in Tulsa, at this little place called loops, 17 years later, there were tons of them, all with incredible knowledge to share. I was in heaven.

I kept going back to this particular group who made sure to tell me when they met, Tuesdays and Fridays, and I looked forward to it more than I can say. My colleagues invited me to a movie one night after a yoga class and I had to pass, because I didn’t want to miss my new group of friends. In some towns it’s easier than others to find a little space in their society to fit in and feel at home, but in Tulsa, I found a spot, and I made some inspiring new friends.