Murderino Makers: Crafts, True Crime and Reality

"Here's the thing:" while my love of yarn is no secret, neither is my love of true crime. 

If you make things, I think you would agree you need some background entertainment. We joke that we can watch an entire season of a show without ever knowing what the characters look like. 

Allow me to set the scene. I'm 10, sitting on the couch surrounded by Red Heart yarn, knitting and listening to Barbara Walters interview someone on 20/20. Then, I'm 20 sitting on the daybed in my college house, still knitting and listening Bill Kurtis narrate American Justice. Now, I'm 34 sitting in my own home, with some slightly more exotic and expensive yarn, in the company of Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark and their podcast, My Favorite Murder. I became a Murderino. 

It wasn't until I came across this podcast in 2016 that I realized how many people share this fascination with true crime. Not long after that, I found a Facebook Group called Murderino Makers and realized so many of us Murderinos also share a fascination with creating things. 

I pick up my latest project, safe in my house, doors locked, and get to work to the tune of a murder mystery. 

Naturally, the two must be linked somehow. Then it hit me: they both change the way we view reality.

I crochet to escape. Painting, sewing, metal work, wood carving, furniture refinishing, cross stitch, computer graphics...why do you do it? For me, it's because the tools I use take my attention away from the problems of the real world; even if it's just for a little while. 

And, I become part of a community. Even if I'm sitting all alone in my house and never create anything in the presence of another person, I'm a crocheter. You're a fill-in-the-blanker. We make a community. We can never know each other personally, and yet get together at any point and understand exactly what the other means when we talk about spending hours on a project, only to have to scrap it in the end. We share frustration and solutions and pride. 

We can also get together, after having never known each other personally and finish the sentence, "Get a job. Buy your own sh** and..."

But, isn't true crime nothing but the problems of the real world? Yes. Precisely. We join up, subscribers to a a real-life horror story, to hold virtual hands and acknowledge that terrible things really do exist and our gratefulness that they don't exist in our version of reality. 

Sure, we make light of them. We listen to what happens and unfolds and we diagnose the mental health of  serial killers as armchair psychologists. We like to think we would react differently if we were the police or the victim or the defense attorney. We play judge and we play jury. And... somewhere in our psyche, we all share the same relief: at least it's not me. 

We make up horrors to deal with the real ones. I think Stephen King said that somewhere, and I think it's true. We put ourselves in these situations as we sit safely, maybe making something, maybe not. And when reality sucks us back into the present moment, we breathe a sigh of relief. 

Georgia sometimes says, "I went dark," meaning that particular murder was really bad. We swim back up to the surface, into the light, thankful for where we are and what we have. And we go back next week for more. When we get to go really really dark with her, the light seems really really light. 

The solution seems so simple. "Get a job. Buy your own sh** and STAY OUT OF THE FOREST." It may not always be so easy, but we agree that life would be a lot simpler if we just follow that rule. 

Reality sort of becomes better; an entirely new version where we're more aware. Reality also becomes better when we look at it through the lens of a creator. Awareness of our surroundings: that's the gift being a maker gives us and it's the gift being a Murderino gives us. 

Awareness is a beautiful thing. That's my philosophy.

We form a circle inside of a circle, us Murderino Makers. I'm proud to be one.

SSDGM