Muffled

Outside the store's window, the snow is sedately filling the air above the street, melting the moment it touches anything. There are no customers today. Behind the register, I'm knitting a baby blanket in fine-gauge merino for an old friend's newborn, and letting my own stillness fill me.

My wall calendar, newly changed to February, says "excavate," and shows hands on a shovel flinging up dirt from behind a mound of earth. January was "fix," with strong fingers making a tool usable again. Flipping one page too many, I read "resume," in March, but I tried not to see the picture. Time enough when we get there.

One hundred and two

My mother loves finding patterns in numbers, so this is for you, mom:

Today is January 2nd, 01/02. It would also have been my grandmother's 102nd birthday. Mind you, she didn't want it to be: after her 90th birthday she often told people what a shame it was that "they made you live so long," but she hung on to 99. She started out at 5 feet, half an inch, and by the end she was a tiny, wrinkled person, still pronouncing a few words in a Scottish accent (shoogar) despite having spent most of seven decades in this country.

I think the thing she was waiting for was to know that all of her children were grandparents. A week before she died, my cousin's baby girl was born and so all of her children had grandchildren. I think after that she felt like everything was set and she could go if she had to.

My grandmother taught me how to knit. Not how to purl, just how to knit. I figured out how to make stockinette stitch on my own (that would be "flat knitting instead of bumpy" to all of you non-knitters out there) and she assumed I'd figured out purling. Eventually, I did.

My grandmother was also my first correspondent. I was seven, and she gave me stationery with my name on it, and sometimes she would send me stamps.

She gave me a way into yarn and a way into words, a way into art, though she would not ever have called herself an artist.

She was Presbyterian. I broke with Jewish tradition and gave my daughter her name. I consider it the best decision of my life.

Pay it forward

This one has been going around and I love the idea of a meme that relies on self-tagging and results in an actual cascade of real items going out to strangers via snail mail, but requires no self-revelation at all. It just completely tickles me on so many levels. Magpie signed up for it at Dawn's place. I missed my chance to get in on the action at Magpie's, but she told me Dawn still had a slot open. I'd never read Dawn before, but I headed over and grabbed the third slot, and found someone new to read, to boot. (Hi, Dawn! Thanks for coming by and commenting!)

Cool, no? Or, rather, yes?

At any rate, I've been on a knitting kick recently. I have a large project well underway for Phantom, a small one just started for Z., and a mid-size one recently envisioned for A., but when those are off my needles there will be Things for Bloggers heading out in the US mail.

Here's the meme-y boilerplate:

“I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”

What do you have to do?
1. Respond on this blog and give your email address so that I can contact you for your address.
2. Place this on your own blog and also send the first 3 people that respond something.


Anything else? No, can't think of anything. I think that's it, then. Your turn. Who among you out there wants to make and give away more stuff than you'll get out of the deal? Any takers?

Edited: hey, all, don't be discouraged by the number of commenters. At least three of them are from people not claiming spots!

UFO's

That was a shibboleth--if there are any crazy knitters among you, you will know I'm talking UnFinished Objects.

One shawl
One bunny
One pig
Three baby blankets, not counting the one that's not stalled
One set of slippers, felted, need bottoms
One set of slippers, knit but not felted
One baby sweater, needs a fastener
One pair mittens
One not easily described fishing-line project
One extremely large knit quilt--most squares done, not assembled, probably needs to be rethought from the beginning
One novel, quite embryonic

What almost all of these have in common is that their intended ultimate recipients are in the dark about my intent that they ultimately receive them. Knitting, like writing, is a private effort done for public display, but that display can be deferred indefinitely.

All art needs an audience. And the interaction with audience begins before the audience knows about it, while the art is still the artist's.

I respond to audience in not-always-so-helpful ways.

I feel overexposed most of the time. I have a mostly-functional public persona I can dust off when the occasion demands, but currently I have a hard time with people in the "acquaintance" range. In my life this is populated by an overlapping group of neighbors, customers, fellow-congregants, business contacts, and (now that it's summertime) pool-goers. It's a small world in this big city: when I was waiting in the chiropractor's office yesterday, having chauffeured A. there when her headache made it difficult for her to drive herself, I listened as the receptionist made an appointment-reminder call to the reporter who recently interviewed me about summer reading.

Sometimes it feels cozy. Just as often, it feels like too much coming at me. And sometimes, it just plain weirds me out. My therapist, Dr. L., has a bit part in a memoir whose author did an event at the store a year ago. Dr. L. appears as friend, not therapist. And very briefly. Thank goodness. From this instructive experience I learned that I am not constitutionally capable of publishing a memoir.

But isn't that what I'm doing here, in serial form? Well, no. Blogging gives the illusion of skipping the acquaintance stage. After all, you know way more about me than my acquaintances do. And yet, you don't. I know that regular readers of this space are quite able to comment for a good long time without knowing what it is that I sell in that store of mine. And I think those of you who don't know me outside of the blog will not know whether I have siblings, or the circumstances of my meeting A. (I did post on that, but took it down mighty fast), or what I studied in graduate school. The information is there in the posts, of course--I did one post explicitly *as* a memoir, and it rounds up a lot of that stuff--but what I actual reveal day to day stays pretty close to my own head and my emotional state.

What I am offering you is my writing voice, and some backstory here and there, generally of the sort that no longer has repercussions, some anecdotes and some words that I hope you will enjoy, the report on the state of my head. Because that is how well I know you. Collectively, you. You, my audience.

If I were going to knit you a sweater, I would need to know a lot more about you.

If I were going to write you a novel, I could get away with knowing a lot less.

Haircut

Earlier this Spring, one of the other day-care moms--actually, my favorite other day-care mom, if I exempt the women I was previously friends with from that private competition--showed up at pick-up time with a dramatic haircut. Summertime? I asked her. Oh, well, she said, I was just growing it for Locks of Love.

So. I've been going in after the tangled ends on my own pretty frequently, but I hadn't had a proper cut since A. took maybe 3 or 4 inches off sometime in the Fall of 2004. Yes, it is significant that that was before Z. was born, thank you for asking. I've been hiding. And I haven't stopped quite yet, but I have recognized that staying huddled in isolation is not a long-term strategy for healthy living.

Locks of Love needs a 10-inch minimum. I cut 14, putting the tip of the paper-cutting scissors right into the middle of the braid. The first cut was thrilling--no going back. It took three cuts altogether.

To me it seems hugely light and easily contained, but I can still twist it up, wrap it in a full knot around itself, tuck in the ends, and insert chopsticks (yes, that is how I'm wearing it today, so as to garner minimal comments from staff). Loose, it still hangs to my elbows, which is the length it's been most of my life.

I've let go of the idea that I'll get magically better and have my old self back. But I'm starting to see more continuity with that me and this one.

First knitting pix

You've probably noticed that even though I describe myself as a knitter in my profile, this isn't a knitting blog. Knitting is part of the way I get through the day, but it's not really a blog topic for me, and there aren't many knitting blogs I follow. (However, I like hearing about knitting projects my blogging friends are doing, especially if they're new knitters!)

I've been at it nearly 30 years, though the first 9 were sporadic, with knitting being just one of the least frequent ways I messed around with yarn and fiber. My Scottish grandmother taught me how to knit, I taught myself to create stockinette stitch (flat knitting) on my own--first by knitting back and forth and then by teaching myself to purl. Then a 6'3" friend dared me to knit him a sweater for our high school graduation and I've been serious about it ever since. I've also given away more sweaters than I can remember. I was a feral knitter for much of that time, I knit lefty even though I'm a righty, I knit while I read, and watching me knit makes one of my knitting friends dizzy. My interests are largely in technique, tradition, artistry, and color. Debbie New, Alice Starmore, and Mary Walker Phillips are some of my knitting heroes. I never like to sew things that are knit: I find it inelegant.

But here goes, because knitting ties in with what's been going on with me since Helen died. Helen's friend Nikki had the idea of making a memorial tree sculpture for Helen, with leaves contributed by everyone. So I thought, waterproof knitting: fishing line. But fishing line won't show. Glass beads! So I knitted a bunch of leaves for the sculpture. I sent them off without taking pictures--the memory card was full, I was superstitious about emptying it, I just had to send them off, etc.

Doing the leaves opened up a whole new range of possibility for me, like a nudge from Helen to actually do some of the funky things I've been thinking about. Also, not surprisingly, Z. was mesmerized by the beads so for her birthday I made her a suncatcher. It is the most photogenic and unlikely knitted object I've ever made. I've been meaning to take some pictures of it for awhile and when we set it up in Z.'s new bedroom-corner I thought, a-ha, now is the time.

The suncatcher has Z.'s name knit in beads in the middle of it, so you'll have to imagine the full circle. It starts with purple in the center and makes its way out to the edge with blue. I strung it on the inner circle of an old embroidery hoop. I'm happy to go into the technical stuff with anyone who's interested: scallen3 at America Online, or drop a note in the comments.