Purling Antonia: 2008

Friday, August 29, 2008

100 Bears for Africa

Twins Antonia and Zuleika surrounded by the DNA of Bear Life

I finished knitting 100 Bears for Africa on Sunday, August 24, 2008, exactly six months after I had begun on Sunday, February 24, 2008. This week I tagged them, photographed the last ones, and tried to figure out how best to send them to the Super-Mother-Bear in Minneapolis. I am promised some boxes and hope to get the whole shipment ready by Tuesday, September 2.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to blog in recent weeks; I was plagued by problems with my Internet connection; then family related matters and and health considerations took priority. But.....I didn't give up knitting and eventually I will write a few more Bear stories and make a few more comments about the last six months.

I'm not done with knitting Bears for the Mother Bear Project. I cloned Bear 100 and will keep number 101 as reminder that good ideas don't end when we reach a particular goal. Good ideas are timeless and much more needs to be done for the children in Africa.

So, in the midst of little pieces of yarn that I have declared to be the DNA of Bear life as we know it, I have finally produced a copy. Like a pair of socks- two matching Bears. Which brings me back to the beginning of the year when socks were my concern. I think I'm ready for another pair now. While I will continue to knit Bears, I will no longer follow a rigorous daily schedule, but will add in a few other items, catch up on my reading, my sleep, and my walks in the park.

Thanks to everybody who contributed to my Bear fund - my family, my friends, my fellow memoir writers - I couldn't have done it without you. And to all the other Mother Bears out there; thanks for your support, your kind words, and your continued efforts to bring smiles to the faces of the children in Africa.

Love and Peace,

Gisela

Bears Eighty-Nine To One Hundred

Bear 89

Bear 90

Bear 91

Bear 92

Bear 93

Bear 94

Bear 95

Bear 96

Bear 97

Bear 98

Bear 99

Bear 100

Monday, July 21, 2008

Delightful

I Am Bear Number Eighty-Eight. Delighted To Make Your Acquaintance.

The map had crumpled under Nelson’s daily touch, its pristine edges bent and smudged into comfortable guides to Baobabs and overnight resting places and the occasional village. In the month since their arrival in South Africa he had fingered it the way a small child fingers a blanket, at first excited by its revelations, later calmed by its consistency, and finally reassured by its mere existence.

Though Nelson trusted his map, he trusted the deepening of his own understanding even more. The map was, after all, just a piece of paper, a tool that aided his thoughts along their journey. Comprehending the laws of the land filtered his memories into lessons of success and failure, emphasized by scribbled notations in a tattered journal.

Nelson was a good friend and by all accounts a reasonable leader. As they traveled from place to place, he insisted that his companions learn all that nature had to offer. While they had seen many Baobabs, they had not found one they could all live in, but still Nelson pointed to each tree’s usefulness and beauty and always he remembered his mother’s request that he make a wish when he walked up to a new Baobab.

Everybody admired Nelson for his eagerness to learn. But when he laughed at his own ignorance, they liked him best.

“I feel like a dope;” he declared one day, “I am too young to count on experience and too old to count on advice. I have to adjust my approach at every corner. How am I supposed to delight a child if I know so little about its sorrow?”

This happened after they had spent the night near a camp for orphaned children. They weren’t ready to be friends yet, Nelson had said. They knew too little about comforting children who had lost their parents. While they gathered their belongings and piled them back on the shopping cart, one of the Bear girls, number fifty-five, asked Nelson for pencil and paper. She drew a circle of children dancing around a tree. It wasn’t a great work of art, but it made you pay attention and filled your head with happy thoughts.

“What made you do that?” Nelson wanted to know.

“Sheer delight!” she giggled, then added in a rather adult, lecturing voice, “Sorrow can sometimes be persuaded to step aside for a while.”

She watched Nelson frown. He always had to analyze everything.

“It’s a Bear thing, Silly,” she told him. “We are full of delight.”

“If it’s so easy, why are the others in Bear School right now?”

“Practice,” came the voice from behind a wall at the end of the playground. “Delight can be made better by practice.”

Nelson walked toward the wall. “Where are you? Who are you?”

“You ask too many questions. But I am delighted to make your acquaintance.” The Bear stepped out from her hiding place and curtsied in mock deference to the frowning Nelson. “I am Bear number eighty-eight. My friends and I skipped school today to chase after ….“

The last part of her sentence drowned in the spirited chatter of a gaggle of children running toward the playground. Some sat down at benches to eat lunch. Some tossed a ball between them. Some flung themselves into the faded and cracked plastic seats of a swing. A group of girls ran to the far corner where they joined hands and encircled the remains of a burnt out Baobab. They began to chant a familiar rhyme and soon they swirled around the tree trunk in a cloud of billowing skirts and happy voices.

One by one the Bears dropped what they were doing and came to the edge of the playground to watch the children. Number fifty-five and eighty-eight stood next to Nelson. As the dance became faster the two Bear girls smiled at each other, poked Nelson, and said in unison,

“Sheer Delight!”

Friday, July 18, 2008

Happy Birthday Mr. Mandela

Bears number eighty-six and eighty-seven

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

My Favorite Photo from the Inside Passage Cruise

Tyana J LittleString and the Inside Passage Experience

Tyana made sure I only ate healthy meals

Hubbard

Near Hubbard Glacier in Alaska

Here I am, waiting for the fog to clear

Hubbard the Bear (Number 85)

According to Royal Caribbean "Serenade of the Seas" information Hubbard Glacier is the longest, actively calving tidewater glacier in North America. It was shrouded in fog when I came as close as a large crusie ship allows, but we were surrounded by ice formations and I took my share of pictures while gazing into the water or the snow-capped mountain tops.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

From Zero to Ten in a Week

Bears Number eighty-one to eighty-four

It is always a bit difficult to pick up where one left off; this goes for everything from relationships, to dreams, to blogs. I could just pretend that nothing important happened since my last entry, but that would mean ignoring a major milestone.

So, here it is, the worldview from my computer desk aka knitting station aka http://purlingantonia.blogspot.com/: “I went from zero to ten in a week.” This is the sentence I repeated most often during the last three weeks. Let me explain: Listening to Tim Russert’s doctor on CNN on Monday, June 16, I wondered about the slight chest pains I’ve had recently. One during a two-mile walk with minor elevations. One while the fires were burning out of control in the mountains and it was hard to breathe outdoors. One on the way home from lunch and knitting in the park. As I pondered my situation the cable guy was crawling around under my house, installing another outlet and I found myself experiencing another one of those minor pains. When I got up I felt dizzy. I called the advice nurse at my medical facility. Long story short – medics sent the cable guy home; an ambulance took me to the hospital; I spent 24 hours being tested in emergency, was admitted, had angioplasty and a stent placed into my clogged right coronary artery, was released on Thursday and sent home with a bit of anxiety about the future. The following Monday I told my well-wishing friends that, “I went from zero to ten in a week.” I had, indeed, not taken any medication up ‘til then and was suddenly dependent on a bunch of pills twice a day. I also had to learn to keep nitro glycerin with me at all times.

I suffered a couple of anxiety attacks, probably due to my inexperience with personal medical uncertainties. On top of that I was unsure about the cruise to Alaska that was to begin ten days after angioplasty.

The cardiologist gave me great advice: “If you are the kind of person who wants to take care of the health issues close to home and the hospital, without interference from anything else, you should not go. If you are the kind of person who feels ‘it’s now or never’ then you should go.”

I went. It was the best antidote. Had I stayed home I would probably have touched my hand to my chest at every turn and would have read every minor hiccup as “symptom.” Besides, the air in Alaska was certainly better than in California. I had a wonderful time. Walked a little more every day. Ate cautiously; after all I have restrictions now - less fat, less salt. And I was around people; no fear of having a heart attack all by myself.

I even knitted. Not three Bears as planned. Only one. I named him Hubbard because he was begun while I cruised the Inside Passage toward Hubbard Glacier. During the last few days I have stuffed and sewn the ones I had planned to finish before the trip, numbers eighty-one to eighty-four, and have finished number eighty-five, Hubbard. I think I’m back in business. I am knitting number eighty-six, between walking, calorie counting, taking my blood pressure, and thanking Tim Russert’s doctor for putting the seeds of concern into my head.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

World Wide Knit In Public Day

Yes, I'm knitting on the train to San Francisco

Bear number eighty-three gets an arm

After the Frida Kahlo Exhibit I work on Bear eighty-four while waiting for lunch

Just a couple more rows and my spinach salad arrives

A quick rest between train and light rail and Bear eighty-four is two thirds done.

I didn't knit with others, but I knitted while others watched. Today was "Worldwide Knit in Public Day" and I could not be at a public knit event because I had planned to take the train to San Francisco to attend the opening day of an exhibit of one of my favorite painters, Frida Kahlo.

Of course I always knit on the train, but this time I wanted to document it and I asked a young lady to take a picture of me. She didn't ask what I was knitting, but I told her anyway. I finished the knitting of Bear eighty-three and began Bear eighty-four.

An older lady who didn't speak English kept watching me and I showed her the flyer about the Mother Bear Project. She smiled and nodded her head. I had a hard time untangling the yarn that was all in one bag on my lap. The seats filled up quickly. It seems that we have discovered public transportation because of high gas prices.

I bought a book at the museum store, my knitting bunched together in a see-through plastic bag. The young man who stood behind the cash register inquired what I was knitting. I was surprised but very happy that somebody took an interest and showed him the Mother Bear flyer. I told him that I am knitting 100 Bears for Africa. He praised me very kindly.

I knitted on the steps of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art while awaiting my 1 p.m. turn. The exhibit was on the fourth floor and I knitted about twenty rows while progressing from floor three to floor four.

Of course I did not knit while looking at the paintings and photographs. Frida Kahlo was a magical realist, a surrealist, a woman who knew much pain, somebody who needed to express herself with a paint brush to survive. I have read books about her and have seen the movie but nothing comes close to the feelings I had while standing in front of her colorful paintings, especially her self-portraits.

After I spent almost two hours (rotation was supposed to happen every half hour) exploring the exhibit I was ready for lunch. I knitted while I waited for my salad and I saw a few people staring but nobody asked any questions.

On the train home I finished the body and the third leg part of Bear eighty-four. A man who wanted his eleven-year old daughter to pay attention to what I was doing said to me, "you crochet real fast." I smiled, thanked him, and left it up to his daughter to correct him.

For the half hour between train and light rail I just sat and anticipated a quiet and uneventful evening. I had enough interaction for the day, especially since the only other person waiting was somebody who either had more than enough to drink or had some other problem that made him curse continuously and loudly into the air.

Seven minutes of light rail home only produced a few rows because I had run out of dark brown and couldn't finish the fourth leg part. I don't think there was much interest in public knitting anyway; most eyes were closed or gazed into the far distance.

Tomorrow will be a serious day of "putting things together." A lot of weaving in of yarn ends. A lot of sewing, stuffing, making ears and faces. All of it will happen away from the public eye.