Frugality? Therapy?

Maybe both?

I have been a longtime reader of Katy Wolk-Stanley's blog, The Non-Consumer Advocate. Over the years, she has more than once posted about her extending the life of socks and other knitted materials by darning them.

As I make known far and wide, I don't sew. I don't knit, crochet, or weave. I don't craft, period. Just not within my skill set. I admire those who do, but again, I can't do it. I can mend a tear or replace a button, but that is pretty much the limit of what I can do.

So why was I sitting last night mending a tear in a wool cap I wear often this time of year? 

One reason was because it is COLD outside. I walk a lot. A. Lot. And I need something warm and toasty that keeps my head warm.

Another reason was because the area in need of repair was small. The opening was about the size of my thumb. Okay, even I could do that. 

Another reason was sentimentality. My son Benjamin, about to turn 40, received this cap as a birthday present at, I think, a birthday party with friends when he turned 11. Or maybe 12. Whichever. The bottom line is the cap has been in my closet for years and I have worn it regularly for the last 20 or so. 

One final reason is that, although I do not knit or sew or other, I am married to a skilled, artistic, talented craftsman who has been making custom mallets for himself and others for decades. Decades? Like five of them. The keyboard mallet heads are wrapped over and over in yarn. As a result, the yarn was already in the house. All I had to do was ask.

So, there I sat quietly, mending, taking great satisfaction in taking care of a small task.

A small, concrete task.

A small, concrete task that I could focus on. Draw satisfaction from. Finish. 

Ever read a book where a sentence or a sentiment or a concept leaps off the page and grabs you? That is not an uncommon experience for me and it happened several weeks ago when I read Rabbi Angela Buchdahl's stunning memoir Heart of the Stranger. She ends each chapter with a mini-sermon ruminating on a Hebrew word and its importance in Judaism. The word at the end of one chapter was simcha (joy) and she reflected on the importance of finding joy even in the midst of hard times and sorrow and depression. 

Buchdahl quotes Søren Kierkegaard: "It takes moral courage to grieve, it takes religious courage to be joyful." She then write about Hasidic Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, who struggled with depression and wrote that even when one did not feel happy, they should act happy and "genuine joy will follow."

That was not the part of her writing that caught me. It was her discussion with Alan Schlechter, an NYU professor, and his observation that Nachman's response is a major therapeutic tool in treating depression and is called "behavioral activation." "The method insists we start doing the things that bring us joy, even if they are not making us feel the way they used to. In the doing, the feelings will change," he told her.

Behavioral activation! That is where I leaped off the chair. Well, leaped figuratively. What I actually did was grab my Chromebook and Google "behavioral activation." Within a few minutes, I was looking at a sample worksheet and burst into laughter. The first page was suggested activities, the following pages contained a log to chart one's activities and to assess how one felt after a week of such deliberate actions.

My laughter? I have been treating myself by behavioral activation for weeks now, without knowing I was doing it. Small, deliberate tasks. Running an errand. Cleaning up the kitchen. Organizing the paperwork messes that pile up in my study. 

And mending a hat that came into my life years ago.