belatedly

I’ve been thinking a lot about knitting lately, trying to figure out what it would mean to create meaty prose about purling and dragging yarn over and over and over again. My sister-in-law Lisa has escorted me to the yarn harlot and knitting daily, and as much as I appreciate the former, the writing on neither really piques my interest.

And then there’s those blog readers -- those modest few -- who tell me that they skip my posts whenever I write about knitting.

In any case, I realized this morning, on a bumpy train to work (only 10 days left!), that the reason I’m interested in writing about knitting is because -- and perhaps for me alone -- it’s the stuff of muscle memory. Or rather, it’s somehow and quite literally often the fabric of my emotional landscape.

Like yesterday. On a perfectly balmy mother’s day afternoon, I meditatively continued on with a teal summer cardigan in Philadelphia’s under-appreciated Fitler Square. This sweater features the kind of lace knitting that I actually have to pay attention to or I’m apt to misinterpret a knit-two-together as a slip-slip knit. Yesterday, though, my mind was drifting off and I could -- for the first time in more than twenty five years -- recall my very first piece of knitting: a mustard yellow acrylic patch, one of those misshapen numbers that my mom told me was most definitely a doll’s blanket. Too bad I didn’t like dolls.

I recall neither the yarn passing through my fingers nor what became of this scrap, but I do remember showing it to my mom and sheepishly pointing out the mistakes. And this is where it gets at something I want to remember. My words are missing, but in some resonant way I recall blaming that acrylic for the skipped stitches, the little holes that surely meant a doll’s toes would catch cold. What I remember even more clearly was my mom telling me that it wasn’t the yarn that had erred. It was me.

I’m convinced that I remember this moment amidst all of the other fogginess of my life because of it was such an anomaly, a moment in which my mom actually called bullshit on my bullshit. I like this moment, then, because it’s one rare bit of critique amidst an otherwise hazy morass of adulation and encouragement. I want to believe that this moment made me a more careful knitter, that it implanted some shed of self-reflection, and for it I’m thankful.

a fine prospect

I’ve begun to write four posts in as many days. Each time, as I’m ready to finish one up, I get distracted or my plane lands or I decide sleep is better than blogger. I’m hoping to find the time and space to work on these hibernating posts more this week and, in turn, get this little blog hopping again. That may be wishful thinking. I have a feeling that chaos will ensue until I land permanently in Kentucky at the end of the month.

For now, though, I’m determined to post. J and I finally -- and hopefully conclusively -- decided on a house this past weekend. I made an unexpected trip back to Kentucky on Saturday to check out one lingering possibility, a lovely and rambling old place that in the end needed more work (and thus more money) than we thought we could muster over the next couple of years. So we decided on the little brick abode that we first turned up a few weeks ago.

It’s not without its problems, but this morning I woke up more convinced that we were making the right choice given the options that we have. I also woke up thinking about how polarizing this experience has been. Since I’ve known J, he’s extolled the virtues of renting. In fact, my first doubts about our relationship arose during one of his particularly vituperative monologues about the idiocy of home improvement. I was crestfallen. How could this otherwise brilliant, generous, caring, and creative man have such a blind spot?

He was, after all, calling foul on one of my core commitments. (Oh god, I can’t believe I just self-referentially used the expression “core commitments.”) He was, unknowingly, throwing stones at my imaginary glass house. I couldn’t take it.

I have, I’ve had, I’ll always have domestic desire.

You see, I was reared by a mother who was always crafting and recrafting her interiors, who was thinking about ways to make kitchen traffic flow or finding the perfect shade of butter for the living room walls. We always had stacks of interior design magazines and architectural books about small houses as our bedside table companions. I particularly remember a book from the 1980s about tree houses -- one of those old Sunset publications, I think -- that singlehandedly constructed arboreal retreats in my young mind.

Sadly, our recent house hunting was massively compressed. We had, essentially, one weekend to find a place in a land of generally abysmal architecture, in a state that’s given over -- hook, line, and sinker -- to the excesses of new construction. I had dreamed of a big bungalow on a rolling hillside with cultivated gardens, but not surprisingly, that wasn’t exactly available during the 48 hours we had. And so we’ve compromised.

We’ve taken the pretty good instead of waiting for the perfect. I like that we’ve made this compromise, mostly because I think it will help me to not over identify with my house. The yard is small, but carefully tended. The kitchen hasn’t been touched since the year of my birth, but is pleading for a facelift. The light doesn’t flood in, but there are these lovely, delicate wooden shutters on the inside of the windows that are ready to drink up a coat of brightening white paint. There’s enough to do, but not so much as to scare me from even starting.

Still, I've only half convinced my other half that this is a good decision. I see the worry in his eyes when we talk about replacing the furnace. I hear the tightness in his voice when he bemoans the lack of a disposal. But in the end, I think he'll come around to home ownership.

And it seems, in fact, like this little brick number might just be the perfect place to start.

peeping out of the woodwork

Oh man, it’s been awhile.

I’ve officially transitioned into the inured-to-the-present-living-in-the-future mode. This is neither good for the blog nor good for my soul. My teaching (finally finished today) has become stale. My projects at work need thoughtful conclusions. My mind is already in Kentucky.

The last couple weeks have been full of house hunting and offer making. J and I chose a sweet little brick number, but then in the last few days, we’ve been racked with indecision and may well end up in a more rambling tri-level from the 30s. We can’t decide. Either way, though, we’ll have a home soon, a place to nestle in and try out cohabitation for the first time in our relationship. It seems extraordinary that this two years of distance is finally -- finally! -- over. J gets to Philadelphia on the 17th and then we’ll pack up and drive west into the hills.

The real reason that I felt compelled to inch out of my silent shell was the arrival of this fantastic wedding treat:


It's a lovely tiled silhouette of me and Josh (mind you, it's a much more flattering silhouette of me than actually exists) with the Whitmanian "Camerado" from our vows underneath. I'm totally smitten with it. It comes from the wildly talented hands of my high-school-roommate-turned-art-teacher Maggie. I'm loving the fact that soon we'll have an actual real house in which to hang it. I think that she should start up a little side business...

Okay, I'm headed back into the shell now. Perhaps I'll come out again soon, especially if we survive an actual home purchase. No matter where we end up, we have lots of home improvement in our future.

{This Moment}

headed to Kentucky this morning with the newly-blocked, quickly-finished Ishbel in tow. Balm for airline travel = lacy madelinetosh shawl. Bring on delays, the pat-downs, the misery. Happy weekending.

still looking

Finding bits of beauty on my way out of this city. Kentucky-bound this weekend to find a place that feels like home.

tick tock

It can’t possibly be true. There’s no way that I’m really 35 today. It must be some kind of mix up, some cruel calendrical confusion.

Last night I was talking to a novelist who, reflecting on his career, offhandedly noted, “life is long.” It instantly reminded me an ex-boyfriend who, reflecting on our years of mutual torment, used to coax me back into romantic revery by saying the same thing. At 25 it seemed true enough. At 35 it feels patently false. Those ten years, for instance, well, they’re gone. And save for a dozen new wrinkles, I have little account of them.

A dissertation? A PhD? Somehow they don't add up to a decade.

When I told the novelist that life felt anything but long, he said that having his two-year daughter changed his account of time. It reminded me that when you’re a child, each day and each year feels a like a century. Having a baby, he said, was like resetting your own internal clock back to a child’s time. I hope that’s true.

My celebrations today are modest. I bought a cheese danish that I’ve been thinking about since January. Each morning when I buy a desiccated, painfully healthy, whole grain roll, I longingly admire the cheese danish. In early February, I decided that I’d splurge on my birthday. And so it began: 3 months of cheese danish imaginings.



I think it might be perverse to dream about a danish for three months. It might be the sign of instability. Or it might just be a way to pass the days. Because that's what it feels like I'm doing here, at the end of this post-doc, passing the days, waiting to move on, to leave behind, to start again.

Mid-life is just time to do that.

a day, a year, a life

O happy day.

This might just be your hardest fought birthday yet. But I’d hardly call you an old man. As I awoke this morning, I tried to imagine you gathering your gear for an end-of-season Vasa visit. I thought about how it must feel to strap boot to ski and enter the soon greening woods. I tried to feel the snow glide beneath my own feet as I saw the solemn Michigan skies above.

I couldn’t begin to feel what it must be wonder if this ski and the next might be the last, the last of the season, but surely not the last of a life. The snow will return before long.

I realized recently that I’m old enough now -- the wrinkles can attest -- to remember your life at my age. And as I flipped through ancient imagines this morning, I tried to see me in you. My form, though, seems to be my mother's, even as my mind often resembles your own. I see your peace on the water, and peeping out, I too float amongst the lulling waves.



I can just barely recall this day in Washington, at the National Zoo, when I saw a monkey for the first time. You must have been just a year or two older than I am today, with three kids already and a whole lot of life in front of you.



[I also realized that I've married a man who now strives to capture the very style you seem to have perfected in 1982. But that's another story altogether.]

For now it's celebration and good cheer.

a long time coming

I've been meaning to get to this project for a long time. My friend Maura has been making these -- and at one point selling them as well -- for years. Recently, I found myself in an art supply store, with a coupon in hand, and about five baby showers on the horizon (ahh, the joys of being in my 30s). I wanted a project that was less time-consuming than a sweater or a quilt, something I could whip up in no time and maybe include with an old-fashioned, store-bought present. This is the first attempt, for a baby who burst onto the scene a bit ahead of schedule. I think it needs a companion with a "gets the..." and a picture of a worm.

I intended this to have just one bird, but I accidentally dribbled paint on the side and so had to add the second purple winged thing. I'm not sure what I think, but I do have many other designs in mind, any number of which depend upon a convincing rendition of Abe Lincoln's mug.

galatic

It's Emily Dickinson this week. That always means a lot of furrowed brows, a lot of tentative glances, a lot of shots in the dark. It seems only fair to deal with Dickinson with a belly full of chocolate goodness. And this chocolate goodness isn't half bad.

I give you the "Asteroid" (source: an email from an email passed along from another email with a scan of an old recipe)

1 cup brown rice syrup
1 cup almond or peanut butter
1 cup malt-sweetened non-dairy chocolate chips (or just regular old chocolate chips)
3 cups crispy brown rice cereal

In a large sauce pan, heat rice syrup and peanut butter until creamy. Stir in chocolate chips until melted. Remove from heat and stir in brown rice cereal until well-incorporated. Let cool a bit. Shape into balls. Let cool on wax paper. Makes 1.5 dozen balls.

They're out of this world and low on the glycemic index. Yes, I am teaching Dickinson and combatting obesity all in one fell swoop.