OK. I'm here. Really.
I've had a hard time posting lately, seeing that, oh yeah, what the hell can I say? The extent of my time lately has been knitting, knitting, knitting, knitting, and knitting. Mara, this is for your spine, and this is my favorite. Notice that my distraction is not limited to knitting; dyeing has been done as well. I hesitate to ramble on with the knitting because it feels shallow now, and I get a little anxious about flaunting it after realizing the potential emotions it may elicit from others (how can I best be considerate?). The madness is, in my opinion, forgivable, even if concerning. It keeps me busy, gives me time to meditate. Knitting has been swiftly, deeply associated with Maman. Some of it is knitting for her, her kids, with her yarn, with her advice, thoughts, memories, and all kinds of silly things (like losing an umteenth dpn in a don't leave home without it knitting book). So, I process. It may seem unusual to knit my feelings, but I feel better doing this than running them away (or running away from them) or studying them away (which is synonymous to studying away from them, too), which is what I would do otherwise. So, there, that's me, my time, for the past few weeks.
More madness has been sighted. Thursday night we were without power, which meant that I stayed up once it came on in the name of getting more than 40 minutes of studying for my Friday exam. The next morning, I woke up, went through my routine, ran for the bus (which is most certainly part of my routine), and had only standing room left for me (also part of the routine). The bus driver is an evangelist, I recognize him, and he has the local Christian radio station playing (yes, you know, routine). Inevitably, a song comes on that I recognize and it's something like "you are my all in all." It's Christian rock. The lyrics are, let's say, for the sake of it, trite. The music is, hm, simple. The gist of it is, yes, country in flavor. It, by all of my standards, is intended solely for group worship purposes, and, in meeting those requirements, is bad music. So, I start crying. Because that's what you do, when you're (1) having a significant spiritual experience, and (2) having it because of bad music (I'm supposed to be deeply moved by DEEP music, Tschaik, or Mendelssohn, or Bach!!). [(3) having it on the Metro]. Here's a listen if you are into that sort of thing. I get off the bus, it's raining, I'm crying. I'm walking to class, and, just in case a good weepy morning won't destroy one's exam-taking-skills, I start to feel ill. No, I feel the muscles around my stomach gear up for a good, solid heave and I'm still 15 feet from the trash can. Greaaat. Luckily, I've found that I can avert the imminent crazed-hormones puking if I can cool myself off quickly and just keep breathing. So I drop my umbrella, coat, scarf, hat, and my sweater. And I wait. (No puking; did fairly well on the test, I think).
The moral of that story is that I don't do well on rollercoasters... I think.
There, those are my thoughts. I'm in the middle of a bachelorette weekend, thanks to Mendon's absence in the name of moving Andrew to Chicago. Thus, I'm getting little done, still in my pjs, and thinking that frozen pizza is a perfectly acceptable and healthy meal. And on my 4th cup of tea.
I sure do love you my Kristenpooh! My heart aches with you...my heart weeps with you and I laugh
with you over all the little wonderfulthingsaboutMamanandyouandherknittingthingsforcomfortandworth andusefulness. Not eating well and rushing to the bus the next morning can bring n nausea...
Kristen, I love your knitting. The tea cozy is SOOOO cute! And I can't wait to see what those beautiful yarns into for my 'spine' :-) And especially, do not worry about flaunting your amazing knitting skills. In telling you, I exorcised my demon, so I hope in writing this you have exorcised yours. I really do love seeing all of your work, and if you're knitting like mad, I want to see it! (How else can order one for myself from you?) :-)
I love you, Kristen. And I can't wait to see you guys!!!!!!!!!
I L-O-V-E the tea cozy. How cute! And the shrug looks wonderful. How does it look on? And you have made real progress on the purple. When do you have time to study and be a wife? You are truly amazing. It seems I just showed you how to knit, and you have taken off and surpassed me by miles. I, too, have knitting to blog about, but I don't want to because a certain daughter of mine (who is having a spine) might look at the pictures and I would prefer for her to see the real thing first.
Cindy went into The Attic yesterday and brought down my suitcase with the remnants of long ago knitting (as opposed to the front room, which has current knitting remnants), and I found the pattern for the sweater I made Nathan and everyone else wore. I loved that sweater, except it was made from horrible yarn -- Washable wool and nylon mix and terrible scratchy even after 15 year of constant use and washing. But still, I thought I might try one of the patterns in a softer yarn.
And don't cry for me. I'm fine. I may not be fine later, but I am fine now. Let's make more memories, so you won't miss me so much. Sorry about the whole rollercoaster thing. I wish I had some control over that. I don't do all that well with them either. But I guess that is where we are at the moment, so I guess we have to ride it out.
I love you all, too. So nice to have such warm and fuzzy comments.
Mara, I'm really glad to hear that the demon was destroyed. I wasn't sure the state of things regarding that issue and I didn't want to tromp all over your toes, especially if they were still sore. And, to be honest, the non-posting demon for me had little to do with knitting. I just get on these swings of no-postings and then have a hard time coming back to it.
Maman, I agree with you completely. But, recently, I've been forced out of my little hobbit-hole of denial (it was so nice in there, though!), and that means that I'm giving some time to processing all of what's been happening for the past year and to what's happening now. So I've done some crying (as I should!). Oh, and when it comes to the bus, sorry, but I wasn't really crying for you. I just realized in a very visceral, real way that I might be OK at trusting in God, but man was I failing at relying on Him when I needed to.