the outsider always within

a photograph is a secret about a secret
I heard that sentence somewhere recently. Coy, but possibly true. True enough to trigger musings on a gray day in our mountains, neither winter nor spring, as if color had been blown away by the winds. As an antidote, I look through photo files for secrets, color, and find other graynesses. Lovely memories from a few months ago.

Trying to appreciate gray. It's soft edges. Cashmere sweater skies, a rest between white and black, ashes and sand on a beach. Never one hundred percent, as the touch of red in the sandpiper's beak and a faded yellow edge around a jellyfish near a rope fragment, defy dullness.

antidote to changing seasons' gloom? yarn defiance!
I'm working on my first project with Hand Maiden Casbah and am madly, irrevocably, in love with it. The delicious colors and the morsel of cashmere (only 10%) is enough to make me tipsy. As I work on another Little Colonnade shawlette (Stephen West), the yarn blooms in my hands and I can't wait until this garment rests on my shoulders. Normally I'm a process knitter and tend to let go, without qualms, most of what I finish knitting, but not this time. The pattern is easy, the result immense. I still love the one I knitted in northern Pacific beach colors (mostly gray) and wear often.  I'll wear this one, too.

The problem with a gray day, of course, is that all I'm motivated to do is knit, jot stuff in my notebooks, read some poetry, drink tea. Nice work if you can get it. But must force self to desk now, having had too much fun blogging and playing with yarn.

call it loneliness
that deep, beautiful color
no one can describe
over these dark mountains
                    (excerpt, Zen poet Jakuren, 1139-1202)