Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.
I’ve written before about the online knitting group I belong to. It’s a community of knitters, crocheters, weavers, and all-around crafty yarn people that live in a whole variety of countries. But we don’t just chat in the group. It’s actually a swap group first. There are a variety of threads where we swap yarn. The basic premise is that someone first offers yarn. Someone who wants it, claims it by saying “me please” and then that person has three hours to post the next offer. The person who offers the yarn has two weeks to mail the yarn to the person who claimed it. If nobody claims your offer within 4 days, you have to switch it and offer something else. Each thread has a theme. For example, one is called the Alphabet Swap. When you post an offer in that thread, your offer has to start with the next letter in the alphabet. So if I claimed something that started with an “L”, I would have to make my offer start with “M”. That could be a skein of Malabrigo or Madelinetosh yarn (both fancy, high quality brands). Or it could be a skein of any brand but in Midnight blue.
It’s really fun and sometimes we have KA swaps, which stands for Kick Ass, meaning we all come online at the same time and we swap in one thread. But you have 5 minutes to post an offer after you claim and you have to switch your offer if not claimed in 5 minutes. It’s called KA because all of your offers have to “kick ass”, meaning they have to value at least $18. For perspective, one skein of Malabrigo alone could equal $18. Madelinetosh is at least $21.
Sometimes, actually, lots of times, in a thread, someone will RAK an offer to another member. RAK stands for “Random Act of Kindness”. In that case, a person will claim an offer and tell the person who offered it to send it to someone else. The person who RAK’s the offer then posts the next offer. So basically, they’re claiming yarn, having it sent to someone else, and then giving up a skein of their own yarn—without getting anything in return. Our group is full of amazing people who do things like that. I’ve RAK’d offers. We know each other well enough that we are familiar with favorite brands, colors, fibers… We even have pages on our profile that showcase all the yarn we have. One stash page for each skein of yarn we have. The website allows you to ‘favorite’ posts or yarn in people’s stashes. So if I offer something from my stash, someone might see that someone has it favorited in my stash and then claim it from me and ask me to send it to the person who marked it as a favorite. It’s all public. Sometimes the person who RAKs will claim and say who they’re having it sent to. Other times, someone will claim and then private message to ask privately for it to be sent to someone else. And then that person gets a surprise in the mail. Like I did one time—to be fair, I’ve been in this group since 2008, so I have been on the sending and receiving end of many RAKs, but this one was my favorite. Well, one of my favorites.
This skein of yarn was highly coveted by me. It’s yarn dyed in a self-striping pattern. Meaning, when you knit socks with it, the yarn will automatically make stripes. The colorway is called “Mind the Gap” because all of the colors are what’s found on the map of the London tube. I’ve never been to London to see the map in person, but I just love the colors. One of the members randomly sent it to me with another claim I was expecting from her. She didn’t tell me she was including it. This was the picture I took to show her how happy it made me:
I say all this because knitters truly are the best people and I have absolutely loved being in the group. It’s a lot more than just swapping yarn and chatting.
I think yarn may be a love language of mine. So many of the things I’ve done that are random acts of kindness involve making things for somebody. I can’t find the quote, but I read something online that talked about what it really means for someone to put the time and effort into making you a gift. The point being that it means they really like you or appreciate you or whatever. It’s truly meaningful and you should know that the gesture is sincere. Kind of like the spray paint can I made for the tattoo artist who did my blue flowers. I felt like a cash tip wasn’t enough to express how much I loved the work he did. So I made him something. It wasn’t necessarily random, but it was for him. I’m working on another gift like that. It was originally meant to be a wedding/housewarming gift for my secretary, but she got married at the beginning of June. This is going to be very random when she gets it.
With all of this back story laid out, I really think the world needs more RAKs. I think people do them. It could be as simple as helping someone carry groceries to their car. Or one time, my husband and I were out to breakfast and I saw a mom come in and sit down with her little son. It was busy and she looked kind of frazzled. So when they called her name for her order being ready at the counter, I went up and got it for her so she wouldn’t have to leave her kid sitting there alone and so she wouldn’t have to get up period. It’s the little things. And I think they can really have a ripple effect. It’s not hard, it doesn’t have to be a big, complicated gesture. It doesn’t even have to cost anything. Let’s just be nice to each other and do kind things without expecting anything in return. It’s not hard. We need it in our world now more than ever.
Leave a Reply