jump

While out walking today I made up my mind to begin risking looking like a nut in favor of doing things that amuse me, because we don't know what this life will bring, and it's really something when you think about the fact that you've got a finite number of times to see the moon, or a dog, or to hear a friend laugh. All our days are numbered. It may seem unfair, but think about this: even the sun is dying; the earth cannot rotate forever.

With this tinkling around inside me, I walked through a field next to a busy street barefoot. The end of the field loomed much too soon, so I made circles for a while. Big circles and little circles, to stretch the moment and drown the discomfort of imaginary judgment.

When I was a child, I loved going barefoot in the summertime. Cool dirt, hot concrete, damp asphalt -- it all belonged to me. I even loved the part where I had to put my shoes back on, because that meant it was time to go inside the carryout for pop and candy, after which would come bare feet again.

Funny the things we give up because we think it's time. We do this even as time spreads plots of grass before us.

heart of darkness

I'm thinking quite a bit about the nature of the artist, the woman artist in particular. It's true that Anne Lamott wasn't nice the other night. She wasn't likable; she didn't give off an air of sweetness. I've been considering this while also thinking about photographer Diane Arbus. Yesterday I watched Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, in which Nicole Kidman, as Arbus (and outfitted in a killer '50s wardrobe), becomes intrigued by a Robert Downey, Jr. afflicted with a condition that makes him look like a lot like Chewbacca. I found the film rather wretched, in that typical overwrought Hollywood drivel kind of way, but it set me on a course to learn more about the life Arbus led, and the kind of person she was.

Accounts vary, but by most she was an empathetic person. Likable? It's hard to say. I think her work remains controversial not because of its subject matter, but because of her way of portraying people. Look here here at her portrait of Anderson Cooper in his infancy. Most photographers would wait for a smile, an open-eyed stare, anything that doesn't say "funeral," as this image does. Here's another one, titled "Two Young Women with Down Syndrome." Something less than compassion seems to be going on here. Partly we're laughing with them. Partly, at them. Lastly, one of her most famous photographs, "Identical Twins". The image has an inexplicable darkness. Maybe it's the girls' expressions, which offer up the gamut of human emotion.

I found a fascinating piece in The Washington Post that features interviews with several of Arbus's subjects. Here's an excerpt:

The great recurring theme of Arbus's work is a sense of otherness, and if you talk to a few of her subjects you realize that in some cases she discovered that otherness in people and then committed it to film, and in other cases she somehow imposed it.

If she was "nice" or "sweet," it certainly didn't come out in her work. The twin girls are profiled in the article, and one of the most revealing comments comes from their father:

We thought it was the worst likeness of the twins we'd ever seen.... I mean it resembles them. But we've always been baffled that she made them look ghostly. None of the other pictures we have of them looks anything like this.

So then, it's the age-old question, Do we require our artists to be kind, likable people? Particularly our women artists? Is a little blackness okay in the essay or the photograph, but not in the artist herself? Does the bitch inside contribute to the depth of the art?

you may as well knit

I won't even tire anyone by saying again how much I love Anne Lamott's work. Her essays are filled with so much fallibility, triumph, and, my favorite thing and hers, grace.

My friend D sent me a lovely set of books for my birthday last year. Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to reading things, but I do. I've happily thumbed Making a Living in Crafts, which is very inspiring, and laughed my way through Mr. Wrong. I saved Grace (Eventually), Lamott's book (I'm just going to call her Anne; she's my friend), knowing that I would pick it up at a time I most needed it.

Since my car is dead, I took the bus to work yesterday. Truly, I should do this all the time. I have a 4-minute walk to the bus stop from my apartment. After a 15 to 20-minute bus ride, I'm deposited smack in the middle of the sidewalk in front of my job. Yes, here in LA fruitcakes are prone to riding the bus. And yes, our city buses can be challenging to the olfactory glands. But both can be weathered with a good book, a mean look, and enough collar to pull up and cover the nostrils. My trouble is that I can be all gung ho about riding to work, but after work, I want to get my ass home on the fastest thing smokin'.

Anyhow, today I had Anne, to and fro, and I deeply enjoyed the company. Here is a line:

I knew that if you had the eyes to see, there was beauty everywhere, even when nature was barren or sloppy, and not just when God had tarted things up for the spring.

I read this on my way to work, in the book's prelude. I appreciated it, but didn't make any specific connection to it until later in the day, when I attended (Insert Career College Name Here)'s first Stitch-Along. Why I allow myself to be talked into these things, I'll never know. What this means is that Terry, once merely my co-worker, now my friend (after an 8-hour unofficial office Christmas party drink-a-palooza, who wouldn't be?), felt that since a few of us are crafty, she should learn to be crafty too, and she should take everyone in the office who is willing to come along with her. Suckers included me, my boss, who does counted cross stitch -- which to me looks like blindness waiting to happen -- and our receptionist, who wanted to learn how to knit in the round. (Our financial aid officer came in for a moment, too. She looked at my boss's project and said it was something she might want to learn. After watching my boss work with such fine material, she stood up, and said, Fuck that. I'll just buy it from you when you're done. Then she left.)

You already have eyes to see that this amounted to a teaching session for me. I pulled out my baby kimono project, but only for the purpose of demonstration.

I don't mean to sound like I minded. The more I teach, the more I realize I like it, as much as I can like anything that's not sewing, knitting, reading a book, eating, or maybe writing. I knew going in what my job was, and I was ready to do it.

It's nice work, teaching someone to create something. It's also nice to witness someone pick up something that brought her past joy and find the gift in it again. My boss hadn't worked her cross stitch project in nearly four years, since she started at our school (which should tell you something). In the interim, the fabric had yellowed, the hoop had rusted, and she had grown rusty, too. But somewhere in that sacred space that's opened when a group of people -- women, I could say, because that speaks to my experience -- gather in the name of handwork, she got her rhythm back. Her job is a highly stressful one, and hearing her say she might work on her piece (peace!) this weekend made me happy for her.

Our receptionist, too, has new zeal and bigger plans for her knitting. I showed her that knitting in the round is one of those things that looks hard to execute, but is really so easy it's almost criminal.

And so success, success all around. Except, perhaps, for Terry.

Not only our Terry, but all the Terrys of the world. Even those who don't carry the name, but who carry the doubt. The Doubting Terrys. And all the Carlas, too. Those who enter with the highest hope for conversion; those who believe, against all odds, including those they would place themselves, that everyone can find salvation in handwork.

Even while she was erecting neat little stitch after neat little stitch, Terry wasn't convinced she was getting it right. Even when I told her she was not only getting it right, but doing it much more quickly and efficiently than I did the first time I tried, she still wasn't convinced. She wasn't so sure that, in the end, it would be worth the effort. I don't get it, she said. I don't get why I shouldn't just walk into Ross and buy a scarf or a sweater or whatever I want. Why would I put time into doing this?

Oh, boy.

Because this, my friend, is where it's at.

It's relaxing, we told her. I do yoga for relaxation, she said.

It helps make the spare hours more productive, we chirped. I never have any spare hours, she said.

If this isn't your thing, we'll find you something, I promised. Next month, I'll show you crochet.

Terry's first project went from a washcloth to a book mark, which she isn't too far from finishing. I doubt she'll ever pick up the needles you see below, the ones I gave her for her birthday last year, again. I've got no beef with that.

For me the hard part is that we push so ruthlessly for perfection, and place so much value on finishing up, moving on, plowing ahead, getting the glory, that we fail to see the beauty in the barren and the sloppy. Terry isn't the only one. There's a Doubting Terry in all of us.

I've lived long enough to know this, and to have slain this dragon more than once, but still, it pierces me. I want to say:

You are not going to walk into Ross and buy this thing that you are making because the ability to do that is a fool's paradise. You do it, then you rush off to what that is so much more worthy of your time and attention than creating something with your own two hands? You will save this time for what? Are you off to heal lepers? Feed babies with distended bellies? Find a cheap cure for cancer? Here is news: all these things, yes, even these, involve the work of the hands. And you are not going to do any of them. So you may just as well knit. Or count tiny squares and pull thread through, into resplendence. You may as well make something lopsided, in a shitty color, and that only you can love.

Where else, but in the work of our hands, can we go back and undo our mistakes? Where else can all of us, regardless of our superficial bindings, love a thing enough to keep molding it, shaping it into what we hope best for it? And, when it is done, see the imperfections that remain, and love those too?

It is, I think, a flattering acknowledgment of the beauty that lies everywhere.

from the ridiculous to the sublime, sort of

What the hell was I talking about yesterday? (Beats me.)

I think I was trying convey how delusional I am for comparing myself to people who have same habits that I do and deeming myself behaviorally superior. I certainly didn't mean to imply that there's anything wrong with Ravelry's awards ceremony, yarn stashing, etc. Anyways. You win some and you lose some when seeking to communicate the deeper meaning of things.

Moving right along.

THIS WEEK'S SIN LOG:

Do you know how hard it is not to speak ill of people?

Listen, I know the trick to it. It's to change the way you think about people, then you won't have to worry about what comes out of your mouth.

For me, that's an even more daunting goal. In putting the cart before the horse and watching my words, I'm trying to bully my thinking into following. When a friend needed support on a painful and difficult matter this week, I said I wouldn't speak ill of the person who was causing her pain. She said to me, and rightly so, "You can have an opinion. You don't have to speak ill, but you can have an opinion."

Trouble is, my opinion is that other people are el primero a-holes, losers and pricks, fucktards, etc -- when they aren't doing what I think is right for them to be doing. That was my opinion of the person who'd hurt my friend's feelings, if only in this case.

How to change that, how to be more compassionate and less judgmental, how to have my opinion be that people are still swell and worthy when I feel they are behaving out of turn, I don't know. I do know that it's a necessary pursuit.

While I figure it out, which could take years, I'll just work on zipping my lips.

Sin of the Week

When sitting in my boss's office, going over the fine points of training my replacement, I spoke of him as though he was a child and I was his wise, all-knowing, state-appointed guardian. I actually said to my boss that I would keep a sharp eye on him, because he needs me. I sounded like I was talking about someone who couldn't lift a spoon to his own soup coolers. The picture of pomposity, I was. I realized exactly how pompous when he walked right by the office and it dawned on me that he'd probably heard everything I'd said.

Alright. Let's get this party started up in here. The Natster and I have made a pledge to use the massive amounts of stuff we've accumulated to fire it up this year. You saw my cast sock cum hot water bottle (or, as my Big Mama would say, douche bag) cozy. You know I'm knitting on some baby kimonos right now. But did you know it was going down like this? (Cue Rick James's "Mary Jane.")

Patterns:
Hat -- Nottingham by Melisssa Mall
Mittens -- Basic Cuff-Up Mittens by Patti Pierce
Scarf -- My own genius. I've discovered something new and want to share it with everyone: 2x2 ribbing! Yes. Plus a slip stitch border. Top that.

Yarn:
Mission Falls 1824 Wool in Basil (green) and Macaw (teal). Thumbs down on this yarn. It splits too much for my taste.

Rationale:
My co-worker commissioned me to knit a set for his 3-year-old son, Patrick. The hat was tedious, but fun. The scarf dragged a little. I did not love knitting those mittens, but oh well.

Shout out to my peep, Heather: Hi, Heather! To answer your question about embroidery, I learned on my own and still have a lot more to discover. You can certainly do the same, believe me. For me, the key lies in diagrams. I don't stop until I find books, websites, etc, that have diagrams that make sense to me. Two that work are Mary Corbet's Needle 'n Thread video tutorials (free), and the perennial favorite, Sublime Stitching. I also like Mary Thomas's Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches. The diagrams don't compute in my brain so much, but they sure are dang purdy. If you'd like to chat more about embroidery, feel free to e-mail me. Have fun!

That's it. I'm going to bed. Did I mention I haven't slept in two nights? No wonder I'm posting so much.

on the piling of things

Gluttony is on my mind because it's the time of year when most of us find ourselves feeling obligated to reduce our stuff, or, at least, to halt the acquisition of more stuff.

While hanging out over on The Rav, I was looking at other people's belongings. Ravelry is great for that. It's quite possibly more voyeuristic than blogs. You can go there and stare and stare at people's yarn, their patterns, the things they've made, their dreams and aspirations in the form of things they want to make, the things they own, the things they're trying to own, the things they no longer wish to own ... all in one tidy place. It's a nosy person's paradise.

And it's any person's fascination, because even if not nosy, we are all driven by that great human need that only Jesus, the Buddha, and possibly the Dalai Lama have managed to put in check -- the need to endlessly compare ourselves to every other person we come into contact with. The more enlightened among us don't do this consciously. It's insidious, is what it is. You can be feeling fine about your weight, happy and gay about the 3 pounds you lost from skipping lunch four days in a row, and wham, some skinnier person saunters by and you're Henrietta Hippo all over again. My favorite line from As Good As It Gets, one of my favorite movies, is when Jack Nicholson says that it's not that you had a miserable childhood that gets you, it's knowing that somebody else had it good.

It's the roller coaster ride from hell. Compare yourself to someone dumber than you and you're a Rhodes Scholar. Compare yourself to someone smarter, you're borderline retarded. (This changes not only person to person, but based on whether you perceive someone's latest comment as smart or stupid.) Up and down, up and down, all day long.

You just never know which way the wind is going to blow.

There is a little awards ceremony going on in the forums on Ravelry. You can nominate someone for having a big yarn stash. One person has so much yarn it's spilling out of a room. Another has some 600 different kinds of yarn (some in multiple skeins) cataloged. Hey, man. It's no skin off my nose. The people want yarn? The people should have yarn. But someplace not too deep and not down low enough inside, I'm comparing myself and thinking, Okay, so I'm not that out of control. I walk away believing my "normalcy" has been restored, which means I can stay open to buying up more yarn (or books, or fabric ...), even the midst of being swept up in the seasonal push toward purging.

In the books group, someone asked how many knitting books everyone owns. Numbers ranged from the teens to more than 300. Personally, I own about 30, and about that many sewing books, though I haven't counted. What I found most interesting about the book question is how many people read other people's numbers and said, "Now I feel better. At least I don't have that many." Or, "I feel bad; I need to catch up."

The other night I was trying to place myself somewhere. I thought back to a couple of weeks ago, when I gathered all my sewing patterns and placed them in a big shoe box. All of them could fit, which led me to think about the thousands of patterns my aunt, who's been sewing since my father bought her her first sewing machine when she was a teenager, owns. When you enter her house, you're practically conked on the head by falling patterns and tumbling fabric. I have a ways to go to get to that, I told myself, and of course I'll stop before I do, because that's just crazy. A few days later I ordered 10 more patterns, thinking, It's not a house, it's just a shoe box and there's still room in it.

All that said, I continue to look for ways to cap the madness feel in control, and now I am considering reinstating a monthly budget. yaiAnn, over at yaiAnn.com, did a post a couple of days ago that furthered my thinking about my own expectations and motivations when I purchase materials. The word "unrealistic" is an understatement when applied to all the things I see myself making, and there are times, too, when, apparently, I want the accoutrements, the trappings, more than I want the things to be made from them. That has a piggish ring, depending on who's listening.

when it comes to yarn and fabric...

gluttony is relative.

bless me father for i have sinned

Last year's resolutions, made right here on the blog, were mostly craft related, and mostly fell by the wayside. I know it's only right to take responsibility for one's own actions, but I blame Black Sheep Knittery. Not to kick it when it's down -- it's now closed -- but it was that damn sale that derailed me. I mean, for real, how many sales have you seen that go on for 3 months? They kept pulling more and more fabulousness out of some mysterious warehouse and prices kept falling. In the end, they were practically giving things away. Practically. After about 10 trips and 2 parking tickets, one of which I kept forgetting to pay for months (the City of Los Angeles just loooves that), I'll bet I separated myself from a thousand bucks. That sale was like the first leak in a rusty radiator. Once it sprang, other holes followed. Sick from the whole cloying affair, I hardly bought any more yarn. But I did lose track of my fabric and pattern purchases, my late night Internet raids, my Japanese craft book orders. When one resolution goes to hell, others tend to follow. It wasn't long before the demise of Eye Candy Friday and Snap A Dozen Days. So well shit. I'd plain old like to do better with my resolutions this year.

Toward that end, I present Sappmama's Log of Sin, in which I keep track of how I'm doing with one of my most difficult resolutions, #2, the one in which I'm not supposed to talk about people. I figure monitoring my transgressions will help me curb them. Awareness, I am told, is everything. Pragmatism is really at work here. Eventually I'll get tired of counting how many times I gossiped about somebody and shut up.

Yesterday, my first day back at work and therefore my first day back out in the world, where opportunities to dog people abound, I only said one bad thing. It was about how stupid students are for not putting their names on their tests (I mean, come on, two in one class -- of adults?), but that's it. Whenever anyone else said something mean about some absent person, I may have smiled so as to appear sociable (so much of "sociable" is about issuing verbal smackdowns to people we claim to like), but I was quiet.

Today, however, was a different story.

TODAY'S SIN LOG:

• When my boss asked someone to make a snarky remark to a co-worker upon his return from an extended lunch break, the other person refused. And I volunteered. Upon hearing my snarky remark, the leisurely lunching co-worker noted that our boss had gone on one of her own infamous lunches. I heartily backed up his "And just where is she?" with a "And how long will she be gone?" (This is a double, and aptly demonstrates my wily and two-faced side.)
• I tailed the above remarks by adding that my co-worker could always choose to skip lunch altogether and just take naps at his desk, like our president.
  
• While talking about a recalcitrant student who'd soundly rejected me when I reached out to him last quarter, I declared the kid a stoner and an ass and did a doofless imitation of him using his stock refrain, "I don't know the answer. I'm kinda tired today." Then I said, "Tired? Fuuuck you!"
• While briefing John, my replacement, on a student whose attendance and attitude are, to put it nicely, lackadaisical, I astutely said, "I have never in my life seen anyone so persistent about making a consistently poor effort at doing something."
• I called Amy Winehouse crazy.
• When someone honked at us when Bubs pulled over so I could hobble out of the car, I yelled, "Good for you! You've got a fucking horn! Fucktard!" (This one might have been excusable, had it not been for the fucktard part.)
  

Tomorrow I will stop this backsliding. I will speak ill of no one. I will call no one crazy or a fucktard; I will not agree with others that anyone else is a crazy fucktard. This should be simple. Seeing as I'll be alone most of the day.

and then i heard a crack

That's my leg there. It is encased in an air boot, the CAM Walker II to be specific. It's not quite ready for action with the boot alone; so, it is assisted by crutches.

I've been a drunken fool on a few occasions. December 21st was one of them. I was drinking from the bad place -- you know, drowning the sorrows that nip at the edge of contentment -- and drinking too much, but having a good time. Getting up to dance (on a concrete dance floor) seemed like a fine idea. The music was either fast, slow, or something in between. That's how little recollection I have. I recall dancing, laughing, hanging on to The Bubba, hitting the concrete: head, then ankle. The rest is like a scene from childhood. It's impossible to know how much I really remember or how much I think I remember because I was told. My memory kicks in at the moment of lying on the floor at the foot of my bed with a towel on my head and a bag of frozen string beans on my ankle. Two days later, when the ankle was still swollen and walking produced a popping sound inside my head and the sensation that my foot was no longer connected to my body, Bubs drove me to the emergency room.

Turns out I'd broken my fibula.

Anatomy is one of those subjects I think I know enough about because I studied it in 8th grade. Fibula? Tibula? Oh, tibia. Okay. I broke my fibula, which is the calf bone and smaller than the tibia, which is the shin bone. This means I am in luck, because the tibia is the weight-bearing bone while the fibula is important but cute, kind of like a girl riding on the back of a motorcycle.

All those truisms you hear and go around absently repeating: Things could always be worse. Yes, they could. For having broken my leg my situation looks worse than it was when I only had the troubles I was trying to drink away. But my spirit, my spirit is higher. Because things could always be worse. I don't have to wear a hard cast. I don't have to sleep in the CAM Walker if I don't want to. I can submerge my entire person in water. I don't have to -- heaven forfend -- have surgery.

A few months ago I sassily quit my job. I helped find and interview and hire my replacement. I offered to stick around to train him for January, "But NOT February," I announced, because I was going to be off to more important and worthy-of-a-great-talent-like-me places. Welp. Even though my replacement started today I am being allowed to stick around as long as I need to. I humbly offered to make myself useful and teach online classes and have been assigned to do so. This means money, health insurance, sanity.

Things, they could always be worse you know.

I'm one to look for the reason in things. When I don't find it, I figure I haven't looked hard enough. I don't know exactly why I broke my leg (in the marrow of spirit, not the marrow of bone, kind of way), but there are things I do see. I see how fast I was moving before. Certain people would read these words and laugh. To them, I might appear to be stuck. But the wheels inside they grind constantly. Though they grind heavy, they grind fast. I talk so fast. I worry so much. I rush, rush, rush to meet the expectations I imagine people have of me. I am living in a hard situation. People ask me when I am going to leave it. I say, Yesterday! Tomorrow! I'm walking out the door right now! Off I go! Eat my dust! Are you eating it? Because I am on the move! I say what I think will make sense. But I have no desire to catapult myself out into the cold. A warm situation is brewing for me. Warm and wonderful and home. It will unfold in time and sooner rather than later (I know this because I have a hand in it), and in the meantime, I am here. Now, with this busted bone, I am really here. I am forced to own that. I am forced to slow the grinding wheels and to accept and find comfort in where I am. This sits quite well with me, because I know that things could always be worse.

who knows where the time goes

Happy New Year!

I don't know about anybody else, but I am so excited that it's a Brand New Year. I'm particularly abuzz about 2008 because I am learning how to co-create the lifestyle I want for myself. I fully expect wondrous manifestations this year. '07 wasn't easy, but its challenges have gone a long way in teaching me where my life's blood comes from. It also showed me, when I really looked at it, that I am already standing so close to where I want to be.

I'm starting off this year in grand style, with a return here to my much loved but sometime neglected blog. I've missed this space. I don't think I fully realized how much until I read Adrienne's wonderful post yesterday. When I did, I wished I'd taken greater advantage of illustrating and documenting my own year. In that spirit, here I am. I'd like to be able to do my own "best of" at the end of this year. It's important to see this life from as many angles and as clearly as possible. Otherwise, who does know where the time goes?

I have some resolutions, mostly made up right here on the spot:

1) Hide less. Stop treating myself -- my words, my actions, my thoughts -- like I'm some dirty secret.

2) Speak well of others, or don't speak of others at all. If there is any MLL (Major Life Lesson) I learned in '07 it is that we are all doing the best we can. Sometimes another person's best just might suck eggs as far as I'm concerned. It's okay, because my best might look pretty shitty to someone else.

3) Make (more) things with wild(er) abandonment. Sometimes I'm a bit reluctant to express how much I love making things, except to people who love making things with equal fervor. I feel freaky, over-the-top, cr-AY-zay about my love of handwork (see resolution #1), and so what? Feelings are only feelings. What basis do they have in reality anyway? As long as I keep knitting and sewing and don't let the feelings override what I do, I'm living right.

4) Establish a spending plan. Stick to it. Pay off all my debt except my student loans by my birthday (May 16). I guess this could be called a hard resolution. Not hard as in difficult. Hard as in measurable in a tangible medium, like, say, my FICO score.

5) Love people regardless. I'll have more time for this if I'm not badmouthing them. (See resolution #2.)

6) At least one time a day, look up. Drop everything. Look up, look around. See.

Over the last few months when I've thought about posting, the one thing I kept wanting to post was this, my favorite FO of 2007:

I made it for Miss Gracie, who else, who believe it or not is now 1 and wears pigtails. It is no technical feat, but it sure is the sweetest thing. I am thinking of making one for myself, one to hang on the wall and look at. That's how much I love a little pinafore.

Maybe I'll make it sooner rather than later because I already know that 2008 is all about this kind of sweetness -- making it, living it, being grateful for it.

forget naomi. i've got your top model right here.

Just look at this sweet girly modeling her new outfit. How CAH-UTE is she? I'm beside myself. I'm thinking of her as Claudia Schiffer to my Karl Lagerfeld. Except I don't design like Lagerfeld. Or sew like him. Or draw like him. But with a model this adorable, my humble pattern sewing is just fine.

Oh, and now she has a sister. Andi and her hubby had a new baby girl two days ago. I think they've hatched a consipiracy to people the world with pretty folks. One day I will clothe those pretty folks in matching sister dresses, yes I will.

Andi and Brett, thank you for taking the time to send me these pictures in the midst of caring for a brand new person. xo

on april

on march

Early Monday evening I left the Musée du Louvre and made my way to the Metro to meet Michelle for dinner. I was certain of the direction back to the station and decided I could therefore vary the route a bit. As I walked along, I saw people sitting on a bank below the walkway, and a paved ramp leading down to where they were. The lure of the river, the Seine, was impossible to resist and I took the ramp, found a spot on a platform above the walkway, and sat a while watching the Parisians, the tour boats on the river, the ducks, and the age-old buildings surrounding it all.

Whenever I find myself in a distant and unanticipated place I think of my mother. She never left the United States, spent most of her adult life trying to wrangle Toledo into something more kind to her. I think of her and feel sad because she died a month after her 49th birthday and there was so much she never got a chance to see. When I mentioned this to Michelle as I stood underneath the Arc de Triomphe the day before, she told me (and I have heard many times) that I take my mother with me and, in that way, she gets to see what I see. I believe this and I don't. Perhaps something I need to reconcile.

Though I wrestle with what my mother's life was, I deeply appreciate how my life's fortune points my feet in directions I don't expect to walk. Sitting beside the Seine on a beautiful day in March filled me with a sense of excitement, a friendly expectancy about the days to come. And maybe a little, just a little, I felt my mother smiling for us both.

vision quest

By now a huge number of people have heard of the DVD The Secret, especially since Oprah's done not one but two shows on it. The first time I heard of it was when Schmin excitedly told me about it last summer. I didn't watch it then, but a couple months ago, Valecia generously gave me a copy, and I've watched it a few times since.

It's right up my alley. I'm a fool for anything that serves to remind us of the goodness of the Universe and the power of the mind. I like to joke that I tried living from a place of depression, fear, and limitation and if it had been any good, I would have stayed there. A joke, but not really a joke. It's Agape that helped me change my way of being in the world. Since I started attending in earnest a year and a half ago, my life has burst wide open. My external circumstances look the same, with the exception of my job. But let me tell you, inside, the only place where it counts, things are very different. And I know that things will only get better from here.

I can say this in the face of having lived through one of the most devastating life experiences I've ever had, which began this time last year. Even when I was in the depths of it, I could see the light, and it wasn't too far down the tunnel. I don't believe this thing would have destroyed me under any circumstances, but had I not begun the process of transforming my thinking, it would have taken me down harder and longer than it has.

To thoughtful, conscious offerings like The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know!?, I say yes and yes again. And I am proud of Agape's spiritual leader, Dr. Michael Beckwith, for his participation in The Secret and his recent appearances on Oprah. So proud that I am working hard not to complain about having to attend Sunday service at 6:30am in order to beat the throngs and get a seat.

So enough deep, meaningful talk about my spiritual path. Now for the fun stuff.

My friend Efuru, who introduced me to Agape several years ago, and I were having brunch and talking about The Secret Friday before last when she exclaimed, We should have a vision board party! I know divine inspiration when I hear it, so I immediately agreed. We worked out the particulars and yesterday we held our gathering.

OH. SO. FUN.

And moving. And personal. And open. And beautiful. And imaginative. And giving. And supportive. And inspiring. And humbling. And playful. And transformative. And, did I mention? Fun!

I invited Natalie and my other GFTK (great friend through knitting), Darcy, along with Valecia, Carol, and The Bubs. Efuru's hubby attended (I LOVE it when men get involved in these things), along with their close family friends, Dianne and Rita.

I'm all about collage and, if nothing else, the party was a chance to practically roll around naked in a pile of cut-outs, glue, and, thanks to Natalie, sparkles. On a deliciously superficial level I thought of it as a craft orgy, which for me, and I'll wager, many of you, would have been plenty fabulous enough.

But it was so much more than that.

a few of our boards

See what I mean?

It was such a lovely, lovely time. Before we got started, Natalie presented each of us with a set of Buddhist mala beads from India. On each one, she'd hung a tag with a different word written on it. We chose our beads -- seemingly -- at random, but it occurred to me that each one of us drew the perfect word. Mine was "Enthusiasm."

We talked about what we want for our lives, and I learned many surprising things about these good people I call friends. Carol wants to run a scholarship program in honor of her late sister, Natalie plans to build her yoga teaching by offering a class in the park, Darcy wants to expand her music career. Everyone knows I want to write full-time and teach creative writing at my own leisure, but I also want to design clothes and own a house in Barbados. We all want to go on Oprah. :)

Dreaming big is such a blast. As I listened to everyone talk about their heart's desires, I realized how rarely people, even close friends, sit down and share these kinds of intimacies. It's possible to spend time with a person everyday and never get to this place.

Armed with so much information about one another, we all found words and pictures to help each other build our boards. It was wonderful, then to top it off, Valecia held a drawing and gave away a set of CDs by Esther Hicks, who is a prominent presence in the first version of The Secret.

This time next year we will gather again. We'll bring our boards and see what has been made manifest.

A few of us carried the magic through to church this morning. Joined by Laurie, sometimes fondly referred to as Crazy Aunt Purl (Laurie, I'm throwing you a bone because I know no one reads your blog, ha ha), Bubs, Efuru, and I attended the crack of dawn service, all wearing our mala beads.

blue suede christmas

I've been holding off on posting because I've been in the doldrums. Several times I almost posted some serious waaa waaa waaa, but told myself to wait. Not that I minded crying here. It wouldn't have been the first time I've cried in public. I'm sure it wouldn't have been the last. The thing was, I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong, or, rather, on how to capture what it all felt like. This is a place where I like to be articulate. Even if I don't know what ails me, I need to be able to write about it with lucidity, to satisfy myself.

One day I was over at one of my favorite knitting blogs, Nik's Knits, enjoying an entry on a baby sweater she'd raced to complete in time for a shower. At one point, she described the disdain she felt upon walking into her apartment and seeing an "exploded view" of the sweater. She posted this link to illustrate what an exploded view is. I saw the picture and immediately thought, That's it, my whole life looks like that picture. Only take away the numbers that correspond to the diagram. And scramble it up some. Make it really blurry. There, you have it.

I started writing about this revelation and again a voice said Stop. So I didn't post, went on doing whatever it is I do.

The thing about shouldering on is that while you're at it, sometimes light creeps in through a side door and things start to make sense.

I think of myself as immune to the holidays. Especially now that Schmin's grown up and I don't have to run around town hunting down DuckTales, Transformers, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Bubba and I are pretty low key. I like to send out New Year's cards and some years I get to it, some years I don't. Holidays schmolidays.

But this year doesn't look like any other year. You know how you look around and wonder how you came to where you are? It's not that you reject this place, it's that you have a piercing memory of having been some other place and what you can't figure is how that time came to be over and why it's impossible to get back to.

What I'm saying is that I miss my mother. Her death is my greatest loss. What it's like to dwell in the space she left is ineffable. This is my 8th Christmas without her and it's particularly painful because damn this has been a hard year. It's been a year that's left me feeling abandoned and bereft, low right down to nothing, only to circle me back and make me know that people care, I am never truly alone, and that Somebody is hauling me up by the armpits.

This holiday season has proved to be a microexperience of the year's emotional landscape. One day up, one day waaaaaaay down. So far outside the boundaries of PMS that there's no scapegoat. Here, two days before Christmas, I've had a soft landing in a place of gratitude because, I will grudgingly admit, that which hasn't killed me has made me stronger. (Grudgingly because do we not want, just one time, our rescue fantasy to come true? Perhaps I should make a New Year's resolution to let this go.)

I have also landed on terra firma because I make things. And it is my great good fortune to be surrounded by other people who make things. From noise (see all entries containing the word "Schmin") to music to clothes to words on a page or a website. I think many people underestimate the power of The Make. I know I did, before I got down to brass tacks and started knitting and sewing. When you make things, opportunities for uplift abound. I present my case:

Even if you've never touched a shred of yarn in your life and don't ever plan to, how could this not appeal to you? All the warmth and color and play.

These paddy cakes came to be because of my good friend Ellen, whose generosity really provided me with a lot of light this weekend. Go on her blog and see what a tremendous talent she is (bask in the whimsy of the dolls she made for holiday cards). I'd bought myself a ball winder thinking I could make do without a swift (if anyone else ever wonders if this is possible, the answer is NO) and I mentioned to Ellen that I was planning to buy one. At our SnB holiday party Thursday night, she gifted me with one of hers.

I brought it home and got to winding up yarn I don't plan to knit for years. It's obscene how much fun it is to wind yarn this way. As opposed to my old system.

Ellen's swift is cantankerous and seasoned, and I love it. When she gave it to me, I got the feeling an Elvis fan would get if The King himself were to take off his blue suede shoes and hand them over. I prefer things that have history; it humbles and thrills me to think of all the incredible art I've seen Ellen make, much of which started on this swift. Now it's my turn to dance a little bit.

Like I often say, Sometimes God She Smiles on You.

Though my mother won't come around this year to cook our holiday meal, lie around with me and Schmin and Steven, be happy about whatever Christmas present we buy for her, no matter how big or small, it will be a two Schmin Christmas. My boy and I have plans, just the two of us. We're going to see Dreamgirls -- because we're not that jaded -- rent some DVDs, and scrounge for food, probably at Ralph's.

I hope no matter where you are or where you thought you would be, you have a very merry Christmas day.

blogging is the new ceramics

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest came out and suddenly it was okay to talk about the Nut House, and the nature of things that go on there. The landscape has changed, of course, and now most crazy people wander the streets of New York and Los Angeles, but there was a time, a very very long time, when losing your mind in America meant some well-meaning friend, relative, or state official would sign you into a facility for some shock treatment and strait jacket action. That doesn’t sound so nice, but the good part is that once they’d calmed your crazy, they’d set you loose on the rec room where you could sit around in a sweet sweet daze engaging in the craft of your choice. I can’t say why without doing some actual research, but the craft of choice for most certified people was ceramics. People worked themselves into a tranquil frenzy making those handy little mosaic plates to set hot pots on without burning the counter. They made ashtrays and vases -- things whimsical and utilitarian and having seen the handiwork of a few nutty folks myself I am qualified to say this, quite pretty too. And so it is no wonder that when I think of the Funny Farm, I eschew the dark vision of post brain-fucked Jack Nicholson in favor of the extra sitting in the background whipping up a nice lopsided candy dish.

This is the Age of Zoloft and I say it’s a damn shame. It’s a cold thing to be handed a slip of paper with a prescription scribbled in Latin and not also be given the warm comfort of time to sit in the sun and make stuff. Or, in my case, to make stuff and talk about it, which is why I come here and why, when I’m done, I go around other people’s blogs to see what they’re making out of yarn, and out of life.

I have yet to go down the pill road because I’m crazy enough to think I can handle my crazy on my own (if you knew half the things I’m up to these days, you’d know how crazy that is). Maybe the end will prove me wrong, but for now coming here and sharing the truth of my life feels like a better place to start. It ain’t ceramics, but it’s close.

So picture me sitting in the corner of a sunny room, wearing a bath robe and fuzzy slippers in the middle of the day, tinkering with tiny glass tiles as I offer this: The husband formerly known as The Bubba and I now find ourselves on new soil, I believe it’s called shaky ground. I am searching, searching, searching, for a different way of being in the world and I have already found myself going in circles, running up dead end streets, stumbling out into traffic. But whether I like it or not, and believe me when I say I don’t, this is what my life is, this is where I am, and I am grateful to have a space to hold it up to the light and not hide from it.

be careful what you walk for

Ah. Life. Yesterday I said to Natalie, You never know how the day is gonna turn out when you wake up in the morning, do you? Nope, she said back to me, It's pretty much a surprise.

Yesterday was the day that my car bit the dust. All this talk of walking the neighborhood. For the time being, I don't have much choice.

I went to a motivational seminar after church on Sunday. Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the endless and everywhere Chicken Soup for the Soul series, gave us listeners a little talk on how to manifest our financial desires. I went through my big self-help phase about ten years ago. That's the phase where you buy and read all these books, attend all the talks and seminars you can afford, subscribe to O-like magazines, and take in as little of it in as possible. Because what you are really addicted to is the seeking. Not the answers. I still, however, firmly believe self-help has its place. And because I didn't have any plans for Sunday after church and am looking to kick hermitude to the curb whenever appropiate, I went. The seminar was free and good. There were hints that we should sign up for some of Mark Victor's paid seminars so we could learn how to become One Minute Millionaires (the title of his new book) et cetera et cetera. But I am sharper than I was ten years ago and I know that if I just follow what he said on Sunday (mostly the kind of common sense that we all struggle to apply because it would make life just too darn simple and we'd be free to embrace the happiness we're not sure we deserve: return phone calls in a timely fashion, never think "I can't," honor your ideas by writing them down along with your goals, practice staying in the moment, join up with people who are doing the things you want to do. In other words, Hey, try taking yourself seriously) I can have all the money I want. Sunday's talk was chicken soup enough for me. Lately, in my own life, I have seen specific examples of many of the things he discussed. Like this:

What we think is meant for our harm is most often meant for our good.

How many times did I think of myself as "suffering through" a walk to The Grove? But now that it's a necessity, I'm already used to doing it. That's handy. And living here at Chez Hotspot, which I wasn't too sure about at first. The building might be hot but so's the neighborhood. I can sneaker pimp all this: Fairfax library, Pan Pacific Park, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Citibank, Washington Mutual, Office Depot, Staples, Ralphs, Rite Aid, Walgreens (don't go to the photo department. There's a surly kid there named Lacoste, yes, like Izod, who will screw up your photo disc and not be the least bit sorry), Koo Koo Roo, Kinko's, K-Mart, Ross, Smart and Final, The El Ray, The Grove, IHOP, Suss, 2 post offices, the LaBrea Tar Pits, Baha Fresh, the SAG office, LACMA, Mani's Bakery, 20/20 DVD, the Goodwill, and Clover Nail Salon. I could go on, but you get it. Everything's here.

And so I am grateful. If my car had broken down while I was living in Hollywood like a fatted calf, walking would've made me feel like I was indeed headed for the slaughter.

I haven't forgotten my promises of talk of WeHo SnB. Mama needs to be able to post links to some of the fabulous people she's met there, and she don't know how to do that. So Mama's good friend Summer is going to help Mama out. When you start seeing links and buttons on this page, you'll know it was Summer to the rescue.

for the good of all mankind

And so lately I've been thinking about service. I am not a religious person. Even though it's become fairly cliche to say this, my journey is one of Spirit. After hating Los Angeles for more than three years, I decided to instead open myself up and take advantage of the things that are available here. One of them is a wonderful church that traffics in Spirit, rather than the boundaries of a specific religion. I love this church, I really do.

But I am still me. There's no one else I'd rather be, but me can be appallingly self-centered and, let's face it, downright stingy with the me time. Everyone knows a part of any spiritual pursuit centers on the giving of self in the service of others. This is hard when you're a) a hermit, b) utterly preoccupied with the world inside your own head, c) one who measures time in terms of how many hours you'll get to spend at home, being hermity, and d) a person who hasn't fancied herself very reliable when it comes to showing up to do stuff in the flesh.

Right before I started attending church, in my chase for things to love about LA, I started attending Stitch 'n Bitch at the Farmer's Market. For me, this, too, is a spiritual experience because there are people to love and there is creativity to love and the wonder of yarn to admire. It forces me out of myself and into the world in a way that makes me feel so supported, and that allows me to support others. (If God isn't in that, I don't know where She is.) In the time that I've been attending, about 7 months, I've made some good friends. One of them, Natalie, has become my writing buddy -- meaning we meet a few times a week to nosh and kvetch and work on our individual writing projects.

Because church and SnB have been going so well (I'm actually managing regular attendance at both and if you know me, La Hermita, you know that's a big deal) I've started thinking, Hey, maybe I could show up for one more weekly commitment. Maybe I could go ahead and be a volunteer literacy tutor for the public library, like I've been thinking about for the past, oh, ten years. As someone who can solidly say that reading has saved me, time after time, it's a gift I'd like to help others receive. The thought of someone's ability to read hinging on my ability to wrestle myself out of solitary confinement is a little scary, I'll admit, but more and more I'm compelled to do something to contribute to the world.

Which brings me to this: How many ways do we all contribute that we don't count because they seem too easy?

I am NOT a phone person. But when a friend calls and needs to talk, I do.

Even though I'm not exactly clear on how to pray or what's appropriate to pray for, I pray for people when they're suffering, and when they're on a roll and I want them to stay there.

I am generous. I give things away and will take you out for a good meal on payday.

When I lived in New York, I gave countless dollars to strangers who asked for money.

Most of my knitting goes to other people. See the hat? Above? I knit that to donate to victims of Hurricane Katrina. This baby blanket, too:


When the whole debacle happened, I was moved beyond words. I was living in New York during September 11th, and Hurricane Katrina (and the Bush Administration's handling of it -- Hello? Condi? Could you possibly feed the need for rich Corinthian leather soles some other time?) brought on the same feeling of helplessness, of wanting to do something to bring comfort to people who found themselves firmly situated between a hard place and hell. This time, though, I could do more than just ride my bike down to Ground Zero, watch in horror as emergency vehicles revved to and away from the scene, and prisoners who'd been evacuated from nearby jails screamed from bus windows at rifle-wielding guards and passers-by. More than meet a middle-aged Jewish guy named Alan and go with him for Indian food and talk of revolt against the American government (mostly his talk, but a little mine, too). This time, I was armed with needles. I took them up, went to a shop called Edna Hart in Silverlake where kindly Edna was giving away cotton to knit stuff for Katrina babies, and made the items you see here.

And so I am not all bad.

The thing is to expand my vision of what service is. It is any time I do something for someone, whether I know them or not, when part of me would rather be laying on my bed, watching DVDs, reading knitting books, and eating bon bons. It is the little things as much as it is knitting for charity or digging up the rubble of September 11th. It is camaraderie and communion with a stranger over Indian food and under unthinkable world conditions. And I have a feeling that the more of these small things I consciously rack up, the easier and more necessary it will become to do the bigger ones, like leaving my comfort zone and showing up to help someone know the joy of the written word.

One day when I was whining about the tragedy in Darfur, Sudan, and how those poor people need me and what a loss I'm at over what to do for them and how burdened the responsibility to save them made me feel, a friend looked at me and said, You think it's about you saving them. But how do you know they wouldn't be the ones saving you? This is radical in its simplicity, no?