A Sock Post

Don't you just hate it when people whine on and on on their knit blogs about uncomfortable personal stuff?  How annoying! So boring!
Actually, I'm feeling much better.  Proud of myself even for handling my little crisis. I have amassed an arsenal of tools over the years to deal with my anxiety issues, and I used them to good effect this round.  It was a rough few days but I've come out the other side now.  One of the things that helps is writing about it so thank you dear readers, all three of you, for your indulgence.

Back to knit blogging!  My latest sock project is an old reliable pattern (Hedera from the Spring 2006 Knitty) done in an old reliable yarn (Scheepjeswol Invicta in a gorgeous deep red). This was my second go at Cookie A.'s classic pattern.  It's a great morning commute knit. The four row repeat is easy to memorize yet is interesting enough to keep you motivated. These socks are going to look very cute peeping out the tops of my short boots.

Now I feel like immediately casting on a new sock but I still have a scarf and a cardigan on the needles. What the heck.  You know I will to do it anyway.

Triggered

Trauma is a funny thing.  You can soothe it, throw therapy at it, medicate it.  You can meditate it away. massage it. heal it.  You can get your chakras aligned and chant affirmations.  Ego reinforcements, crayon drawings and power walking.  When the panic comes, you ground those feet firmly to Mother Earth and count the sounds you hear. You do the work, whatever's necessary, and eventually you feel better.  Most days you breathe OK and often you laugh. Sometimes you forget about it altogether.


But it's always there just waiting.  Something happens, years later and it comes right back.  The trigger is pulled.  
Someone was nice to me.  Someone said "I get you", to me yesterday.  A vague feeling of discomfort slowly over 24 hours, turned into abject panic as I realized that I don't want to be "got".  Being so makes me feel vulnerable and that scares the living shit out of me.  I started remembering all sorts of things I've worked really hard to forget and as anyone who's experienced such memories knows, once they start, they don't stop. I cried in public today, something I haven't done in over three years.  I had a hyperventilating anxiety attack on transit and almost had to get off. Thank goodness I had my purple yarn with me and the sun was hitting it just right. Thank goodness there was a good song on the mp3 player to put on repeat.


When I got home, I danced to very loud rock music and cried a whole lot more. After I was tired out, I made and ate three tasty tuna salad sandwiches. Then I wrote an ugly blog entry that I'll not post. Some things are best kept private. I'll  transfer that one to my journal.  Still, today needs expressing so I'm writing this entry instead. Soberly  (yay for sobriety) as I listen over and over to Suzanne Vega sing:


I'll set my house in order now
and wait upon the Will,
It's clear that I need 
better skill at steering.
That line is the horizon.
We watch the wind and set the sails
But save ourselves when all omens
point to fail.


Widow's Walk
Songs in Red and Gray 2001

Went For A Walk Today

Sakura Park
The park admits the wind, the petals lift and scatter like versions of myself I was on the verge of becoming; and ten years on and ten blocks down I still can't tell whether this dispersal resembles a fist unclenching or waving goodbye. But the petals scatter faster, seeking the rose, the cigarette vendor, and at least I've got by pumping heart some rules of conduct: refuse to choose between turning pages and turning heads though the stubborn dine alone. Get over "getting over": dark clouds don't fade but drift with ever deeper colors. Give up on rooted happiness (the stolid trees on fire!) and sweet reprieve (a poor park but my own) will follow. There is still a chance the empty gazebo will draw crowds from the greater world. And meanwhile, meanwhile's far from nothing: the humming moment, the rustle of cherry trees. Rachel Wetzsteon

Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

An Update

Yes, I did watch some Gray's Anatomy after which I took a long nap.  I also did some vacuuming, had an afternoon workout and even managed a bit of evening knitting.  So, not so bad after all.

Yarn

It's everywhere.

It peeks out of baskets all over my apartment.

It takes the form of three quarters done socks.

It's a barely begun cardigan.

It's in bags and plastic storage tubs and half finished shawls.  There's no seeming end to the possible projects that could be worked on this Saturday, my first day off in a while.  Or I could sort that cupboard I've been meaning to get to.  Or hem that skirt.  Or clean the unpleasantness from the bathroom. Yet I suspect I'll work on none of these things.  Here it is, nearly noon and  here I sit at the computer, still wearing my robe. All I've managed this morning is to take a few stash photos and drink two cups of coffee.   I am deep in a February funk my friends - listless and exhausted. I've just been reading some of your wonderful blogs and pondering with vague jealousy, where anyone finds the energy to accomplish all that?  
So, despite the presence of all this yarn and all these unfinished tasks, I'll probably just watch past episodes of Gray's Anatomy on line and wait for this to pass.

Very Lovely

The internet is truly the gift that keeps on giving
I discovered the Poetry Foundation website a while back and have casually dipped in and out of its archive since,  Yet it's only recently that I've paid serious attention to their podcast "Poetry Off the Shelf"  I download several at a time onto my tiny Creative Zen mp3 player and take them with me onto the oppressively crowded mid-winter streetcars and subways.  Thus it was that I sat, stuck in traffic this morning, knitting a sock, listening to Gertrude Stein's own voice reading in 1934 from Tender Buttons,
"She is sweetly here and I am very near and that is very lovely"
Priceless.

Here I am hanging with Gertrude in Bryant Park NYC in 2006

A Gift and A Goodbye

I finished this Damson in December as a gift for a friend.  This woman is the mother of one of my daughter's best friends.  We've known each other since out girls were four years old and in juniour kindergarten.  She's a teacher, a dancer, a mother.  Our kids have slept at each others homes countless times.  They've shared classrooms and milestones.  Together our families have shared many meals and celebrated many birthdays, Halloweens and graduations.  Who better to knit a gift for?  So, when I saw my friend yesterday at our dance class I gave her this gift.


Tomorrow, I will see her again, along with many other parents and children, under much sadder circumstances.  One of our own has died.  Chris, one of the mothers from that juniour kindergarten class, lost her life last week while driving on an icy dark road in the Western province where she moved two years ago. Tomorrow is her Toronto memorial service.  Our children attended a small, closely knit, primary school and though our group has spread somewhat, its members moving on to different high schools, universities and cities, we still consider ourselves to be family.  We still keep contact with other.  I last spoke to Chris last spring at a school concert she was in town attending.  She was happy, enjoying her new city but glad, at the same time, to be visiting old friends. I was looking forward to the next time I might see her but now that next time will never come.  It's remarkable how fast a person can just be gone.  This is my first experience of such sudden loss.  For my daughter and many of the young people, this is their first experience of loss of any kind.  I worry about how that will affect them tomorrow. 
Much of this weekend has been spent phoning and emailing among ourselves, making sure everyone knows what happened and where to be.  So many of us mothers seem to have the same instinct - to gather our babies to us and go support Chris' babies and her husband tomorrow.  She was a glorious woman and mother (wise and loving as they wrote in her obit) and they loved her so much  At times like this I realize that, no matter how else I define myself as a woman, an artsworker, a knitter or whatever, it is as a mother that I am in my heart's true community.
Tomorrow is going to be a difficult day.

The Big Reveal

The specifics have been up on Ravelry for a while but here is the blog reveal of The Daughter's Christmas gift cardigan.  Yes, I think it looks smashing on her but the real proof of its success is demonstrated by the fact that she wears it all the time.  That and the frequent compliments she receives when doing so.  I get that knitterly thrill every time I hear that upon being told that her mother made it as a gift, the person often replies,
"She made it?"
Proud I am.

  

Happy New Year

Happy 2012 everyone.  I realize I haven't yet made a proper new year post.  You know.  A ringing in of  the year in a bloggy fashion?
So what will it bring? I, for one, am certainly ready for the "New" portion of the year.  I've been feeling a sameness in my life of late and a desire for new adventures, new people, new learning.  At the same time, in my tradition of no resolutions but rather, remembering intentions, I feel a need to get back to some of my old ways. There needs to be more emphasis on gratitude and joy and less worry about simple survival and productivity.  My astrology prediction for the upcoming year states "If you look hard and keep an open mind, you will eventually recover lost riches or a disappeared prize in the least likely of places."  
I like that.  What I may have lost, I haven't got a clue. Some of my spark perhaps? But I do appreciate the reminder to actually look hard.  Really see what's around me.  Keep my eyes open.  That disappeared prize sounds awfully intriguing. 

Where's The Doggie?

Can you see the dog in this?

Greyhound Portrait Dishcloth  by  Evelyn A. Clark

Boxed

Yes, the Daughter Christmas cardi fit like a dream and she loves it!  Now I just need to get her to stand still long enough in natural light to be photographed.  Soon, I hope.

In the meantime, I hope everyone had a peaceful holiday. Christmas day here this year was spent quietly with just the two of us, a vegetarian lasagna, and five hours of Harry Potter.  The last two movies were one of the kid's gifts and we watched them back to back.  I've seen the darn things three times in the theatre and I still sob like a teenager when Dobby the elf dies.  Oops.  Did I spoil it?  You do know that Dobby dies, don't you?

As is my annual tradition, I did a bit of Boxing Day yarn shopping. Some Berroco Alpaca at Knitomatic, some Cascade 220 Heathers at Romni.  I like to spread my financial expenditures around.  I bought enough of the Cascade to make this:

It's Agatha by Andi Satterlund.  I knit her free pattern Miette last year and loved both the process and the product.  A cleverly written pattern that's easy to follow and produces a gorgeous garment?  Who could ask for more? I jumped at purchasing this, her next cardigan pattern.  I think this gal has the potential to be one of the next big things in sweater design.
So, I've been waiting for the sales to purchase a sweater's worth of yarn. Did I mention that it only takes 5 skeins?

This turquoise is a little brighter than my usual palette but I think it will suit the fifties vintage feel of Agatha beautifully. It will also work well as a spring cardigan and will match many of my dresses.  Can't wait to cast on!.