United by a wool thread

Artificial Intelligence is a sophisticated mix of algorithms, data and learning capabilities, but are we sure that this plot is up to the level of that created by knitting needles?
I learned this ancient art when I was little, and honestly even at a not very good time for my family, because my sister had just fallen ill with cancer. My mother taught me to knit to occupy the time, both the time we spent in the car heading to the Rizzoli Hospital in Bologna, and the time we spent sitting next to my sister's bed. Despite the sad reason, the needles used to weave delicate wool threads have a special meaning for me. With them, not only have I spent wonderful and creative time, producing dozens of more or less successful artefacts, but they have mainly inspired equally intense moments with my daughter, with my wife, and recently also with dozens of ladies who use them to their volunteering.
Antonia is one of these. We met at a charity event, I don't remember which one in particular, and not because it wasn't important, but just because she spends most of her life organizing activities with philanthropic purposes and every time her mind generates one, she raises the phone and calls me. Sometimes she does it just to get advice, sometimes to involve me directly. The fact is that I couldn't count her projects or even know how many people she managed to get involved, as volunteers or as recipients. The only certain thing is that every time she manages to bring so much good into people's hearts, that I can only admire her.

The means, or rather, the tools that he uses in his charitable projects are precisely knitting needles. Everything revolves around these: the workshops, the markets, the more or less creative artistic installations, which often they force dozens of women, men and boys to produce such quantities of objects that on paper would seem unachievable. You once covered an entire square in Varese with thousands of blankets; another with scarves, and yet another with pillows. She has made, but never alone, so many creations in wool or cotton that it is impossible to even quantify the time it took to make them. And this is the other important aspect to underline: not only does she produce knitted objects, entirely donating the proceeds from the sale, but Antonia dedicates a large part of her time to this and time is the most precious thing we possess.

It happens that every now and then you also call me because you feel tired questioning your worthy activity dedicated to others, and this moves me. Because I believe it is very true that the necessary effort needed to carry out a project of yours is immense, but I cannot help but see only the positive part, that of the results that derive from it, and also that which pushes you to do them, that is, the pure love of the soul. Antonia is concreteness, passion, will, altruism and love, and therefore she can only become an example.

What Antonia perhaps hasn't yet realized, is that she, and her volunteers, not only produce money to donate to those in need - this is just the tip of the iceberg - but that the irons knitted are therapeutic. I am for the dozens of women who meet while knitting, becoming a group; for students learning about crafts, nectar for their souls; for those who purchase these products or attend events. Because they understand the meaning of the word community. Antonia, with her irons, does not weave data, she weaves threads that bind souls

Max Laudadio
NP March 2024