Welcome Diversion

Friends of the Blog Vicki and Lisa have given us all a present:  Permission to engage in Slow Knitting.

Slow Knitting isn't the same as knitting slowly; it's more akin to the Slow Food movement:  Independently-sourced, personal, and delightful.  Slow knitting is one of the 10 Secrets Vicki and Lisa share with us, and what treats these 10 things are!

Another of the 10 secrets is to find a Wise Woman with whom to knit.  Great advice that - so necessary to the learning of knitting is a Wise Woman that my own quest for one took three years and resulted in my first book.  I finally found her, but not in the form I expected:  She turned out to be an entire community, and a circle of friends, rather than one person.

And of course, there are patterns!  Getta load of these cuties:  Melvin the Musical Monster, by Rebecca Danger.  This pattern so enchanted Lindsay that she cast on immediately, and completed her first entire monster leg in one afternoon.

Other stunners include:
    
Sivia Harding's Smoked Jewels Hooded Shawlette - A wisp of beaded fluff with a cunningly fitted neckline and integral hood.

Linda Cortright's Wild Linda's Camisole - An elegant marriage of pattern and fiber, perfect to showcase the very best gourmet string.

Brenda Patipa's Memories Tab Cardigan - the cleverest use of leftover stash yarn I've seen in a long time, and one I'm dying to knit.

10 Secrets of the LaidBack Knitters is the quintessential collaborative effort: The co-authors, the designers, and even Vicki and Lisa's friends from Knit Night all came together to bring it into existence.  What better parents to birth a book than a group of loving and dedicated knitters?  Give this book to your favorite knitter as a present and a reminder of your affection.  Especially if your favorite knitter is YOU.

Dr. Jung Would Be Stumped

Carl Jung - pioneer of dream-interpretive psychoanalysis

Last night I had a dream that I was in a bar (didn't know why until the end of the dream - believe it or not, I wasn't imbibing).  I was sitting alone at a table, and in one hand I was holding a Phoenix (the bird, not the city).  In the other hand I had a Bald Eagle.  The two birds weren't friendly (perhaps because one is our nation's symbol and the other is, um, fictional?), so I was doing my best to keep them apart, by holding one on either side of my body.  

Phoenix (pretend bird), and Eagle (actual species)

Along came someone (I think it may have been one of my students from Sock Summit), who kindly offered me the gift of a Roadrunner.
 

American Roadruner (The bird, no the cartoon)

Not wanting to be rude to my student, I graciously accepted the third bird, to whose company neither the Phoenix nor the Eagle was receptive.

My efforts to keep all of the beautiful birds from hurting one another in the resulting skirmish of beaks and claws realized one of my worst fears:  My hands were pulverized into pulp.  I kept pleading with the three birds, "No, no! Please not my hands - I have to knit or I'll never finish my book!".

All three birds totally ignored me, but eventually Phillip came in.  I was sobbing, but he bandaged up my bleeding fingers, and helped me stuff each bird into a separate tortilla-chip basket (as people obviously would do in this situation).  And now, if you ever have wondered how my mind really works, this may explain a few things:

In my dream, Phillip turned to me and said "Hey! This sounds like the beginning of an awful joke:  A Phoenix, an Eagle and a Roadrunner walk into a bar..."

And that's when I woke up this morning, laughing to myself and checking my hands for peck-wounds.

I spent some time thinking about this dream, and what it might really be about.  Here's what I think:

1.    The Phoenix represents my imagination, and all the designs for the book I'm working on.  The designs are my favorite part of the process, and of the finished product.  They are my primary language - the mother tongue with which I communicate to my friends, the Knitters.

2.    The Eagle stands for the government and structure in my life. Without a schedule, it's just me knitting, and wistfully thinking how great things would be if I could share my work with my soulmates in stitches. 

And everything remains pretty safe for me, until the need arises to introduce:

3.    The Roadrunner, who must surely be my deadline.  I have to work fast and furious.  I have no time for mistakes, headaches, or any other symbolic Coyotes.

That third component has clearly unleashed a few fears for me, notably that something might happen to keep me from completing the book. 

Weird, no?  Poor Dr. Jung really dodged a bullet by dying in time to miss this one.  Lucky Bastard.

On Sullivan's Pond

Painting by Mark Vidler

The Owl and the Pussycat
    Went to sea
    In a beautiful Pea Green boat
    They took some honey
    And plenty of money
    Wrapped up in a five-pound note
    -Edward Lear

My father did not read to me when I was a child because dyslexia made it nearly impossible for him to manage printed words.  I never knew this though, because instead of reading, he told stories. 

Most of my early youth was spent on the Columbia River, messing about in boats.  Every weekend and all summer, we were on the boat.  Once anchored, the only way ashore again was to take the dinghy.  And on the odd lazy summer afternoon, my father and I would aimlessly go for a row among the backwaters and sloughs near the islands where we anchored.  He rowed when we were against the current, I rowed when we went with it.  And as we went, he told me stories about the Owl and the Pussycat, who, after going to sea, had many subsequent adventures together. 

Once, Owly and Pussy found themselves on Sullivan's Pond, where they met an entire cast of characters, and had one exciting scrape after another, narrowly averting disaster by means of their cleverness and good humor.  By the end of that episode, the sun was going down over the river, Dad's arms and mine were both useless stumps from rowing, Dad's voice was hoarse, and we had sunburned cheeks and noses.  As we turned the dinghy back toward the boat, my father asked the seven-year-old me if I would one day write down the stories of Sullivan's Pond, which I promised I would. 

I've thought about Sullivan's Pond thousands of times since that day.  How special it was for the youngest of five children to have my father all to myself.  How delighted we both were as the story unfolded.  How real the characters became to us.  How much I wanted to visit the real Sullivan's Pond.  And one day, years later, how I understood that the backwaters of the Columbia River where my father rowed with me in the dinghy were the real Sullivan's Pond.  We had really been there, all along.  And he was the Owl, and I was the Pussycat.  And when he asked for me to write down the stories, it wasn't because he was afraid we'd forget them, but because he could not do it himself.  He thought that if they were written down, they would belong permanently to me in a way that his storytelling could not.  He was wrong about that, but I understood why he thought so.

I hope I'll be able to remember the stories properly, as it seems it's finally time to make good on my promise to write them down.  My father died on Saturday.

Bon Voyage, Owly.  I'll see you on Sullivan's Pond.