Summer Break

They said, “Remember this moment; it is an important moment in history!”

Congratulations, Senator Obama! I will indeed remember this moment. I cried a few tears of joy.

Your email of June 3, 2008, 7:04:36 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time informed me, in part, that, “This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past and bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face.”

I sat at my computer desk, surrounded by all the things I love: books, journals, yarn, cameras, photographs, maps, binders filled with research, dolls, bears, candles, flowers, printouts of emails, an unfinished book report, and a bar of chocolate that was divided into three parts. I was only going to eat part one. Over the course of the evening, in my excitement, I also inhaled parts two and three.

I was knitting Bear number seventy-five while I was listening to CNN and reading newly posted messages on the website of my online book club. It was quite late when I finished the Bear. I had to take his picture using flash. I didn’t have anything to say about him because I was preoccupied with other things all day.

And then I thought, I need a break. Summer months are busy; So many engagements, chores, tasks. I realized that I would have to disengage myself from my present eight to ten hour knitting time to attend to the other events in my life. Since February 24 I have not missed a single day of knitting, photographing, writing (at least a sentence or two). Now I want to spend a month catching up on gardening, researching Alaska for my upcoming cruise, walking the creek (instead of walking back and forth in my house while knitting) talking more to family and friends, attending the opening day of the Frida Kahlo exhibit in San Francisco, preparing questions for the “Wonders of our Water Works Tour,” and, in general, enjoying Bear knitting without worrying about finishing one a day or photographing or blogging.

Yes, I will continue to knit and to photograph, and, if I have something to say, will blog, but none of it will be daily until the second week in July, at which time I will report on my progress on a daily basis again. My calculations tell me that I will be finished with all one hundred Bears sometime in August and I will either have them shipped by my Mother Bear Project drop off LYS people, ship them myself, or deliver them personally to the Mother Bear Project in Minneapolis during the first week of September.

Thanks for the support you all have given me. I shall continue my daily communication on Monday, July 7th.

Gisela