she can't say no

a shuttergirl story
Once upon a time I resisted the idea of digital photography. I liked film (secretly still do), and working in a darkroom with chemical smells and tongs and red lights - and then I bought my first digital 4 mp camera - it was love at first sight. I haven't been without a camera in my purse since then. But I've had many camera loves and I admit I've been fickle. Craving excitement, I have heartlessly abandoned the reliable-familiar, in favor of newer, sleeker, younger. I've even passed my old camera loves on to others who hopefully shared passionate shutterbugging and remained faithful.

digital surprises
As we sped along the mountain roads last evening on the way home from Santa Fe, an unusual rainbow seemed to shoot up from the ground. Since I wasn't driving, I whipped out my latest camera love (a compact 12MP Canon) and started shooting from the opened car window. Today I reviewed the pictures I'd quickly taken. There were lots of swishing telephone poles, trees, fences, the rainbow far away - and this!

I hadn't noticed a man in armor on horseback and thought it might be one of those spooky photo mysteries that movies and television ghost shows feature. You know, the figure in the room that wasn't seen except after the film was developed. That ball of mist in the woods last month. But no. We were speeding past the Onate Center. Don Juan Onate being the Spanish conquistador who brought "civilization" to the savages (and tortured and forced Christianity on them - but that's another horror story). Onate aside (and I still don't know why a statue to honor him was ever erected), I like the surprise picture. And the orange behemoth  that loomed in the parking lot of the Farmer's Market on Saturday.

Like the Japanese poets of old, I want to own the sights I see and put them in my knapsack (or purse). They used words in pithy poems, I collect images in concise cameras.

sable sale

harvest time!

I am about to use our entire (singular) potted tomato harvest for the caprese salad that goes with the thin pizza I made tonight.

I thought there were two tomatoes, but I was wrong.

storm passes

My family in Connecticut is fine. The storm passed through, caused power outages, flooding, downed trees, moved on. They're left with intermittent rain, light wind, warm refrigerators, candlelight. The surf still roils, but the danger of surges seems to be over. 

SABLE: stash accumulated beyond life expectancy

Free of worry, I spent the day preparing for the big sale that's going to happen on September 10. We'll be using the studio space we used last year next to Now and Again in Taos, and may extend it to the whole weekend. Four professional knitters will be selling high quality yarn stash, stylish knitting bags, patterns, books, needles. Stop by if you live in northern NM. Mention this blog and get an additional discount on already great prices! We're excited about this second annual sale. It's been anticipated by local knitters since last December and we finally got it together.  It will be bigger and better this year - we've all been busy. I'll post specific information as the date gets closer.

 

moorings askew

I received a gift of my first rubber ducky this week. It came from a fellow writing class/workshop participant. He had a bevy of ducks in a  small shopping bag and distributed them in honor of the book some of are going to review: Moby-Duck. I love the cheerful little guy and can understand the decades-long attraction of these toys.The book recounts the true story of 28,000 rubber bath toys lost at sea and the subsequent tracking down by Donovan Hahn as they turned up in far flung places around the world. So far it's a good read.

stormy weather
As I write, dusk is falling, soft rain, air blessedly cool. However, I can't help worrying about family and friends on the northeast coast. A mandatory evacuation was ordered in east Norwalk, Connecticut where my daughter lives. Also Rowayton and Westport where my brother and friends live. The full force of the storm hasn't even hit there yet! When my children were young, we lived in Rowayton and one winter storm, when the tide was high and the moon full, icey sea water flowed into the streets of the town preventing us from rescuing our kids who were stranded in various places. The older boys dared to wade through water up to their thighs and our daughter was taken in by a nice couple who served up a blanket, hot chocolate, and a sofa to sleep on for the night. This was before cell phones (last century stuff) and we didn't know what the boys were doing until they arrived home very late, cold and wet. My daughter texts me now that she is at her daughter's home (safely away from the sea) cuddling with baby Dante, hot chocolate and a sofa to sleep on.

perks
for me, the coffee is on, I finished the Colonnade shawlette (Stephen West Designs) using the yarn that gave me so much trouble through several different failed project starts. I didn't give up on it because I still liked the color and texture. But before starting on the project that I'd successfully done before, and that was already messing up, I decided it must have some bad juju and smudged it with a smokey sage bundle (I've learned a few things over two decades in the mysterious southwest with Indians and brujas). It worked. From then on it progressed without a hitch. It also helped that I never worked on it after midnight or a glass of wine.

I persevered with this yarn because I never stopped loving it. It is silk and merino and holds up well under repeated RIP abuse. I think it's Madelinetosh Light and the color is a sort of verdigris. If I find the label I'll pass on the correct info. In the same mode/mood, I resumed work on the Lorna's Laces shawl destined for the friend I'll be visiting next month. The colors are rich and autumn-y and she'll like that.

The river's up two feet overnight,
No way these banks can hold it.
Near the market, there are boats for sale.
If I had money, I could buy one
     and moor it at my gate
            Tu Fu (712-770)

sneaky

a sense of Sunday morning freedom (D.H. Lawrence)
 
In my ongoing D&O (declutter & organize) mode, there are things I haven't thought about or noticed for years: a notebook from Rome given to me 25 years ago; and another of Elvira's yarn creations - the blanket she considered a masterpiece of color and perfection.

Looking at it closely reveals that in all the hundreds of humble granny squares, no two are alike and much thought went into each one.

She must have stashed tons of yarns (some of it from me), but when she died and we cleared out the house, I found only one set of knitting needles (my grandmother's), one crochet hook, an afghan needle, and a small tightly wound ball of maroon tweed yarn that I remembered from a childhood sweater I hated. I guess when it came to yarn she frugally used up every last bit. Another proof of how different we were.
 
earth angel
In 1986, in the notebook, I wrote these words on the first page:

imagine it's the year 2010. An old lady is in her kitchen baking bread; she's wearing socks, baggy jeans, an apron, singing a tune from her youth, earth Angel, earth angel, will you be mi-ine...my darling, dearest, love me all the ti-ime..." she stops, pretends a young man enters the room, they embrace and dance the fish together. Another youth enters, sits down at the table, and asks, "oh, ancient one, tell us about sock hops and Howdy Doody".

Pablo Neruda once wrote: "It is dangerous to wander backward, for all of a sudden the past turns into a prison".

For me it seems the opposite is true. There is a faint and inexplicable liberation sneaking in. I'll share a bit more of it in my next posting, as it's too long to add here. And of course I only speak for me. No one else is entitled to define my past or the specific inner world it encompasses. It merely requires a bit of fearlessness.

art on and on

My workroom is unworkable at this time. Every surface is covered with piles of something. Journals. Vintage hand knits. Needles. Bags of "keeper" yarn. Copies of the anthology. Handbags and magazines. But I'm making progress in my declutter campaign. Delivered four cartons of books to SOMOS. And four trash bags full of yarn stash/leftovers to Twilight Kallisti - fiber artist extraordinaire - who will turn my leftovers into something beyond my imagination. Like Purl the knitted skeleton, featured here a few months ago. Today she was sitting in Twilight's car getting ready to go to another exhibition of recycled art.

It feels good to liberate myself from yarn hoarding. Intentions never manifested. Almost finished projects abandoned for years. Neither wanting to finish or rip out. Erased. I admit that as I sifted through every ball and skein I considered a plethora of winter projects - until reality (thank goddess) clicked in and I knew with certainty that they wouldn't be made this winter or ever, and years from now, after I'm gone, they'd still be languishing in storage boxes in the garage - only to be thrown away by fiber unenthusiasts ("who wants all that old yarn anyway?" I can hear them saying). However, I'm still here today and there is a fun part to all of this. I uncovered half-remembered vintage knits.

8th grade prom stole

Aunt Jenny taught me how to crochet this stole when I was thirteen. I have no idea now how I did it. Jenny died the following year and I was devastated. She was my mother's sister and I always believed I'd been born to the wrong mother. She and I were totally in sync which, sadly, my mother and I never were. However, my mother was a crafty woman too and I found a shawl I can still see her wrapped in on winter nights watching variety shows and movies in The Television Room.

The I Love Lucy Shawl

It's big and she was small. It was more of a blanket on her and she loved it. She didn't knit much, but liked making things with her afghan needle (which I still have). And unlike me, was a meticulous finisher.

Also extremely practical. She added a pocket for her eyeglasses and handkerchief. She loved to "paint with the needle" (her words) and usually embellished most things she made with a bit of embroidery. Her touches of whimsy in a practical world of necessity show up in the creative striping, fringes, pocket details.

To be fair, my mother taught me how to knit. Once. She wasn't interested in following up, I wasn't interested in sitting by her side to master the "proper" way to do it and consequently have my own version of casting on and purling. What I didn't know at the time was that Elvira taught me to knit continental style just as her southern Italian mother had taught her. Maybe it was a hybrid method even then. As a young adult during one of the knitting surges of the early 1960s,  I was embarrassed to knit in front of my friends. The final result might be flawless (not), but my working style was quite different from theirs. It took years to get wise to the variety of knitting methods used throughout history.

So, onward I march. Have to get more empty cartons from the grocery store for clothes and am in process of scheduling a day and location for a huge handbag and yarn stash sale with (also out-of-control-stashwise) friends. Stay tuned.

temporal metta

I wanted to write tonight (and brag a little) about my week of sorting an enormous yarn stash and some of the surprises and recollections that were unearthed. But news comes in the form of that pesky life is what happens when you're making other plans alert and it seemed trivial.

In the park a few days ago a young woman I see every morning walking, stopped to talk briefly, rub Spike's soft ears, hug me. Learning that I had a birthday recently, she intoned the Navajo blessing.  Very moving and completely unexpected from someone I hardly know. Today I learned that my dear 83 year old friend has congestive heart failure. She is exercising, eating right, taking her meds and doing the best she can for her body. She looked at me with her clear blue eyes and said, "time is running out." And then I read on a another friend's blog that her ex-mother in law died at an advanced age and she went on to describe the difficult relationship they'd had and how we all die alone. I'd like to blame all of this on Mercury retrograde, but reality is too sharp these days and I don't really believe that the planets have any influence on us at all - even though there are inexplicable canny happenings within astrological confluences. I'll tell you about my stash busting glee another time. The last of tonight's sunset continued on long after the mountains turned from pink to indigo.

may beauty be above you
may beauty be below you
may beauty be to the left of you
may beauty be to the right of you
may beauty be behind you
may beauty be within you
may you walk in beauty all around you
     Navajo Beauty Way blessing (one of several versions)

turbulent flux

It's all happening so fast! What? Summer passing, age relentlessly impinging. I try to stay with it, but sometimes I grow weary and just want to stop the clock. Or spend an afternoon knitting. Preferably sitting under a palm tree with a sea breeze riffling my hair and yarn. Summer continues to march on temperature-wise. Intense heat during the day, cool at night, dry conditions. Yet this morning, walking, a sign of change:

I look forward to cooler days, but I know too clearly what follows a few weeks later and, frankly, I'm not sure I'm ready to face another winter in the mountains so soon. Or how to prepare mentally. Physical is easy. A new sweater perhaps? Rowan's Alpaca Cotton yarn has been on my mind since seeing it in early spring. I think it would work with an old favorite pattern I have for a big loose sweater. In fact the sweater is called Big Sweater (there's also a Medium version more my size). It's from Green Mountain Spinnery and is knitted from the bottom up in the round. No sewing! When its done, it's done. Plain with a touch of cable detailing.

I've made it many times in the past using a wool/mohair blend worsted. Friends and family wear them, but somehow I never kept one for myself.  I think the Rowan yarn would make a cosy lighter weight version.

creative visualization
I'm wearing it in San Francisco next month. I'm always cold there - no matter what time of year - but who cares! It's an excuse to wear handknits and to visit with my friend recovering well from her accident, getting out on her own again (we're going to the opera), wearing new silver running shoes! How cool is that? The problem is, with all the stuff I'm trying to do before I go, will knitting a sweater in five weeks turn me into a stressed out multitasking nut case?

keep it simple
I haven't felt like cooking lately. Heat. Laziness. Lack of interest. Things I'd rather do. However, we like to eat and due to my reading (again) Julia Child's My Life in France (I love that book!) and Ron turning on the Food Channel on some nights when I'm starting to prepare dinner, I get inspired and start rattling around the pots and pans. I'm no Julia and have no desire to tackle those recipes of hers (or those tattooed, cleavaged, white-aproned chefs on TV with their sharp knives) - I just want to keep it simple.

Caprese salad with dolmas instead of mozzarella (because I forgot to buy it). A glass of chilled white wine.

Maybe I'll take a little drive to Santa Fe tomorrow and check out the Rowan yarn at Tutto. And stop by the shoe store for silver shoes to wear when walking tilted streets.

"An aching heart needs an ice cream cone in a new location, a change 
of flavors, a choice of picture postcards.... The heart needs an oddity 
or two, something to make it smile.... The heart needs the cultivated 
flowers, the benches, the footpaths, it needs exactly what [that] 
spot has to offer."
                                 Eric Maisel (A Writer's San Francisco)

capricious moon

shades of tina sinatra
Okay, so here's what happened yesterday morning. I received a birthday package from my daughter. I've never gotten blase about gift packages from her because they usually contain a variety of fun stuff and maybe one serious something. We generally don't spend a lot of money on gifts for each other but do enjoy collecting items for future mailings. So. There I am in my hot car trying to get the megatape off the box because I'm overdue to meet my friends at the coffee shop and I want to know what's in the box, sweating and cursing and remembering that she said I'd laugh. Flitting across my mind came the outrageous thought: I hope she didn't buy me a lava lamp! I'm not sure where that thought came from, but I'm definitely psychic.

Sloooww orange and red bubbles float in a sea of purple and magenta. It's very bright. I'm not quite sure where to place it. I called her from the PO parking lot, the inside of my car looking like Christmas morning with wrapping paper strewn about, and told her about my new psychic abilities. She took it well. Then added that the guy in the post office where she mailed it suggested that perhaps the recipient might have a bit of trouble getting the tape off the tightly packed box. And so it goes. I can depend on her to shake my world in minor (sometimes major) ways. She keeps me thinking young though. Like the time I received a pair of fuzzy white moccasin boots with double pompoms.

They came with a hooded matching vest that was too small. I think I sent it back with the gentle suggestion that a 15 year old might dig it. The boots fit. But I love her gifts. We also exchange pretty blank notebooks a couple of times a year and fill them in our own private ways. And never ever share the content.

feng shui-ing my life
the declutter campaign continues and I'm stepping it up since Ron and I talked yesterday and decided that we're not going to consider moving for awhile, maybe never. He's building a deck onto the studio and plans to open it and the studio to the public next spring. The decision was the incentive I needed to think about redoing a couple of rooms in the house. But since I can't even see the rooms due to the stuff in them, I got started today and filled three cartons with books that I will deliver to the non-profit literary organization's book sale. Still lots of loose books that have to be sorted and looked at again and stacks of old knitting magazines (what to do with them?). Getting rid of books is even harder than clothes and bags, but I remembered what a friend said to me many decades ago: when in doubt, throw out!

full moon madness?
how are you dealing with the full moon? I wake up every couple of hours from strange technicolor dreams where doggies turn into babies and I can swim turbulent ocean waves while shark skeletons bob up around me (I don't even want to try to interpret that one). The real dog restlessly stalks window to window, barks occasionally, a cat yowls outside, coyotes yip and howl, a horse somewhere neighs rhythmically, we found a baby rattlesnake in our second floor kitchen and a drowned mouse near the dog's water bowl. I'm feng shui-ing to save my life!

mysteries and melon

atom bombs to flowers

This latest attraction in Santa Fe is a 1941 Dodge 1/2 ton pick-up. It's mounted outside the Sanbusco Center and is purportedly typical of the type used in the 1940s in NM for various deliveries. It was also the type of truck used to secretly deliver materials to Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project. Now it's shined up and filled with blooming summer flowers. We were in Santa Fe to mooch around and celebrate my b-day with a little shopping and eating. We enjoyed a very late decadent lunch at Pranzo, starting with prosciutto and melon, lime and crispy bits of roasted garlic...

and so hungry for our entrees that I forgot to take pictures. We enjoyed angel hair pasta with marinara sauce and meatballs (him) and linguini with extra clams cooked in white wine and olive oil (me). We went all the way with a delicate pinot noir wine - followed by a surprise dessert (at sneaky Ron's hint) that was named Dolce Gigante! and was. A coffee, biscuit, mocha, whipped cream, nuts, berry concoction riot of flavors big enough for a half dozen people! We barely made a dent in it with our two spoons. The waiter asked if we'd like to bring it home, but since home was many miles away and we'd end up with an unidentifiable sweet melted mess, we declined. The memory, however, lingers on.

Santa Fe was all color and pleasant busy atmosphere. I like going down there for a bit of (small) city energy and the shop-till-you-drop atmosphere (which I didn't do because #1: I'm trying to declutter and live like a minimalist and #2: I can't afford it!).

message from a friend?

Two years ago I took a sunset picture almost identical to this snapped on Wednesday night. The first was taken from high up at the SF Opera where we'd gone for my b-day. Next day, my friend Gayle remarked on the unusual orange cloud she'd seen at dusk in Taos and I drove to her house to show her the photo. We discovered were looking at the same cloud at the same moments, 85 miles apart! The sky is pretty big around here but we thought that coincidence was pretty amazing. She died the following spring and this year, after receiving dozens of greetings and messages on Facebook and by phone and emails for two days, this cloud appeared. I'm generally not a woo woo type, but it felt like a greeting from Gayle who didn't forget my b-day for almost four decades and often celebrated with us. She was an artist. Probably still is. I think she sent it my way.

frenzy of abundance

It's quiet here these days. A welcome feeling after the drama of the preceding weeks. Skies are dramatic and I'm slowly getting stuff done at my desk. And walking every morning.
     I started seriously brisk-walking eleven days ago and it took a full four of those days for my formerly sedentary body to stop aching. I've mostly left the camera and cellphone locked in the car as I walk the park. I am repelled by the handful of people who speak loudly on phones as they walk. Do we really care that so-and-so (whom we don't know) is a real bitch (maybe it's true) or that someone else had a good time at the party and the food was good?
     A teacher acquaintance told me that when a total cellphone ban was initiated at the high school, a wave of insecurity and worry permeated the atmosphere and the kids were all out of sorts for weeks.  I, too, have fallen under the spell of never leaving home without my phone. I well remember the days pre-cell when public phones (most of which didn't work) were the primary way to contact someone in an emergency. And how often there wasn't enough loose change to make the call. One day we picked up our seven year old granddaughter from the airport in Albuquerque and I forgot to call her mother to say she'd arrived safely. We drove for miles looking for a working public phone. When we found it, I had to use my credit card to make the call to Connecticut (no change) and the number somehow got caught in a loop. When the bill came, the one minute call had cost $40! Good riddance to those days.

observations
Graffiti has been removed from the park but is slowly creeping back in.

The guys who sleep on the park benches at night leave behind interesting litter. Interesting becauseI haven't seen a pack of Camel cigarettes in decades and it doesn't even resemble the cigarettes my father and uncles smoked.

lull
This mid/late summer time-stop between vacation and school (which starts in less than two weeks here) has a kind of finality about it. If I were in charge, classes wouldn't start until after Labor Day as they did when I was a child. The holiday was the delineation between lazy hot days and getting back to friends, classes, possibilities. New notebooks, pencils, crayons, bookbags, new fall clothes that couldn't wait for the first chilly days and which I inevitably wore too soon. In her book, The Classic Ten by Nancy MacDonell Smith, she writes, "every item of clothing has a narrative."
     In memoir, authors usually recall the exact thing they wore when an event, important or un, took place. I can still see the olive green pullover (the color that year) that came with a white double pom-pom removable collar. It was one of that season's so-called "novelty" sweaters -  made from some combo of acrylic Banlon wool, so that when I wore it during the first weeks of school I nearly passed out from the September Bronx heat. I do still get the urge to buy new notebooks when school supplies appear in stores and often feel at the end of summer that I'd like to toss out my entire wardrobe and start over. Instead, I'm culling books, handbags, yarns. When they're gone (soon I hope), I plan to not replace them.

note to locals: watch for a multi-person Stash of Everything sale coming soon!

minimalist goals

soxarchology
As you know if you read this blog now and then, I embarked on a self-promise to devote this summer's knitting to finishing pairs of socks. My habit has always been to complete one, maybe start a second and then, due to SSS (second sock syndrome) or because there's a new color or pattern beckoning,  I stash the project somewhere moth proof and blithely move on. Once a year or so I debox those half-pairs and finish. Since June I've managed to knock off six pairs - which I've photographed on my feet, on mannequin feet, in trees and flowerpots, and posted one pair at a time until we're all sick of seeing them. So here they are all at once - it hurts less that way. Nice mindless beautiful socks that will feel good on lots of future happy feet.

Ron is working very slowly on building a deck off his studio. In the process of unearthing the roto-tiller in the garage, a large plastic storage box of UFOs became visible. And guess what was in the box? Right! So yesterday was devoted to sorting. It seems I'd stashed most of the socks with their needles, but forgot. In the ensuing weeks, months, (years?) I often ran out of certain needles (like 2.50 mm) and bought more (I know, I know). When everything was finally sorted, labeled, and ziplocked, I realized I had enough stitch holders, circs and dpns to start my own notions and pick-up-sticks shop (and enough unfinished socks to last till September 1 when I will officially end this blasted promise to myself).

Now, a major rule of decluttering according to "the joy of less" by francine jay (the lack of caps is hers) -  the book I bought for my Kindle because there's no room on the bookshelves - the first thing to do when clearing-stuff-out, is count how many you have of one item. This includes handbags, yarn, books, shoes - you get the picture. Oh yeah, and pictures. It is called see your stuff for what it is. This dealing with reality is cruel and unusual and flies in the face of the other book I'm reading on self-compassion. I dream of a major yard sale in my future and the hope of mindfulness, liberation, space, and cash.

You have to remember though, that I came from a depression era magpie family. They didn't steal things like the birds do, but they saved everything. After their deaths, we spent days and weeks in the hot attic and other places in their three-story house (where they'd lived for forty years) clearing stuff out. Finally at the end of the summer, my brother and I sold the house with what was left still in it. I admit I've been haunted by mild guilt feelings through the three decades since, but really, did anyone want the cabinet sized tube radio? or the rusted tools, boxes of clean mayonnaise jars, stacks of neatly folded brown grocery bags?

The concept put forth in the book is to own "just enough to meet our needs, and nothing more." The author calls it the holy grail. I call it a serious challenge.