Decades ago, during days of medical training, the operation theater was my favorite haunt. I was drawn to its separate, systematic and sterile atmosphere. Surgeons and their staff in their green uniform, hair styles and cosmetic use all rendered useless under caps and masks, shared a unique camaraderie and kinship. While surgeries were being conducted, there would be humor and philosophy and music and terse commands. The operating team would function like a machine, each instrument being given at the right time and place, to enable surgery to proceed smoothly.
And finally, when the surgery would be complete and the patient wheeled out of the OT, I would hang around to watch the staff complete their work. Instruments, swabs and bottles would be counted and sent for cleaning/disposal. The floor would be cleared and cleaned thoroughly. The anesthesia paraphernalia would be put back in place, and drug vials counted and restored to their store box. When the entire process of clearing up would be complete, the staff would leave the clean and neat OT, remove their masks and go for a much deserved tea break. And the neat and clean operation theater would be waiting silently and patiently, for the next surgery, for the next project of curing and healing.
My medical days have become memory now, surgery an even more distant memory. General practice excluded adventures in surgery , but those operation theater memories have remained with me.
This weekend, while putting the final touches to three complete knitting projects, I remembered that clean and neat operation theater, with everything in its place.
After securing the last knitted stitch, tidying up every loose yarn and hanging ends, and blocking the final project, I took this photograph and folded them into the cupboard. That feeling of satisfaction at having completed a project to the last detail … that is a good feeling!
While clearing up the bits of yarn from the carpet, while dismantling the circular needles and putting them back in their case, while closing the pattern page in my knitting diary, while putting the pattern book back on the knitting books shelf… that feeling of closure and completion was a good one!
A clean and empty knitting bag, a drawer filled with hanks and balls of yarn, a book shelf loaded with pattern books, and the world wide web and pattern store at my disposal….that feeling of immense potential floating around me and nudging me to start something fresh, from that first stitch to that last finishing touch…. that feeling is the best one of them all!