Did you hear that!? Knitters?! I sent messages to Ellen and India.
Emanual Cleaver, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and a House Rep from Missouri, got up before the Democratic National Convention today and proclaimed, “We need warm hearts. Not. Hot. Heads!”
I was stunned. Thrilled. He cribbed our line! Cool! They DID notice in Congress!
I immediately wondered, who knit his? Surely he got one (and that if he didn’t we needed to fix that fast.) So many of us knitters made those hats for members of Congress in our campaign last year to get them to cooperate with each other in mutual respect and kindness, to say to them that no matter who we each were in our own politics, we wanted to make a statement that the too-dominant lack of mutual respect did not represent us well and, as I liked to think of it, we wanted them to put a lid on it.
Some thought it a waste of time. Some just didn’t have the time just then. Some did one, maybe two, with each one making a difference: how many people ever see, much less get offered, a handknit hat, and created just for them? Some threw themselves into the cause. The more hats that arrived, the greater the sense in the thank-you notes that came that, at least in some offices, our voices and our stitches were being received warmly.
Gratitude makes the hearts grow fonder.
I found Ellen’s spreadsheet. We got all the members of the Senate but not of the House and somehow Representative Cleaver didn’t seem to get one. Wouldn’t it be great to help him reiterate his point that was our own all along? Wouldn’t it be great to send him a box of handknit hats to pass around, or maybe to send to the people that were missed last time around, but at least, we’ve got to have one for him. I think I might have some wool around here somewhere….