Stayin' alive

I made it through yesterday's meetings. Whew! It really did feel like a long day, and, even harder for me, a day filled with people. Don't get me wrong, I like people quite a lot. And I enjoy spending time with them. And then I need to be alone to recover.

Turns out that I am an introvert at heart. I have friends who insist I am not (and what's up with that -- telling me I'm wrong about my understanding of myself?!), since I like people and find them interesting and inspiring; funny thing is, the times I've taken a Myers-Briggs test, I've been rated an INFJ, the description of which includes the observation that folks who fall into this category enjoy people, but need time alone. In the end, I am renewed by being alone. I have friends who tell me that being alone exhausts them, that they need to be around other people to relax. I believe them, but I don't understand it. I find other people tremendously interesting and invigorating, but unless I get some alone time, I end up feeling overwhelmed and raw, like my skin is sunburned.

This is all by way of saying that yesterday wasn't just exhausting because I was in classes or meetings straight through until 7:00 in the evening, but because I was with people straight through until 7:00 in the evening. Sigh... However, it was a productive day, and it needed to be done, so that's good.

And then I got to go home, and my husband and kids were waiting for me, as was my new ballwinder! Boy, talk about the ultimate in soothing activities -- even though I didn't have to, I wound the yarn for the Kauni, just because it makes such pretty rainbows when it's in its little squared-off wound-up balls. I also figured out how to solve the problem of having part of a purl stitch show through when you switch from one color to another and from knit to purl at the same time. Basically, I just have to knit an entire row with the new color pattern, and then switch over to purl for the relevant squares. If you do that, you get this:
(see the pretty balls of yarn? aren't they lovely?) Am I the only person who is tremendously entertained by watching the colors of the yarn chase each other around? By waiting to see which colors will end up next to each other? Sometimes it's nice not to have to make those choices, and just to wait and see what will happen, and I think that this sweater is going to be the ultimate in just watching the beauty unfold.

One of my intents in choosing to knit this sweater was to learn to handle yarn in both my right and left hands (I knit with the yarn in my right hand), so that I could have both colors going at once without the constant picking up and putting down of yarn. So far, though, I have not felt like dealing with the awkwardness of handling the yarn lefthanded (even though I am a lefty -- I just learned the other way); my excuse is that I would not only have to knit with the yarn in my left hand, but also (gasp) purl that way, and that it's just too much to ask of any one person. Really, though, I'm feeling like I'm facing enough challenges and new things in my life this week, and picking up and putting down yarn is less stressful than feeling awkward while doing one of the few things that I am comfortable doing right now. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

The horror

This is just a quick, pictureless post, to say that I've cast back on for Kauni (yay!). I'm only one row in, and I almost forgot that I was alternating between knit and purl because I was so focused on alternating colors (clearly an eat and chew gum kind of thing). But, about 12 stitches into the row, I remembered, tinked back, and all is back on track. Don't get me wrong, one row really looks rather pitiful, but it's something.

I worked at home all day today. Here's the bummer about working at home; there are no meetings to knit in. So, knitting during the day requires a purposeful finding of time and justifying the move away from the computer. Note: reading knitting blogs does not seem to require this justification and can proceed apace as a form of procrastination (which reminds me: no one was posting today! it was KILLING me! where IS everyone?). Worse yet, when there are crises, they take place as email bombs, which then require lots of emailing back, none of which leaves hands free for knitting. I tried and tried to get people on the phone -- I even got my headset out, which I hate -- just so I could knit already people, but no go. So, stressful day, lack of knitting.

And here's the true horror. Tomorrow, I have not one, not two, not three, but four, count 'em FOUR meetings to go to, and not one of them, not a single one, is a meeting at which I can knit.

A moment of silence, if you please.

Birth and death

Last night, I went to see a friend of mine who was acting in a performance of Karen Brody's play Birth. I mostly went for my friend; I probably wouldn't have taken the time otherwise, but I'm really glad that I did. I tend to avoid anything that seems to me that it will be a politicization of birth and motherhood, mostly because, in my experience, such events involve proselytization of a correct way to do things. I may piss some people off here, but I firmly believe that there is no one right way to do birth and mothering (and, more generally parenting). I think there are some ways that are wrong, but there is definitely more than one right way.

So, the best part of this play from my perspective is that it wasn't advocating any particular right way to do birth, rather (and this is only my interpretation), it seemed to be saying that mothers should be central to the birth experience, and that their experience should be nurturing, whatever nurturing may be for them. Of course, what each of us needs to feel cared for is intensely personal and individual; inherently, there is no one way to do it. I found that message to mesh tremendously well with my own sense of how birth should go, and it was nice to see it right out there. It was particularly interesting, in an audience full of midwives and pregnant women to see the reaction to the character who chose two planned c-sections for her births, with no regrets, and to the character who chose epidurals. Their support seemed less strong to me than that for those characters who chose to, or who came to an appreciation for, a birth which did not involve such interventions. All I could hope was that those members of the audience saw that the horror stories in the play were not necessarily the story of a c-section, but the stories of those characters whose birth experiences were entirely out of their hands, whose friends and families and doctors did not honor their sense of what was going on for them in the moment. It was well done, and I'm very glad I went.

I was especially glad because it was a nice reminder of the starting part of life (as well as of the births of my daughters, which are very good memories for me). It was a contrast to what I'd found out the day before in Anne's blog (yes, I admit that I tend to avoid the news on weekends, so I probably would have missed this for a few days otherwise), which is that Madeleine L'Engle had passed away. While, as I said to Anne, it is not possible to call her death at the age of 88 after a long and well-lived life a tragedy, it nevertheless felt like a personal loss to me. I credit her descriptions of loving and very human families with keeping me sane and well at times when my family was not so functional. I'm glad I knew her through her books.

In keeping with the theme for this post, I have both started and frogged Kauni in the past 24 hours. I got my 252 stitches cast on, and knitted three rows before realizing what any knitter worth her salt could have predicted; without doing at least some ribbing at the beginning, all I was gonna get was curl. Grrr...
I was focused on not ribbing both because I don't want the bottom of this pullover to pull in, and because I'll be doing a checkerboard pattern for the bottom, rather than the alternating color stripes that generally go with ribbing. It just about killed me, but here's where I am with the sweater now:
Alas, and alack. So, I think what I'll need to do is to always purl one of the colors in the checkerboard and knit the other (ya think this is why the person I saw who'd done checkerboard patterning did it that way? ya think? man, you'd also think I'd learn...). So, here I go again. The good bit is that I didn't like starting with purple and orange together as much as I'd thought I would, so I'm going to try purple and green. We'll see.

The Boudica sock, however, continues apace. Note the two circulars instead of four dpns. I'm giving it a shot; who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?
(But you can't always make her like them.)

Startitis

I started another pair of socks last night. (I feel like I should belong to some support group, y'know "My name is Jocelyn, and I just can't stop knitting socks.") They're Miriam Felton's Boudica socks; the pattern comes as part of a kit from Wooly Wonka Fibers, and while I tend to prefer to buy yarn myself rather than taking what comes with a kit, I'm really very happy with this yarn. It's very springy, which I like, and quite fine. I'm knitting these on size 0 dpns, which I haven't used for a whole pair of socks before. In fact, I'm considering getting two size 0 circulars and giving the knitting socks on circulars thing a try. Opinions out there? I've been a committed dpn user before this (so committed, in fact, that I demanded -- in the most civilized possible way -- a pair of bronze Celtic Swan dpns for Christmas, and I love them; I will make insane adjustments to be able to knit a pair of socks on size 1 needles just so I can use them). Anyway, I got through the toe, and am now setting up for the side cable. Progress looks small, but toe-up socks are not my thing, and the starting was a bit rough. In fact, I fudged a bit and used an Eastern cast-on instead of a provisional cast-on, which I'd never done before, and which I didn't feel like dealing with.
The sock is being modelled by my seed pot from New Mexico. It's a very small one, but the essence of the seed pot is to build a pot with only a very tiny hole at the top to put seeds or beans into for the next year's planting. Then mice and other scavengy beasts can't get in, and when you want your seeds for next year, you can break the pot and get them out, all safe and sound. There is something that impresses me immensely about small daily evidences of human ingenuity, of the many ways that people have found to deal with their environments, and when I saw this pot (it's my favorite blackware, too), I just had to have it. I've filled it with beans, and rattle it when I need to feel soothed. I guess it really goes with socks, no? Small evidences of human ingenuity.

Last night, my latest exciting, nerve-wracking purchase arrived in the mail:
Yarn for the Kauni sweater (you can download the pattern for free in English). I got the yarn from Astrid's Dutch obsessions. It's here at work with me. This is not because I need to carry it everywhere with me (but look at those colors!), but because this yarn carpooled with the yarn for a friend who is also going to knit Kauni. Between us, we saved on shipping from Holland, and got seven skeins instead of four each (which is more than one needs for the sweater; you really need three and a half). She and I just spent a pleasurable half hour splitting one ball and seeing which colors we wanted to start with. They're all the same, but the colors start in different places in each ball. I'm planning to knit this as a v-neck pullover, rather than as a cardigan. We'll see how this all goes; the pattern is very Zimmerman-esque in that it assumes a great deal of knowledge on the part of the knitter (none of this step-by-step handholding), and I mostly feel like I am not a very knowledgeable knitter. In order to encourage self-discipline, I've promised myself that I can go get the needles for it if and only if I get through two piles of grading. Oy.

Late night math

First, let me start by saying that I love my husband. I really do (in spite of that little comment on Anne's blog yesterday about being willing to trade him for her new scarf; I can only plead temporary insanity brought on by a surfeit of gorgeous knitting). That said, however, he still occasionally does things that are enough to make even the most patient person (which I have never claimed to be) go batty.

To wit (you saw this coming, did you not?): It's just before 10 last night. I'm tired, but I'm at a crucial point in putting Kivrin's sweater together on one needle. I've finished the Millicent socks, have knitted the second sweater sleeve to a length which matches the first, and am ready to knit the new sleeve onto a circular needle with the fronts, back and first sleeve so I can start the yoke. I look at what's on the circular needle: right front, 20 stitches, check; right sleeve, check; back, check. Being wise, I had set myself up so that I was at the right place to just put the second sleeve on. But, the "right place" I've got is much more than 20 stitches from the end of the left front side. I count again. Yup, 20 stitches for the right front, then the sleeve, back, and a whole bunch more than 20 for the left front. OK, time to check math. If the body was 116 stitches, divided by four (one quarter for each front and half for the back), then each front should be 29 stitches. Cursing my past self, I tink back over the stitches for the back, tink the first sleeve back onto a dpn, tink the held stitches back onto the circular, and knit an extra nine stitches. I then prepare to knit the sleeve back onto the dpn. I am halfway through the sleeve when it hits me: somewhere in there, I need to put stitches onto the stitch holder for the armpit, and moreover, those stitches have to come out of my 29 + 58 + 29 count. This would, of course, explain why I did not have 29 stitches in the right front half to start with (turns out my past self was much smarter than my present self).

Now, in my defense (because I know you were all thinking things like "stop! your math is all wonky" from the very beginning), I had just made it through a day which involved packing lunches, getting the kids to school, buying snacks for the older one's classroom, sitting through office hours, a Senate meeting, more meetings, gotten the girls to soccer practice, out for pizza, and into bed; I had finished a sock, and Kitchenered with nary an error. I was due. Also, for me, conceptualizing the putting together of a sweater requires quiet and concentration to ensure some kind of accuracy. I turned off Law and Order and began to think (a painful process so late in the evening).

OK, so. I needed to put 9 stitches from the body onto holders for each sleeve in order to make the armpits (and yes, I did remember that I also needed to put 9 of the 36 sleeve stitches onto holders to match). So, 29 minus half of that nine doesn't quite work. Let's make that 29-4 for each front. Which means that I would need to knit 25, put nine stitches on a holder, then knit the sleeve on (minus nine more stitches from the sleeve on their very own holder), then knit [58 - (5 x 2)] for the back, put nine more stitches on a holder, knit the second sleeve on (minus another 9) and sail through the front (which should be 29-4 stitches). If I did that right, then 25 + 9 + [58 - (5x2)] + 9 + 25 should equal 116, and dang if it doesn't! Having checked my math twice, and verified with my very rough notes to myself as to what I intended to do that I was following my own directions, I commenced to knit.

Here's where the trouble started. The phone rang. I was sure that it was He Who Had Been Working Late checking in, and chose to ignore it until I'd survived the math/knitting hell in which I was embroiled. To my pleasure, the phone rang twice and stopped. I thought, HWHBWL knows that I know it's him, and that I'll call him back when I'm done doing whatever I'm doing. Alas, not so much. The phone rang again, and again I decided to ignore it. This time, the answering machine picked up, and lo! I was right, it was He. Figuring that now that he had left a message, he would happily and sensibly wait for me to call back, I struggled womanfully on.

And the phone rang again.

At this point, I was juggling a circular needle, four dpns, two balls of yarn, a couple of sleeves, and trailing ends were everywhere. I was also holding what is, for me, a complicated math equation in my head. I had also been stealth knitting in an attempt to keep the kitten from noticing the aforementioned trailing ends, and must now, yarn and needles following willy-nilly, dive for the phone. Suffice it to say, I was not happy. And when I snarled a greeting into the phone, he tells me that he was worried I wouldn't hear the answering machine and might be wondering where he was. I barely managed not to point out to him that I am, in fact, versed in the use of cell phone technology and would have called him if I had in fact been worried, and merely suggested instead that he trust the answering machine and Stop Calling!! Sigh...

At the end of it all, however, the sweater made it onto one circular needle and is ready for me to work the yoke. And Older Daughter has Millicent:
(They are the same length, they're just not pulled up evenly.)
Aren't they lovely? I really am still completely charmed by these guys, and DD was happy enough with them to wear them to school today (after a careful consideration of the status of the marine layer, which was deemed to be heavy enough to keep the day relatively cool).

Songs of praise

Oh, wow. I woke up this morning, and the marine layer was back. It didn't last long, but I actually needed to pull up the sheet last night because with the fans on, I was a bit chilly. This, after the weather we've had, is nothing less than a miracle. Now, don't get me wrong, the overcast didn't last long, but it's not supposed to this time of year. It is, however, supposed to be there of an evening, and it has been tremendously disturbing to my equanimity that it hasn't been.

I'm good with extreme weather. I grew up here in California, and I've lived in the San Joaquin Valley, in L.A., in the Bay Area, and here in north San Diego county. I've spent stretches of time in Lake County and in the Trinity Alps. I get changeable weather. Over the year in Sacramento, it goes from over 115 in August to below freezing in the winter. Now, I know that 115 doesn't seem too bad to those folks out in Tucson, and freezing is nothing to everyone who lives in points north, but remember, you've got to have closet space to cover what you need for both kinds of weather; this requires planning. As a child, we used to go to San Francisco sometimes from Sacramento, and I'd remember leaving, the sun pinning us to the driveway like helpless bugs, and my mother would say, "Take a sweater." We'd look at her like she had sprouted a spare eye in some unsightly place and refuse. Two hours later, we'd be freezing in fog-bound SF, wearing summer clothes on a 50-degree day. (Later, when I lived there, we laughed at tourists who did that.)

I must confess here to a love of fog. Maybe it's the memory of the relief I felt at stepping out of the car and feeling the cold, instead of unremitting heat and sun. Maybe (as my husband firmly believes after seeing how happy I was the first time I went to Ireland and it rained on us for days) it's some remnant of my Irish genetic past, telling me to seek cooler climes. All I know is that the weather that makes me happiest is brisk. Some (such as my dear friend from Hawai'i), might even call it cold. I honestly would far rather spend the day in jeans and a wool sweater, walking along a beach in 50-degree weather, the wind making my cheeks cold and red, than lie on a towel on the sand on a 90-degree day with the sun making my skin hot and red. Hiking in a raging wind makes me happier than anything in the world. I stand on a ridge, and with the wind in my face I am sure I could just lift my arms and fly. (This is, perhaps, the largest part of my fear of exposed precipitous heights. There is this small part of me that wonders how it would feel to free-fall through the air; I'm sure it would be great right up until the landing, and I hate to imagine the second thoughts I'd have for about 10 seconds if I ever tried it.)

In spite of that preference for cold that draws me north just as often as I can get there, I love California in the sun, too. In spite of the snide comments of those in other parts of the nation that we have no seasons here, we do. They are just off-kilter from traditional seasons, and sometimes tremendously subtle. Far from the usual white winter, muddy spring, green summer, and red fall that story books show, we've got green winters. The rains come, and like some kind of miracle in December, little sprouts of grass show up all over the hills. Plants get tremendously excited by the chance to reproduce and wildflowers cover the hillsides by March. Sage grows rampantly, as does the poison oak, and in some places, if you know where to look, you can begin to stake out claims on blackberry futures (always knowing that you will pay a price in poison oak to get there). By May, the grass is turning brown, and summer is starting; this is the season when the hills take on the aspect of sleeping lions, brown and lazy in the sun, looking as soft as velvet. The sage and fennel bake in the heat, and hiking at this time of year means coming home smelling like a Thanksgiving turkey. If you're lucky enough to live in a fog belt area, you can walk the hills under bay laurel trees, and come home with leaves that make your hands smell of far-away places. Fall here is fire season, and the color in the foliage comes not from our oaks, but from the poison oak, which shows off its hiding places with bright red flags, laughing that you didn't know it was there earlier. All the other colors at this time are in sepia tones: olive, brown, sage, grey; they are subtle and lovely, and it is texture that gives the landscape depth.

I went to the LA County Museum of Art with the girls this past spring, where there was an exhibit of art depicting California. There were two huge paintings by an artist whose name (alas) I cannot remember; but the paintings are burned in my memory. They are my state as I see it. One was entitled simply "The Ocean", the other "Hills". The ocean is all shades of greys and blues; not the bright turquoise of a Mediterranean sea, or of the Caribbean, but quiet tones, blending into the sky; the horizon line blending in almost seamlessly. The hills are the velvet browns of fall, sleeping, and waiting for rain to bring them to life with grass and landslides; these are the hills that Native Californians called the walking hills because they move each winter as water undermines them. There was a quote from the artist. Someone had asked him if he had a religion, and he replied, "I think it is California". I get that.

I know there are other beautiful places, and that other people find California appalling in its self-aggrandizement (so do I, sometimes), but that is not all there is. True, there is something about LA, its brashness, that appeals to me (for short periods of time). And I have always adored Berkeley, where no matter what I do, there are a dozen people within arm's reach who are weirder, more opinionated, more out there than I could ever hope to be; I love the concealing cover of their doings. The exuberance is worth valuing in its own right. But most people, who think of Hollywood as the epitome of this place, don't know its quieter beauties. They don't know that most of the state is rural, and conservative, and much of it is poor. Not just the urban poor who are noticed once a decade, when Oakland is crowned the murder capital again, or when LA riots, but those who live in places that are relatively untouched by urban woes. Who grow many of the crops that have made this such a rich state, including the illegal ones that are stashed away on federal lands in the mountains of the north; if you grow dope on federal property, the land can't be confiscated when the crop is found, right?

Working with Native Californians as I do, the point of most commonality for me is this attachment to place. Not to a movie California, but to a land of variety and subtlety. To the way the red clay mud sticks to your feet in the winter, making you slip and slide when you hike. To the smell of the air when rain falls on sage. To the blind feel of walking through tule fog, trying to breath cold, wet air. To coming over a rise and coming face-to-face with a kestral, hovering in hopes of flushing a ground squirrel; or meeting up with a coyote, who looks up with a wise, knowing smile; or seeing a heron rise from a marshland beside the freeway, wondering where the rest of its swamp went when it wasn't looking. That's a different kind of thing, more timeless, more about an attachment to an ecosystem, to the feeling of being one small but integral part in a seamless whole. Sitting on a beach, watching the land meet the sea, I have brief moments of feeling that unity that Buddhists seek. I feel it hiking through a sepia landscape, watching for the small changes that tell me it's going to be hot, or cool; seeing fog drip from live oaks. I could probably feel this in other places, but this is where I am, so this is where it happens most comfortably for me.

All this is by way of saying that it bothers me on a deep level when something is off-kilter in this ecosystem. And this weather is way off-kilter. I know heat. I know the Santa Anas that pour in from the desert, ionizing the air, driving up the temperature, and making everyone crazy. This past week has been weird, still, humid weather. Not at all normal, and frankly, not to my taste. I know people who say that they love humidity, but I figure either a) they've never experienced humidity, or b) they're lying. I mean, how is it possible to enjoy feeling sweat trickling down your back just because you're exerting yourself by breathing? I used to visit my Nana in Rhode Island in August, and man, that is some miserable weather. Like breathing through warm, wet wool (now, breathing through cold wet wool is called "damp", and I like that). Anyway, cold and grey at night, and warm during the day. That, my friends, is what September here is supposed to be like, and it had damned well better stay that way.

The heat...

First off, I made it through my week at work. (Thanks, Tracy, for your good wishes!) Breathing definitely helped, as did another Buddhist concept that gets me through a lot -- transience. I keep reminding myself that everything changes, and that, as miserable as a particular experience is, it won't -- it can't -- last forever. Mostly this helps (although, in my darker moments, it makes me think of one of my mom's favorite things to say at times like this: "Cheer up, things could get worse. So I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse.")(Mom was an ER nurse for quite a while -- can you tell?). So, the situation doesn't seem to have lasted forever, although the personality traits that gave rise to it are somewhat more immutable. I remind myself frequently that there's nothing I can do about that; I'm hardly in control of myself, let alone other people.

One thing I do wish I had more control over, or at least I wish I understood better, is the image other people have of me. I recently have come to realize consciously something that I think I've known for quite a while, which that there are people in the world for whom I exist less as me (the way I think of "me", such as it is), and more as a projected image that fits their notion of who they think I am or should be, given their expectations and worldviews. For many personal reasons, this is a particular trial for me (I know that there are other folks out there who might find this annoying, but not soul-eating; they have their own buttons, I am sure). I do not quite know what to do about it, although I am very clear that I can't change their view of me. What I am not sure about is how to defuse the trigger for me; how to find my way to a place where I operate with integrity (in that original sense of integration of inner and outer selves), and let the chips fall where they may. I'll get there, but sometimes it's hard waiting for the shift that opens up the next step in that direction.

More concretely, I'm plugging along on Tess' socks. Here's the first one (finally, a photo!), modeled on Tess' leg (I took some of it on my leg -- it just wasn't the same). I am almost done with the leg of the second one, and should get the heel turned tonight (fingers crossed).
I should say that, in spite of my griping about the lacework section of these socks, I remain completely charmed by the ribbing and the way it swirls around the front, and merges together in back (Rick declared them "cool"; they clearly impressed his engineering soul). This continues to be true also in spite of the fact that ribbing normally makes me twitch. Furthermore, I am so completely taken by this effect that I am already planning to make myself a pair, although for myself, I will leave off the lace cuff, and simply start with an inch of 1x1 rib. Although I've never worn knee-socks as an adult, I can imagine that I'd like them quite a bit in the winter under my long denim skirts.

That is, if winter ever comes again. Right now, it doesn't seem as though it will (just this morning, Rick wandered through the living room, which is sweltering on a 95 degree day, and said "who thinks global warming isn't happening?"). We have no air conditioning. In years past, this was a sane and considered decision. We didn't want to add to our carbon load, and since we live only about 8 miles from the ocean, we could almost always count on, at the very least, a nice marine layer to roll in of an evening to cool things down. Apparently, we can't count on it any more. For the past two years, we've been getting monsoonal weather from Mexico -- huge thunderheads on the horizon that never produce rain, but that trap the heat, and make everything humid and heavy. We are seriously considering finally committing to the solar panel decision; at the very least, we could put in attic fans, even if we didn't go for central air. Even after being here for five years, I miss Bay Area summer weather, which rarely topped out much over 85, and always cooled off at night (in fact, friends of mine who moved there from the east coast always lamented summer evenings on the patio; it's true that it's hard to enjoy that quite so much when the wind is blowing in through the Golden Gate, and temperatures have dropped to below 60). At some point, when I do not have to cook two vegetable side dishes for 25 people in the next hour or so, I will tell you of my love of fog and cold, but for now, suffice it to say that I feel the lack acutely.