A Knitting Day

Today about half, maybe more, of the Knitting Guild met in a classroom at the Botanical Garden for a day of knitting, chat, food, and fun. And I didn't take one photo.  Tsk.  But I did buy yarn! (what a surprise)  The Guild will have a Knit-along (KAL) starting after the holidays to knit a modular pillow together so one of the corporate sponsors who came to set up a little yarn display had the exact yarn required in the pattern.  I bought some.  (no surprise there)  Then I bought a skein of gray gradient yarn that came with a free shawl pattern.  I picked the yarn because the name of the colorway is "Dusty Miller" and my Grandma Angermeier used to plant that and I remember her telling me the name of it and explaining that the leaves reminded people of the floury hands of a miller.  Well, then I felt the need to buy some yarn from the third vendor (to be polite), so I got the skein of blue-green yarn that will become a sock--and something else with the leftovers.



We had a gift grab gift exchange.  The bento bag that I made with its few notions was a hit.  My gift was a tiny package with a package of labels, some stitch markers (which you can never have too many of), and a tiny book entitled Knitting for Dummies.  That last item made me laugh but it's got some good basic info in it.


I left a little early and came home to mow the lawn since it was a glorious day and they'd predicted rain.  I had planned to mow tomorrow but I stuck my head outside a few minutes ago to discover that it's raining now.  Not a lot but enough to wet the grass.  It's a good thing I mowed today.  If it's clear and dry tomorrow I can take out a tarp and clear the garden and pots of annuals that got killed by frost the other night.



This morning before I left a Bluejay came right up to the patio door and craned to see in.  I wasn't fast enough but managed to catch it before it flew away.  Aren't its feathers and markings beautiful?  I do like seeing them even if they are loudmouths and scare away more sedate birds.



I'm almost done with OJ's second mitten.  All that's left is to pick up the stitches and knit the thumb then both LC and OJ will have Meemaw-made mittens to start winter with.  I intend to pick up Mom's mantle and knit each of them at least one pair of wool mittens because wool keeps you warm even if it gets wet.  And as LC told me yesterday, she's a "child of winter" which means that she loves to ski, sled, snowshoe, and play outside in the snow.  I just love the way she talks.



19 October--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 

September

Dear Lydie,

Here I sit, on the porch, just like I was when I began this adventure, but with a glass of wine instead of tea.  I love the play of light and color across the sky.  Tonight, the sunset mirrors the autumn colors of the leaves.  The sound of bells from St. Joseph’s Catholic Church completes the scene.

The once-white porch railing is totally black, painted one strip at a time to mark both momentous and ordinary times.  I smile to remember the first mark and its accompanying note on the slat below, “Esther the chicken died.”  That’s a tame, almost silly note for the beginning of a life change.  That was the day I read about the first watercolor class I took at the craft store in Simpson, the first time in my whole long life I did something I really wanted to do.

I had no one to blame for that.  I was the one who caved in to the flood of opinion and never gave myself the space to just be me.  At times I curse our Germanic ancestors with their legacy of “should’s and “supposed to’s” that I let shape my life for so long.  And I also blame our soft French ancestors, those famous giver-uppers, for my tendency to just give in to stronger or louder voices.  But now that I’m on the positive, successful end of this life change, I see that I have no one to blame for my past but me.  I was the one who was too afraid to tell Bert I wanted to do something different with my life.  I was the one who let what everyone else thought dictate how I lived.  I was the one who kept moving and filling up my life with so much noise, so much interference, static from being a good girl and doing what everyone said, that I just plodded along looking like everyone said I should, doing what everyone else was doing.  I can’t believe it’s taken me so many years to be brave enough to live my life for myself.

Who knew that taking a little step, picking up a paintbrush just once, would free me in a way nothing else had done?  How did I get so strong that I was able to endure Clara and my boys’ being so resistant?

I have to say I think that I’ve been a good example for them.  Sam is much less insistent that he move home to take care of me now that I’m a successful artist with paintings in galleries all over the state.  Aaron and Sara have become my biggest cheerleaders, offering me a bed when I take a workshop in their area and not being too disappointed when I tell them I can only stay one night since the intensity of the class is important to preserve, so I’ll be staying somewhere else.  And Matt has always been the one who was on my side, joking about his hippie mother and teasing me about boyfriends.  All of them are proud of me.  All of them have taken something from my example and been brave enough to try something new.

Samara has been a big supporter since my very first watercolor class.  She’s the one who took me shopping and helped me look less like an old lady and more like myself.  She’s doing well in school and is coming into her own as an artist with a show coming in Madison during the holidays.

I think Clara’s changed most of all.  When I first started painting she complained that I’d find new friends and leave her in my dust, and for a while I did.  We struggled, me pulling toward change and her pushing me to stay the same.  We argued once, in the ladies’ room at Wal-Mart of all places, and pouted and cried, but eventually our friendship withstood the tests and we’re the same best friends, even better, that we always were.  Clara’s taken up writing poetry.  Can you believe it?  And she’s good, darned good.

And Abel.  Who’d have thought that bossy man would become so important in my life?  From the moment I met him I put him in a little box of my perception and it took a lot of persistence on his part to convince me that my first impression was wrong.  He has made my life much richer.  He pushed me to spread my wings and is very understanding of my need for privacy.  The local gossips are having a field day, wagging their tongues over the fact that Abel and I seem to have an “intimate” relationship and aren’t moving in together and certainly not getting married.  We’ve talked about it, well, he talked about it mostly, but I have managed to convince him that our dates are more fun, that our sex is livelier since we don’t live together and aren’t married.  Abel calls us “the butterfly woman and the renaissance man” because I have made such a change, come out of my “should” cocoon, and he feels like he’s grown too by being my friend.  And he can dance.

            I hear a car driving down the gravel lane and see headlights cutting through the night.  It must be Abel.  Good thing I brought out two wineglasses, just in case.

            Love, Gail

THE END

And that's the end of that.  Maybe I can find some other writing to put on here.  I'll try to remember to take photos tomorrow.  Cross my heart.
--Barbara