Day 146: Giving to makers

Dudes, the last few weeks have been brutal.  I guess all there is to say is that I went to New Orleans, was home for a day and a half, left for Vancouver (which, I had to keep reminding myself, is in another country and therefore requires me to go through, oh say, customs, and which therefore meant I needed my passport), spent almost six days there during which I was nearly 100% constantly in meetings (barring a delightful two hours spent at the UBC Museum of Anthropology, which I highly recommend), was home for a day and a half, and then everyone came to stay for Thanksgiving.  It was wonderful to have my folks here and Kivrin home, and I had a ton of fun making an entirely new set of dishes (all taken from this cool NYT article), but on Saturday I fell over at noon and didn't get up off the couch until nearly 6:00, went to bed at about 9, and slept for 10 straight hours, and I'm still dragging.  Today's the last day of classes, and then it's me and a metric ton of grading.

But that's not what I wanted to share with you all.  The part I wanted to talk about is the fun of giving a handmade gift to a maker.  At the conference, there were a couple of people who had spent this past year doing massive amounts of behind-the-scenes work to bring off an event in celebration of the UN's International Year of Indigenous Languages, and it seemed to me that it called for something more than a simple thank you note or email.  Thus, handknits. 

At a lovely breakfast with one of them, I gave her a shawl/scarf (I never quite know what to call one of those half-moon-type dealies), and was instantly reminded that she is also a maker.  Without a word, she took time to admire the stitches (from both sides), to look at the colors and the way they worked together, to feel the fabric and its drape.  She tried it on, and took it off and admired it again.  She talked about how she would use a pin that she recently made (that's her area of making) to wear it and how good it would look.  And then, just the other day, she sent me a picture of her wearing it.  Here's the thing: there's no way to actually know whether (a polite) someone really likes what we make for them, but the way a maker receives a handmade gift is such a delight - they appreciate the craft that went into the making, and they understand that at least part of the gift, is the gift of time and energy and creativity.  That's not to say that folks who aren't makers don't deeply appreciate handmade gifts - I regularly and with pleasure knit for folks who don't craft - it was just fun to see that other level of appreciation.

All right - time to tackle the inbox, and the ever-mounting pile of end-of-semester grading.  Wish me luck!

Day 126: Language oddities, and NOLA!

I often stub my ear (as it were) on words or phrases which suddenly appear, out of nowhere from my perspective, and are everywhere right away.  I've been thinking about two of those recently.

One of them is the word "kiddo", usually co-occurring with "my", especially spoken by teachers, as in: "I told my kiddos today that they should get ready for their next test."  This one has been around, I think, for maybe five or six years.  It appeared out of nowhere, and then I was hearing it everywhere.  The girls' teachers, Kivrin's tutor, my students when they do their field placements.  Everywhere.  I really don't get it.  It sounds strange to me.  I wonder if it's a replacement for the oft-called-out "kids" ("they're not baby goats", which is honestly ridiculous, as if language didn't change), seen as better than calling them "children", or "students".  Has anyone else heard this one?

The other one kind of makes me roll my eyes.  When ordering a salad at a restaurant, I am often asked if I want to "add a protein".  For example, today, I ordered a salad (make your own) to which I added, among other things, chickpeas, eggs, and nuts.  The person then asked me if I wanted to add a protein.  Of course, there's already lots of protein there.  Here, protein seems to be a euphemism for "meat" (because it's almost always steak, chicken, and some kind of fish on tap).  Isn't that weird? 

Other than that, I'm in the truly insane time of the semester, and yet Rick and I are going to New Orleans this weekend for no other reason than that we really want to, and this was when tickets were affordable (and, to be fair, it was our 25th anniversary this summer, so).  Anyone have any recommendations for us while we're there?

Day 120: Toes!

So, I don't know if I've mentioned, but our cat Bastet is polydactyl (she's lucky she didn't end up with a name like Polly or Digit)(although I'll be honest and mention that one of her nicknames is "Toes"). 

We often joke that she has to work pretty hard to keep track of all of those toes.  Evidence of this assertion includes the following:

(The evidence consists both of the overlapping and central toe placement, and also the prevalence of napping behavior.)

Meanwhile, Rick just treated me to an afternoon pick-me-up as I struggle through an endless pile of some delightful essays.

Happy Friday, all!

Day 116: Unpacking

On Saturday morning, here's what one would have seen looking through the door of our bedroom:

Two very long days later, and this was the view from my bed this morning:

It is such a relief to have a lot of the unpacking done (it's not finished, but we're getting there).  I am, however, left with a few burning questions:

Where did all that yarn come from?

Where did all that wool come from?  

Where did all those books come from?

And a few observations:

I'm not sure that I've quite achieved a STABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) amount of yarn, but I think I may have gotten there with the spinning fiber (four pounds of Stansborough Grey, and at least one more fleece's worth of wool, not to mention various braids).  

My bookshelves are definitely, as one friend once described hers, part resume, part wishlist.  I have a lot of unread books.  But I also have some that I'm wanting to reread at this point.  (Am I the only one who does that?  And I'm not talking about rereading deep and meaningful prize-winning books here, guys - just comforting ones whose characters are fun to visit.) 

And now I am tired.  My joints hurt, and I'm glad I'm not unpacking anything tonight.  Good night!

Day 112: Careful consideration

A few things have come together for me:

• Taking a break from my devices this past weekend was tremendously useful to me.  I'd almost forgotten how much I value that space.  I'd almost managed to forget how often I get sucked into a device for embarrassingly long periods of time, at the end of which I feel like I've achieved nothing - even if I have read more New York Times articles than you can shake a stick at.  But honestly, how many articles about the ongoing impeachment hearings do I need to read in one day?  Or even in a few days?
• Also of note: I have been working nearly every weekend this semester to stay on top of an overload of commitments.  (Also of note: I have psoriatic arthritis which isn't entirely under control, and I don't live my life as if that were true.)
• Yesterday, the humidity plummeted again (it was around 1% at the local airport, which is - get this - near the ocean, people, but still the air is so dry that it sucks the moisture out of every. single. thing), and I woke up with a headache that could only be described as an extinction level event.  I always hesitate to use the word "migraine" (I'm not really sure why), but it really can't be called anything else.  I got it under control, but between it and the Advil, I was walking the fine line between unmanageable pain and nausea.  It wasn't a fun day.  
• As a result of which, I didn't post here.  Which, interestingly, felt more like a relief than a regret.
• Last week, someone suggested that I try a mental practice, just to see what happens: instead of framing things as a question, I let a statement happen instead.  This basically has to do with my lifelong habit of overthinking and overanalyzing everything - I can think of 20 sides to a square.  It's nice to be able to see nuance, but it's not particularly useful for checking in with my gut.
• On my day away from digital devices, I also felt relief not to have to post here.  And it occurred to me to maybe think about rethinking my magpie year.  And I started thinking about commitments and what I said I'd do and meeting expectations and and and.  Lots of questions: should I make a new plan, with a different kind of commitment (I will post every other day/every Thursday/whatever)?  What will people think if I say, after 100ish days, that I'm not doing this anymore?  Is it actually in keeping with the lighthearted magpie spirit to allow my shiny-object-distraction soul to be distracted by other things?  Is it OK to say that I've learned some interesting stuff about myself and now I'm going to lighten up?  Should I/can I/ought I to?  And then I remembered: statements.
• And the statement is: I don't want to post every day right now.  Or, at least, I don't want to feel obliged to.
• Ah.  OK.  I can work with that.

So, there it is.  I'm not saying that I didn't go around a few more times.  I have a lot of trouble giving myself grace (we've talked about this), and so there's been quite a bit of: but you said!  However, the statement part of me knows this: I said it to myself.  No-one will die or be harmed if I now say to myself that gentleness and kindness means renegotiating the terms of my engagement with writing.  There are times when "I don't want to do it" doesn't cut it - but this isn't one of them.

The fun thing for me about having initiated this project is that I am writing again - not only here, but in my journal, and other scribblings that I hadn't been giving myself permission to try, and that I now am; I'm looking forward to having more time for that.  I'm spinning again.  And there's a small part of me that is thinking of trying a creative sweater-sized project again.  All of that, I think, came out of the project of committing myself to doing this one creative thing every day.  I'm good with letting that creative thing be wider than writing here.  So, I'll be here, and I may keep that day count because I'm finding it interesting, but it won't be every day.

Meanwhile, with my "blogging time" on Sunday and Wednesday, I wound up that yarn and cast on for a hat.  It's getting cold in Seattle, and Kiv needs to keep her head warm.

Day 110: Moving day!

It feels like the house has been under construction forever.  Probably because it sort of has.  We had a leak last fall.  And then they found asbestos in the stuff that held the drywall sheets together.  And then they found mold. And then the repair caused another leak which ruined the floors in another room.  So that took well over six months to sort out.  And then we figured that, since we were used to chaos, and the dog had gotten so used to the guys coming and going she hardly even barked anymore, that it was time to pull up the (frankly disgusting) carpets in our back two rooms and replace the flooring.  We've only been in the house 17 years - I guess it was time. 

So, this morning found me here:

Sitting in my car grading while the movers packed up our stuff from the storage place, so that they could put it back in here:

That's our room.  I wish I had pictures of both rooms, which have not only been refloored but (because, if everything is out and empty, you may as well get it done) repainted.  We've been out of our bedroom for two months at this point, and I am dying to sleep in my bed, and (even more excitingly) to have access to my clothes again!!  Unpacking looms, but it'll be good to be done with this project.

Day 107: Rest day

So, continuing reflection on the question of whether to take a day a week away from devices has led me to realize that there’s no question, actually. I know that this is a good practice, and I’m reinstituting it.  So that’ll mean no post tomorrow.

This isn’t something I’m doing in a really rigid way, with hard boundaries and no leeway.  (I will, for example, gladly facetime with Kivrin tomorrow if it’s the day she can do it.). It’s more about stepping away from the temptation to fill “empty” moments with what I called digital lethe in a recent post - I like that, as it captures for me the sense of the digital as a tempting annihilation of the present moment.  My memory of doing this is that it helps me to sense the spaciousness that is available beyond constant busyness.  Creativity happens there, and rest.

See you on the flip side!

Day 106: Strange day

Woke up this morning to an announcement that campus was closed due to an electrical outage, which was, in turn, due to a blown transformer.  This means I’m going to have to grade this weekend, since I couldn't get into my office to pick up midterms (bad news). But, it did have an unexpected upside.

Some friends and I walk every week that we can.  Today was a walking day.  And then, because we’d all intended to work on campus and couldn’t, we came to my house and got work done.  It felt like college or something - all of us at the dining room table getting things done, occasional comments or stories.  It was the kind of thing that is totally unexpected, but wonderfully good. I wish life worked out like this more often.

Day 105: Spitting vines

My wisteria tells me when the humidity gets into single digits.  Every time.

I'll be sitting in the dining room, getting work done, and suddenly I hear a snap, followed immediately by a hail of strikes against the doors and window.  Snap, ping!  Snap, ping!  It's like being in the middle of a wee bombardment.  (The feeling is exacerbated by the fact that, when the Marines are practicing shelling at Camp Pendleton, there's something about the way the landscape is shaped that funnels the sound waves directly to us, so boom! window rattle, boom! window rattle.)  It can get a little bit out of hand: snap, ping! boom, rattle! ping! boom! snap! rattle!

It's all due to a fairly ingenious plan on the part of the wisteria.  It grows its seeds in long seed pods that slowly dry out over time, twisting gently as they do.  Give them a good hot day with low humidity, and the drying accelerates until, with a final twist, they wrench apart, spitting seeds out as they go.  (Our orchid tree does the same thing.)  The seeds can fly ten or twenty feet easily, which makes sitting on the back patio this time of year a rather risky endeavor.  Poor thing - it's a ton of work for no reward, because I sweep the seeds up and put them in the green waste, every time.

Maybe that's why it's spitting at me...

Day 103: Yarn!

So, I don't know if you remember the lovely braid of BFL/silk (75/25) I got last spring at Northwest Yarns in Bellingham Washington?  Well, it turned into this:

It's the Bold Spectrum colorway from Elemental Fiberworks; I'd definitely spin with their fiber again, it was beautifully prepared, and the results are lovely.  The colors aren't quite right (I'm taking this at night) - they're more vibrant than I've captured here.  I spun it worsted and then, in order to preserve the gradient, I chain-plied it.  I haven't yet figured out the weight, but it looks like maybe sport, to me?

 It's not always my favorite way to ply - any unevennesses in the singles run the risk of being emphasized, but I really don't know another way to preserve these long color runs quite so well.  In the event, I think it turned out to be fairly even. 

I'm actually quite pleased with that, given that this is my first spinning project in a really long time.  It's destined to be a hat for Kivrin, so it'll be heading back up to the northwest as soon as it's knitted up.  I'm thinking just a plain stockinette beanie, unless anyone has another suggestion?

Day 102: Rest

I love the concept of synchronicity, the idea that sometimes, things come together in unexpected but serendipitous ways.  Today, it's a column by Margaret Renkl in the NYT; she's an author whose writing I love, especially when she's describing the natural world, which she does with a deep sense of connection and joy.  Today's column is about rest, which she explores in the context of the commandment to rest on the Sabbath.  It's worth saying here that I am not religious, but the call to rest, to appreciate the world from a place of rest, and to allow wisdom to arise from rest, is one that resonates deeply.  In fact, there was a time when I took a weekly digital shabbat (idea taken from someone else), stepping away from email and texts and blogs and online anything from sundown one day to sundown the next.  I only left my phone on to receive phone calls from my daughter at college, or from my mom and dad.  I really loved the stretched-out feeling of that day.  And I loved that it challenged me to be present for my own downtime, instead of finding easy distraction in the form of digital lethe.  I spoke with a mentor on Friday about reinstituting this practice in my life - and then spent the weekend grading.  It did have to be done, but I would like to frame it as a rare instance, rather than the norm.  And then this morning, I opened the Times during a rare break in my day (reading and eating at the same time, and why yes, that is rather mindless, isn't it?), and there was Renkl's column, reminding me of the sacredness of rest, reminding me that I owe myself and the world space and spaciousness.

It occurs to me, reading this over before hitting "post", that this has implications for my magpie year.  But it also occurs to me that the goal of this year was to encourage myself to write, and to see what I learned by doing so.  And maybe what I'm learning is that I write better from charged batteries, and that recharging my batteries is a legitimate thing to plan to do.  I will mull this week, and you will be the first to know if I end up reclaiming a day from the online world. 

Day 101: Pink flamingo update

Thank you, Ellen, for finding out more about pink plastic flamingos.  If you all are interested, you can check this out.  What really caught my attention (aside from the fact that the creator of the pink plastic flamingo and his wife dressed alike for 35 years)(and the fact that his pink plastic flamingo is based on a photo from National Geographic)(and the fact that they come in pairs, one with its head up and one with its head down - did you know that?), is the fact that this guy worked for a company that made plastic animals.  Not just flamingos - animals.  Which begs several questions: one, why did flamingos take off (get it, get it?)? and two, where are all those other animals?  I mean, I don't think I've seen other plastic animals on people's lawns - have you?  And what animals?  Chickens?  Cows?  Goats?  The mind boggles.

Day 100: Cats!

They keep me company as I grade.  (It takes me about 20 minutes a paper for these first papers, and there are 40 of them.  I'm trying to take it in smaller pieces, both so that I don't get too stiff and uncomfortable - and, honestly, my fingers stop being able to type comments after a while - and so I don't get impatient and nasty in my comments.)

They think they're helping...

Day 99: TGIF

Mornings are crisp, there’s a chill in the air, evening comes earlier each day. It’s that time of year, when students’ hearts pitter-patter with the utter dread of looming midterms, and the realization that they should have come to office hours much sooner, and with much more frequency. 

And when, therefore, professors’ spare hours are spent in extra appointments, and in grading the assignments of panicked students. 

That means me, too. 

Day 98: That time of the semester

I really have nothing. The grading is piled deep, and there’s a conference paper to write, and even the magpie has to give way and dig in to work. Remind me again why I assigned all these things?

Day 97: Daily poem

I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall -
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.

       - Mary Oliver

Day 96: Pink flamingos

Yesterday was a thirteen-hour juggernaut, at the end of which it didn’t even occur to me to turn on my computer and post.  But there is something that has captured the attention of the magpie: pink plastic lawn flamingos.

Where do they come from?

I mean, I get that, at this point, they are largely kitschy or ironic, or both. But surely they weren’t, to begin with. Surely there was some origin point at which someones, somewhere, thought that real flamingos on lawns was a really awesome thing, and that having pretend flamingos on lawns would be a cool second-best?

Or something?

I haven’t had a chance to go poking around into the origin story of pink flamingos (although I think I have to, at some point, when students aren’t panicking about midterms, and I’m caught up on grading, and my conference presentation is written, and and and), but meanwhile, maybe someone has some inside knowledge that will shed light on this pressing question?

Inquiring magpies want to know.

Day 94: Morning song

Lying awake in the pre-dawn darkness, an explosion of bird-sing, then silence. 

Hsht, hsht, I imagine a beleaguered bird mother saying, hsht!  You'll wake the neighbors!

Both of us wishing for just five more minutes - five more minutes, little ones, hsht!

Day 93: A quiet day, with none of the pictures I'd planned to post

I was really disciplined yesterday and got caught up on grading.  I'm ready for class on Monday.  And that means that, even though there's always something I could work on (upcoming conference presentation, I'm looking at you), I am not going to work this weekend.  It's amazing how spacious it feels to have a largely unscheduled weekend. 

I got to the barn early for my ride, before the temperatures rose too much, hit the farmer's market on the way home, and the rest of the day was mine.  If there's one thing that single-digit humidity is good for, it's blocking things, so...

That's Adair, knitted up with Manos del Uruguay Serena (alpaca/cotton), in the Fig colorway (which isn't showing up quite right in those photos; I'll try to get a better modelling shot at some point).  I saw this at Churchmouse when I was there in June, and feel immediately in love.  I think it's going to be one of those really versatile shawls that can go with almost anything and get carried almost anywhere.  It's already dry - I just need to unpin it and weave the ends in and it's good to go.

I took a nap, treated my chickens to yogurt and raisins, and set myself up to spin and listen to On Being's replay of an interview with Mary Oliver.  (Which I recommend highly.  I may actually go back and listen to the entire unedited 90 minutes, it was that wonderful.  I also may have ordered her Poetry Handbook and Dreamwork.  For store pickup.  Tomorrow.  Oops.) 

What a perfect way to spend an afternoon.  Now pizza dough is rising on the stove, onions are caramelizing in my favorite cast-iron skillet, and I'm just waiting for Tess to get home before dinner.  I hope that each of you got to spend at least part of today doing something that felt expansive and roomy and lovely.

Day 92: Dry

Dry is a funny thing.  Woke up this morning cold.  The house, which I've now shut up, is still holding the cold (I'm wearing a sweater); it's 85 outside, and 90 a bit further inland.  When there's no moisture in the air, there's nothing to hold the warmth.  Humidity is currently around 5%.  It never ceases to amaze me what a difference it makes to go from maybe 30% humidity to 5.  Not only do temperatures vary wildly depending on whether you're in the sun or not, but it's clear clear clear.  The blue of the sky goes all the way to the horizon - no haze to get in the way.

We haven't had our power shut off as a preventative measure to avoid utility-sparked fires (we were on the list for a while), and the wind seems not to be picking up.  Keep your fingers crossed that conditions shift a bit for the better, and keep good thoughts going for our firefighters and the folks who have gotten caught in the fires that are burning in other parts of the state.  And if you're in the same conditions - go drink an extra glass of water before you realize you need it!