I have spent many hours on the beach, walking and thinking and often trying not to collect. Not to pick up anything but eventually coming home with something or other. I disinfect, scrub and clean each piece of my booty and sort them out into categories based on size and type. I have glass jars of varying sizes and designs, all around my apartment, housing the various shells and stones that I have amassed. Yesterday, I spied what looked like a shell, lurking erroneously, in my large stones’ jar. I fished it out and realised it was one of those interesting pieces that I hadn’t been able to leave behind on the beach. Neither a stone nor a shell, but I had placed it in with the stones because this materiality dominated its form. It was a red laterite stone with an oyster shell stuck onto it.
In Siolim, along the Chapora and at Ashwem beach one sees a lot of shells, mounted one on top of the other, clinging to the porous laterite stone which makes the stone very rough and difficult to sit on, or even walk over – especially bare footed. Out of curiosity, I once asked a local restauranteur why they do that and he said that oysters grow on rocks, which I found absurd, but for lack of any other information kept mum. And then a few weeks on, as the quest continued, it was a fisherman who enlightened me. Apparently the oysters secrete a substance that allows them to cling to the rocks and onto each other, to stay stable during the ebb and flow of the tide and river current. And they do this when they are breeding. Now that made much more sense than oysters growing on rocks but, I remember the other story better because it adds to an already curious shell-stone form.
The day had been a busy one. I had a meeting with the lawyer so had to leave before noon. The moment I parked it pelted down and the umbrella was no cover. My beige coloured trousers were splattered with mud and by the time I reached the courts – barely a three minute walk, I was soaked. As it happened the lawyer wasn’t there and I had to coax his colleague to listen to the details I needed him to understand, which he may not have understood from a cursory glance at the documents. Thereafter, I had to complete many odd chores and finally came home with the cushions that complete the interior décor of my flat, seven months after I have moved into it.
Simona comes to help out on Fridays and so, despite the fact that I was rather tired by this point, the kitchen chores also had to be done. I had lots of other paper work to complete. I hate these constant phone calls and follow-ups. It is so annoying that no-one does anything until you remind or beg them to. So while Simona cut and chopped, I did my share of begging and reminding for the pest control, the internet cable to be installed, for a refund pending five years, for my car insurance claim that is almost a year overdue and more in the same vein. It’s work that has to be done but it’s not work that I enjoy doing.
I didn’t think that I would get any crochet done today. It was the shell in the stone jar, that inspired me. When I had dug it out, I left the it on my work-table, so couldn’t help but see it as I pottered around. Weeks went by and it lay there tempting me but, clearly it didn’t evoke the right feeling and many other stones and shells got crocheted. But today, as I winded down the day, even though it was late, I felt the need for some clarity. Precisely because the day had been so crowded with doing and phone calls and all the rest of it that, I hadn’t had much time for reflection. Aside from the early morning writing in my journal, which thankfully, I had managed to do before I drove to Mapusa, Porvorim, Panjim and back.
Laterite is a rusty-red-maroon stone that is quite nubbly in itself. The oysters add to this and make it even more rugged. This particular stone, with the shell attached to it, also had some largish white spots dotted over its surface which may be because that the oysters eventually do get washed away with the tide and the secretion they use to adhere to the rock, changes its colour. I haven’t studied this nor asked around, so it’s pure conjecture. But, holding this odd looking rock in my hands, pondering what colour to use, I decide that I wanted to show off its texture as much as I could and picked an off-white yarn.
I hooked a chain of about forty stitches and closed it around the shell, just below where it sat, because it formed a ridge where the circle of chains could sit, hopefully, without slipping off. Then, I proceeded to crochet, adding another row of single crochet onto this line, working on the stone. I find this both challenging and fascinating because the object I am crocheting suggests what to do where, and I have to keep it simple. I cannot get all lacy and curvy with the chained lines because, with every stitch my steel hook hits the stone, scraping itself along the unrelenting and uneven surface making a grating sound, which isn’t pleasing. Nor is it easy to work around the form. I have less manoeuvrability and ease of access. Also, until I reach a point where the fabric is snugly fitting the stone and stops slipping off, especially when I pull the thread a tot to even out the tension of the stitches, it involves a lot of yanking up of the fabric, positioning it around the stone-shell and only then moving on. I have to do this manoeuvre, consistently, with almost each stitch.
However, this stone didn’t take too long to complete. Wanting to reveal more than cover, I used a lot of double crochet, which adds length very quickly. It is also no more than a couple of inches or just a bit more. It was late at night and I was listening to Eckhart Tolle on YouTube, speaking about accepting the unacceptable. Not a riveting talk because he repeats himself constantly, but when my hands are engaged, I am too involved with the thread work to be bothered to switch off the video, so I let it play on. By the end of it, between my crochet and Tolle’s droning on about being in the present, about being grateful even in the most difficult moments of life – for the simple fact that one is breathing and therefore all is well, I felt calmer and relaxed enough, to feel like sleeping.
There is something about the hooking of thread and the complexity of working around these stones and shells, that engages with an intensity that somehow alleviates the tumult of emotion within. I am not quite sure how it works but have noted the results and sometimes, pick up a stone to crochet just to get past difficult feelings of the moment.
It was passed midnight. It had been a long day, busy with daily-living chores and driving around navigating the rain. Even so, I was chuffed that I still managed to do some crochet. Having these moments to ponder on living with the flow of thread, or in this case, erratic needling of the chain, I feel a sense of ease that is difficult to put into words. But, having done something more than just tend to the business of living, there is a sense of well-being. It doesn’t have to be a grand creative endeavour. Sometimes just this little is enough to alleviate the stress.
