The Knitting Circle at the Train Station

Every weekday morning on the 7:12 commuter train, a group of women knits in the third car. I noticed them for months before one of them offered me a spare pair of needles.

"Everyone starts with a scarf," she said. "Everyone's first scarf is ugly." She was right on both counts.

Now I'm a member. There are seven of us: a pharmacist, a court stenographer, two teachers, a retired engineer, a law student and me. We've knitted baby blankets for each other's grandchildren, mittens for a shelter, and one truly enormous sweater for the conductor, who wears it every December.

The train ride is forty minutes. We talk, we count stitches, we laugh at each other's mistakes. I used to dread my commute. Now I'm a little sad when we pull into the city.